Re: Nominations for Council election Q4 2014
 

I have another question for the candidates:
What's your attitude towards the role of Council in the Maemo Community e.V.?

Discussion started here and a referendum is on the to do list for next Council term...

Re: Nominations for Council election Q4 2014
 

I am still undecided. This council was so overwhelmed with internal struggles.
I believed it was/is/will be necessary to have a council voted by the community by community to take care of Maemo and concerns/requests/tasks/questions from community (passive member) to e.V. member (regular member) and board.
But as there was not a single input/request from community to council. So these tasks (caring of Maemo, infra (techstaff), "householding", ...) could as well have been done by selected (not voted) e.V. members.
But in the end I think the council should exist and continue as is.

Re: Nominations for Council election Q4 2014
 

I use both fremantle and harmattan on a daily basis. I would say that I enjoy using my N900 more, since it is the more flexible device. The concept of "mobile computer that happens to include telephony" meshes very happily with how I use mobile technology.

That said, if I need to take an important business call, or am in any situation where reliable telephony is the priority, I will tend to use the N9. Granted, the quality of the N9's hardware is a big reason for this, but certainly harmattan's feel as an "OS designed with a mobile phone in mind" contributes to my preference for using the N9 in those situations.

On a side note, since the N9 users were a bit more dependent on the soon to be shut down Nokia store for applications, it seems worth discussing what we as a community can do in preparation (e.g., encourage developers to upload to open repos), or whether a community response is even necessary (e.g., it is up to the individual user to save his/her required .debs now before they go away), or something else.

Re: Nominations for Council election Q4 2014
 

The way I see it, which AFAIK is the way it's always been, is that the Council represents (i.e. is democratically elected by) the community. The latter being the users of maemo.org.

This representation involves acting on behalf of the community as a whole when something needs to be requested from the Maemo e.V., being the legal entity capable of actually entering into any contractual agreements on behalf of the community.

So Council does the politics/lobbying while Maemo e.V. does the (necessary) "bureaucracy".

Just for completeness I'd note that, in terms of "power", the council is below the users (because the users "own" the council), while the council is above the board (because the council tells the board what users want).

I think that does it. If I've gotten all seriously mixed up please somebody stand up and say it loud & clear! :)

Add. (2014-12-20): When I refer to "Maemo e.V." I refer to the active part of it (Board of directors). The "Council" refers to the one elected by the community (passive members of Maemo e.V., i.e. all of us). Whether the Council is part of the e.V. or external to it is, IMHO, irrelevant (except that the bylaws refer to a Council, so it needs to exist in some form recognized by the e.V.).

Also I still don't quite see the role of the General Assembly (active members of Maemo e.V.), which are a necessary legal aspect but have no clear role in how things are done here. The Board of directors execute both GA's [active members] and Council's [passive members] rulings, which may result in messy situations. But I cannot answer to this or solve this dilemma. If there was a way of having a fake/virtual GA I'd go for it.

Re: Nominations for Council election Q4 2014
 

Well, in a way Council and Board are both under the check of the Community, but they do not have power over each other :D
Rather, they are handling different tasks.

Council is the meeting point of the tasks that need to be done to keep the Community running smoothly.

Re: Nominations for Council election Q4 2014
 

For those who aren't familiar with the situation, here is the related thread. What are the other candidates' views on this? Has this been discussed amongst the current council? Would it be worth contacting Microsokia to see if they'd let us host the Fremantle and Harmattan applications?

Re: Nominations for Council election Q4 2014
 

I don't know how realistic this may be, but I for one would have interest in having some kind of legal way of hosting the nokia-binaries and such. All things maemo.org are safe but nokia.com is a moving target.

Many of us do have private, non-distributable, copies of most of the stuff (although I, at least for now, keep nothing related to Harmattan). The future council could see what options we have and even try to contact the relevant entities.

(I know, wishful thinking, but we're not talking about NDA-protected source code, just plain old binary hosting of boring and archaic stuff that happens to be really important for a small community :)

Re: Nominations for Council election Q4 2014
 

personally, none i do not expect to have or use a n9/n950 at this point.
but as a community representative i would support any moves to help maintain/develop/support it.

my current position on this, predominately to reduce the chance of power struggles and simplify the structure, would be to dissolve council, but i would prefer to wait until the eV has been fully up and running for a number months before making any moves to ensure everything is working as expected, and ensure everyone understands the system.

from my (limited) current understanding of the situation it is doubtful that nokia/microsoft is even legally able to give us distribution rights for the bulk of what is hosted there so i would recommend contacting the author of anything you use hosted there and get them to put it on open repos ( or give you permission to do it for them ) i am unaware of any current enquires with nokia/microsoft, but betting asking and being turned down than not asking.

aaron m

Re: Nominations for Council election Q4 2014
 

Please see my post over here.

...and simply not willing. Of course HiFo tried, but no dice. :(

Re: Nominations for Council election Q4 2014
 

How do the Fremantle/Harmattan software distribution rights differ from the Symbian, S40, etc. software distribution rights that have been given to Opera? Could Maemo e.V. not propose a similar deal?