October 9th, 2014, we were invited to visit Jolla office at Tampere. The openness was visible right from the front door, and the things we heard and saw confirmed this - Jolla values Open Source work, and their community, very high.

Open Source is visible at Tampere office







Sailor's mess at Tampere is not a messy place. It's the heart of design, including hardware, software and The Other Half. It's a boat full of passionate people.



What we learned with Josh from Carol, the community bunny of the boat, and Karoliina, responsible of the Tampere boat's everyday operations and part of MarComms, was more than I expected.





Carol (above, left) shared with us her thought on the open source. On scale 1-10 in openness, in her opinion Jolla currently stands between 4-5, but their common goal is as high as around 8. I suggested myself if this is even too much, compared to the most of the modern companies at around 2-3. She gave me a humble smile and a careful nod when I suggested if maybe 7 would be enough as a goal.



Karoliina (above, right) has been working for Jolla for four months now, she was one welcoming us in with fresh coffee and sharing Carol's opinion on the openness. Her work includes helping Carol in social media, and taking care of all the fellow Sailors in Tampere.



In overall, the interior is light and open. We even had discussion on the openess in general in the middle of the office - one of the employees overheard me saying "Android is Open Source" and immediately came to correct me - well, that was never actually said, but his attitude was just great!





Jolla's product - the smartphone - is getting regular updates. Part of the Sailfish OS coding takes place in Tampere office, another part in Helsinki, the headquarters of Jolla, but I got to know this about the next update, currently delayed:



Currently Jolla is working with 12th internal release candidate. A functional release is more important to Jolla than schedules, so please be patient







Both in the place, and within the unlike people working there, you can feel the spirit of Open Source when you walk into Jolla office at Tampere. Jolla's values: Respect, Love, Passion, Transparency are not just empty words there.Sailor's mess at Tampere is not a messy place. It's the heart of design, including hardware, software and The Other Half. It's a boat full of passionate people.What we learned with Josh from, the community bunny of the boat, and, responsible of the Tampere boat's everyday operations and part of MarComms, was more than I expected.Carol (above, left) shared with us her thought on the open source. On scale 1-10 in openness, in her opinion Jolla currently stands between 4-5, but their common goal is as high as around 8. I suggested myself if this is even too much, compared to the most of the modern companies at around 2-3. She gave me a humble smile and a careful nod when I suggested if maybe 7 would be enough as a goal.Karoliina (above, right) has been working for Jolla for four months now, she was one welcoming us in with fresh coffee and sharing Carol's opinion on the openness. Her work includes helping Carol in social media, and taking care of all the fellow Sailors in Tampere.In overall, the interior is light and open. We even had discussion on the openess in general in the middle of the office - one of the employees overheard me saying "Android is Open Source" and immediately came to correct me - well, that was never actually said, but his attitude was just great!Jolla's product - the smartphone - is getting regular updates. Part of the Sailfish OS coding takes place in Tampere office, another part in Helsinki, the headquarters of Jolla, but I got to know this about the next update, currently delayed:

Share and Shout! Your friends might read it. Carol is also taking care of the Asia community, she showed us a magazine from Taiwan with startup companies from Finland in the cover. Jolla is clearly visible, among with some other great Finnish inventions.(above) works in the hardware design corner, and he's responsible for the I2C documentation for 3rd party developers. I2C is one of the most important communication ports between Jolla and The Other Half smartcover. Jolla works together with the community, supporting 3rd parties in their builds. The alumide TOH's above takes advantage of the I2C port. It's dipTOH by FunkyOtherHalf ), currently laying on Carol's desk.I also met, passionate senior designer who's also writing a great blog worth checking out:He presented me his speaker build where two basic snow white TOH's are clued next to each other, one on the bottom equipped with stereo speaker set. My god it sounded great, especially when put against a wooden table.To everybody, Thanks for a great visit, you surprised us! Hope to see you again!Edit: Josh reminded me to add that most of the computers there runs on Open Source OS too. We only saw one windows machine there, rest being equipped with Linux Ubuntu. Just great!Simo & JoshEdit: Soon after my comment below, Jaakko shared this on Twitter :DShare and Shout! Your friends might read it. Published: October 10, 10:29 UTCUpdated: October 10, 17:41 UTCLater add for note: Article in Finnish