Re: Ask the Council!
 

Ok, thanks. I'm trying to contact X-Fade by email and on IRC for 2 weeks, but without success.

Re: Ask the Council!
 

Council:

Mase has done much work on a package for printing, but is having a problem with the repos. He has received no reply to bug reports.

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php...93#post1132293

Can the council facilitate resolution of this issue?

Re: Ask the Council!
 

It would be helpful if you could point to the actual bug reports. I cannot find anything relevant in b.m.o :-(

Re: Ask the Council!
 

Last month and again nothing....

What is Maemo Council doing more then 6 months????

Why cannot fix problem with maemo repository??? Is promoting packages really hard, which takes more then 6 months???

What is X-Fade doing? Why he still cannot find time for fixing that? Why he cannot find time for Maemo developers in last 6 months?

I'm trying to ping X-Fade on IRC every day, but he not answering me. I sent emails, without answer too. Why he is ignoring me??

Maemo users really want to see kernel-power promoted into Extras-testing (and then into Extras).

Last version of all packages in Extras-Devel is: 2.6.28-10power49

Packages:
http://maemo.org/packages/view/kernel-power/
http://maemo.org/packages/view/kernel-power-modules/
http://maemo.org/packages/view/kernel-power-flasher/
http://maemo.org/packages/view/kernel-power-source/
http://maemo.org/packages/view/kernel-power-bootimg/
http://maemo.org/packages/view/kernel-power-headers/
http://maemo.org/packages/view/linux...power-headers/

Now I'm really angry, becuase everybody is ignoring me and users asking "why is not package in extras?". It is really hard to fix problem on server for community projects?

It is because somebody doing someting usefull for maemo users??

Re: Ask the Council!
 

Yes, there are problems with getting things done. Two months ago it was the coding competition voting which X-Fade didn't want to do, but it eventually got done (after more effort than it should have taken). I don't know if you were being rhetorical or not, but yes Nokia (and by extension, Nemein) is not so much interested in helping maemo users anymore. Please don't get angry, at least with me, who is trying to help.

Re: Ask the Council!
 

I second that. And what makes me angry is that there are not much developers left (especially kernel/core) and those who are still doing it have ZERO support from so-called council. Is there some special policy/instruction from Nokia or whoever to ignore us? What has happened with regular council meetings we were promised?

So, Pali has put a lot of effort backporting drivers fixing bugs and writing new stuff and he cannot reach the people he is doing that for. Why? Six months?!?

Re: Ask the Council!
 

Please check the full history and you'll see my support. Yes, for the umpteenth time, Nokia has moved on..., to the N9, to WP7, that's where their attention is, not us.

Unfortunately, the other council members, Momcilo and Jeremiah, have been awol for two months. They haven't responded to my emails, nor have I seen them anywhere in the maemo community. Thus, no council meetings or other action (other than what I have done). Hoping they come back soon.

Re: Ask the Council!
 

I hope you understand it is not a personal attack to you, I know you are doing your best. It is just that "the council" does not function, if exists at all.
Is there a procedure to follow in current situation (missing council members) as it is pointless to wait another couple of months till new elections.

Re: Ask the Council!
 

Deja vu.

Normally, "ten chars" after that would be sufficient, but I would like to be understood correctly. I'm probably among group of people, who would be *last* to blame SD69 (with his blazing fast answers, even if he is unable to give specific information, due to "ambient" circumstances). I'm just totally disappointed by Jeremiah and Momcilo stance, especially given the fact, what was promised upon "election".

I understand, that irony may strike hard, and 2 council people may get stroked by personal problems or whatsnot (hypothetically). But, it's totally unacceptable, to disappear without *any* note (if one hold such "position"). I think requesting to leave small bit of information isn't asking too much.

---

SD69, seconding freemangordon's question - are there any procedures specified, when council member(s) disappear, without any sign of life? If there aren't any, maybe we should create some *now*? In my opinion, under current "technological" status, 2 weeks of total absence without any prior warning or even small info like "I get hit by asteroid yesterday, so I'm using cafe/stole/whatever net and I'm going to have my connection repaired in 2 weeks" is enough to "delete" a Council member. Especially, that cadence is only 6 months total. What others thing about that?

---

So, let me summary current situation, AIUI. SD69 is one and only Council member left, other pointed their interest into other projects, without any pre- or -post warning. X-Fade have us in a*s, because he is paid by Nokia, and Nokia have us in a*s (as whole, 8mm not talking about certain individuals).

SD69, have I missed or misunderstood something? If no, what about possible ideas to get out of this nasty situation? Despite circumstances, I think (and feel) that Maemo development got quite nice momentum now, and it would be pity to waste that.

My idea - resolving missing council members problem by ending their cadence (giving them a week and another message spam, to give a chance to respond), and "quick" election afterward. Immediately starting process of "gaining independence" from Nokia funds - by creating foundation (probably not under Maemo name, due to trademarks), fundraising, and paying on our own things, that definitely need to be paid-positions. Getting other functions "occupied" by volunteers (this one is de facto realisation of plan took by current council, yet never really started beyond point of brainstorm "what positions we need to have").
=
finally getting rid of "teams", that have us in a*s, cause they're not paid by us, and replacing them with people/teams paid by us directly (if necessary), and voluntary counterparts, where applicable.

NEXT: After establishing stable structures, depending or success (or lack of) of fundraising, choose major "milestone" projects, that need to be supported, and doing so by all possible means (not only banner). Where absolutely necessary, consider financial grants/contracts (not necessary huge ones, depend on money raised).

/Estel

Trivia - written totally via Nokia N900 running Maemo, through Iceweasel via pure-Squeeze Easy Debian instance.

Re: Ask the Council!
 

I'm not angry at you. (Sorry if my post sound that). You are only who responded to my post.

I'd like to ask:
* What council members can do?
* Who has permissions for modifing (managing) maemo.org website?
* Who can configure repository.maemo.org?
* Who can "importing packages" into maemo.org/packages interface?
* Who are admins of maemo.org infrastructure?

Re: Ask the Council!
 

I looked and there are no procedures for replacing absent council members. I hope they return soon. But even if they don't, as I said after the last election, I have no problem with you or another non-council member lining up a team of trustworthy volunteers. We need at least a webmaster, a sysadmin, and a few really good people to manage the repos and package promotion. (X-Fade may be unresponsive at times, but he knows this stuff well.) And for a foundation, there needs to be consensus on where - Finland, UK, DE, USA?

And even so, I think at the end, we still have the challenge of getting Nokia's cooperation. I'll try to post again with some more comments when I have more time.

Re: Ask the Council!
 

I haven't been following things closely, but I thought Nokia was still paying for roughly one full-time person to support maemo.org, has that changed?

In any case, if the powers that be are being unresponsive (for whatever reasons, however valid or not) the first order of business should be to establish access to willing and able community members to get things done.

Re: Ask the Council!
 

Yes, Nokia has a paid contract that is still in place. We've asked to quantify the amount of support so that we can prioritize and apportion the time spent on maemo.org. But we've never received a thorough answer. The contract may not even be so specific as to state X hours or FTEs per month at all; it may just require Nemein to provide support services to maemo.org.


Council only has permissions for its own wiki page, etc. Wikimasters, forum mods, and other high level permissions are selected from the community at large. Nemein controls the maemo.org website and infrastructure, and X-Fade is the person most often responsible for the repos and package promotion.

Re: Ask the Council!
 

Right. That is, of course, absurd :-(

Well, Nokia/Nemein should clarify that asap. Because if the whole thing is (as it increasingly appears to be) essentially unsupported apart from someone paying the ISP bills, we're all better off migrating elsewhere right now, before it collapses with no one around who knows enough of the setup and/or has access to fix it.

Re: Ask the Council!
 

Some people from Community (Council?, other person?) should have permissions for community maemo.org parts - e.g. community extras repository.

Why only ONE persion is able to chage something on maemo (e.g. fix broken community repository)?

I think this MUST be changed very very quicky, becuase unmaintainable site is not for developers...

Re: Ask the Council!
 

A few months ago there were voices we should wait as long as nokia gives us support but now it looks like this was a mistake. We can not wait longer. The things that happen to the community indicate that there is absolotely no interest in us as maemo community. I followe IRC logs every day and looking at Pali who is pinging X fade over and over makes me angry. This isn't the way it should be. I'm too old to be treated like this and I also belive that we can handle it by our own powers.

Re: Ask the Council!
 

Another thing, that can't be omitted here, is fact that whole talk.maemo.org is also controlled by one person - Reggie - and Nokia (AFAIK) pays bills for hosting etc. Reggie is much more contactable/responsive/trustworthy/ etc. than X-Fade/Nemein as whole, but still, such "one man control all" should be changed ASAP.

What if Reggie get hit by the bus tomorrow, with some forum infrastructure critical error day-after-tomorrow? counting on how fast Nokia is acting (and how thoroughly ;) ), we would stay without this form of communication for ~6 months.

SD69, could You - as (one man) Council, i.e. Maemo community representative, arrange some meet-up with reggie (IRC?) and ask him, what is he planning to do, considering our plans? (i.e., should we look for another host, or he is sympathetic to independence plans and would like to support them, if no by only maintaining forum technical part etc.).

/Estel

Re: Ask the Council!
 

Agreed, with some caveats. The person(s) from the community has to be trustworthy so that they won't neglect the repo or work for their own personal benefit instead of the community's. Also, Nemein is contractually responsible to Nokia for safeguarding the repository. Imagine if they give access to a community person who does something that irreversibly damages it. So they may be concerned about having liability to Nokia for the actions of a community person. This is not a blocker, but it has to be addressed.

If something happened to Reggie, then Nemein would step in to continue operating the forum (although they don't have as much vbulletin expertise). Reggie has been asked about a possible post-Nokia future of the forum and he was not enthusiastic about it. He particularly did not want to give a dollar amount that the community would need to come up with to continue funding the forum (w/ ads or w/o). I assume he wants his contract with Nokia to last as long as possible, and he has no motivation for wanting to see t.m.o. convert from Nokia contract (with presumably good compensation) to a financially uncertain community. It has been discussed that the content of the forum belongs to the community, and can be exported/imported, but hopefully it won't come to that. Current issues aside I would say that Nemein is probably more intrinsically supportive of a self-governing maemo community that keeps maemo alive.

Re: Ask the Council!
 

I only read the last 3 pages of this thread and I'm not fully informed about the whole situation so I might be missing something but I guess we all agree that there will be no long-term future for maemo.org in its current shape.
Even if we get a positive answer for 2012 (which I doubt) we'll face the same problem in 2013 and so on.

Therefore I think it's high time to transfer all the infrastructure (forum, wiki, repositories) to a community-driven platform. Unfortunately I don't have the expertise to run such a platform on my own.
As for the financial part the approach of debianforum.de might work here too. It is totally funded via donations from the community members [1]. This requires a strong identification of the community with the platform but I think that is the case here.

[1] http://wiki.debianforum.de/Debianforum.de/Spenden

Re: Ask the Council!
 

This is my thinking as well. Council (all 3 members) is waiting for Nokia and Nemein representative to confirm a date for an IRC meeting. It will be posted if/when it is scheduled.

Re: Ask the Council!
 

I correctly assume, that it will be open for non-council interested people to participate?

Re: Ask the Council!
 

Question for Council:
Nokia OVI apt-repository had changed GPG key and public GPG is not published. Here is reported bug: https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12522 Andre Klapper wrote that maemo bugzilla is not right place. So where to report that bug?? Or can Maemo Council fix this bug (find missing public key and publish it)? Or again - (OVI) another repository problem - and only one persion who can fix it is X-Fade???

Re: Ask the Council!
 

Council (or X-Fade) can't fix it. Sounds like another thing to be raised with Nokia.

Re: Ask the Council!
 

SD69, do you know who in Nokia can be responsible for OVI repository on downloads.maemo.nokia.com? Or can you find email address to someone in Nokia?

Re: Ask the Council!
 

SD69, could you have a look there?
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php...21#post1148621

What do You think about starting big process by considerable steep of moving repositories to open source git servers? (details in few posts occupying page that I've linked) I think we need to start somewhere, and repositories are nice useful point.

/Estel

Re: Ask the Council!
 

Totally agree. I think we should try to move to any open / free initiative such as KDE or Debian instead of trying to fundraise any other solution.

There is no need to have a fancy web site with all the goodies, just move the critical points to somewhere safer.

Re: Ask the Council!
 

There will be a Council Meeting on Thursday January 12 at 13:00UTC on #maemo-meeting. It is open for non-council interested people to attend but the log is typically published afterwards. (sorry for the late notice)

Re: Ask the Council!
 

Estel, thanks for the heads up - I would have missed the discussion otherwise. CSSU should be open project and not held up by any one person even MAG.

I concur with moving repos (if what you mean is mirroring for awhile before a permanent transfer); we have another URL already. I think there is consensus in the community now that didn't exist six months ago.

We need people who will donate servers during transition and others will commit to maintaining the repos. Council can make an announcement for volunteers - to distinguish between people who will commit to the project and those who merely say it is what we should do. We got 57 volunteers for forum admins when we asked because of the spam problem a few months ago! So it surely is possible but I personally can't organize it (don't know enough about server admin or maintaining repos, and not enough time too). Please begin to organize (line up server donations, etc.) if you're ready.

Re: Ask the Council!
 

Of course I mean mirroring, at least until we would be 100% sure about stability of our infrastructure.

As for donating servers - I've contacted some community members, that proposed this not so long ago, waiting for answer. Of course, the more willing people, the better.

As for getting knowledgeable volunteers to maintain repositories, I may be wrong, but I think it's most crucial part for this stage of transfer. Announcement from council would be great - could it also sit as banner on main maemo page? I think we really need to have some time to talk with interested people - ones maintaining repos really need to be good at those things.

So, as for announcements/banners/etc, IMO, the sooner, the better. If there is no showstop for banner idea, could someone make a tiny contribution by preparing nice, clear (not bloated) banner? I'm totally useless when it goes to preparing graphics, I'm afraid :(

/Estel

Re: Ask the Council!
 

The size of our community is tiny, in code size, bandwidth and number of people.
We could be in debian servers and they wouldn't even notice.

Re: Ask the Council!
 

Debian servers would be quite a good idea based on Maemo's roots. If only remaining binary blobs could be removed by ui clones or replacing stacks to make them obsolete. Would be interesting then to rebase Maemo on latest Debian.

Git repository is all well and good, but how does that go towards solving the issues we've had with cssu and kp. Before any concrete plans are made, a suitable er.. maintainer management solution needs to be explored, be it on maemo.org or new servers.

Re: Ask the Council!
 

One advantage we have is that all the binary blobs are in a separate repository (from Nokia). They're not even at the same physical location last I looked. This will make the mirror/transition rather painless, since we don't have to worry about legality when mirroring most of the content (extras-*, cssu-*, etc).

Re: Ask the Council!
 

as it stands, if that is correct, it would be great. the issue would be if the nokia repo was shutdown. what would the situation be on mirroring the binary files then? would setting up a new repo accelerate the closure of the nokia repo?

at the moment devs just have to work around them or replace them like for like, but what happens moving forward when a bug/abi or api change/feature request arrises. Flash 10 (sorry, first binary i thought of) is good example. a newer glibc etc may allow a newer version to run, but break another binary. Kernel, may be much easier for pali and freemangordon to manage if we could ship mainline with a much smaller patchset but would mess up how much?

Re: Ask the Council!
 

We can't host Nokia's closed source things repos without permission. Of course, user can have them on disks unofficially, and share personally (on optical disks or via sharing services/torrents etc) as law permits in country where they live.

Still, i don't see sane reason for Nokia to shut down their repos (non-extras) without allowing us to mirror them - that would mean dropping support totally for devices of Nokia's every client, *not* our project. That would mean no N900 users would be able to upgrade to pr 1.3 (or 1.3.1), etc. Shutting down support for such device seems like suicidal move for Nokia - they keep files for devices older 4-6x as much.

/Estel

Re: Ask the Council!
 

thanks for clearing that up. I have the latest firmware files stored in case anyway, as I suspect most around here do for reflashing.

Re: Ask the Council!
 

partial agenda:

1. Ovi N900 repository - key issue
2. Support for maemo infrastructure
A. https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12284
B. Admin positions for maemo volunteers
3. Clarification of "official" vs. "unofficial" support in bugzilla and other parts
4, Community fragmentation and proposal to merge parts of harmattan into maemo
A. Comments that appsformeego.com will move to maemo.org http://communitizer.blogspot.com/201...for-meego.html
http://forum.meego.com/showthread.ph....org#post37862 when Maemo Council has not been contacted about this.
5. Qt-style agreement to formally move maemo infrastructure to community organization

Re: Ask the Council!
 

Stefano is working on it and it should be fixed in a few days. Let me know via PM if it is not.

Re: Ask the Council!
 

Do we have figures about what the workload was in the past for server administration / repo administration?

Re: Ask the Council!
 

where can i find the minutes? thanks!

Re: Ask the Council!