Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

Let's ask Mentalist Traceur about this, shall we? :D
When he was in duty as councilor, he put it like this:

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

Thanks again! We did! (maybe you should check who else been council at that time. Hint: somebody you like to completely ignore resp bitch at now) Though from very beginning the term "transform" been inappropriate and "merge" was the better term that eventually got more commonly used.
No matter what, the purpuse been exactly what I told and you confirmed: establishing Maemo Council as elected by Maemo Community (according to Maemo Election Rules) to become the "Hildon Foundation Council" as mentioned in the bylaws. Which we finally established by a referendum which I promised I will make happen when community votes me for council again. Despite Rob blocking stuff and perverting the concept and killing my last nerve by bitching at me, just like you do now.
You seem to think instantiation of HiFo council same time liquidated Maemo Council and now "the council" (incl me) is only bound to HiFo bylaws. That's however completely ill conceived, actually Maemo council continues to exist, is bound to same Maemo Council Rules, and only "accepted a position" as HiFo council (and recently MCe.V. council), which was facilitated by a referendum putting Maemo Rules and HiFo bylaws in line. That's why I also insistend in MCeV bylaws being 100% in line with Maemo Rules and HiFo bylaws, which you promised would be the case.

It been YOU who wrote "The Board of Directors executes the Council's [...] rulings." into the MCeV bylaws, and it's been YOU (MCeV foundation members) who "voted" Maemo Council into the position of being MCeV council, and accepted that this sub-entity of the e.V from now on will get voted by Maemo Community according to http://wiki.maemo.org/Community_Coun...ection_process, and not by any "GA" or appointed by BoD.
Now you suggest to kill Maemo MCeV Council, just a few weeks literally after you founded that e.V. and got those bylaws approved by court? What's the common sense in THAT? Don't you think abolishing council would actually render the e.V broken, based on all those relations/facts?

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

Please get it that we're distinguishing between LEGAL authority and ORGANIZATIONAL implementation, which was the whole purpose to establish the HiFo since being a legal person owning assets suggests you shouldn't change those every 6 months, while the organizational aspects were implemeted by rules like (even in MCeV) "The Board of Directors executes the Council's [...] rulings.
The fact that HiFo BoD (eventually MCeV BoD resp "the complete legal person 'MC e.V.', or did HiFo already transfer assets despite the whole thing not yet discussed and agreed upon proper regulations, at all?) legally OWNS the assets doesn't automatically imply that this BoD is ENTITLED by community to do whatever they like. Despite win7mac et al now trying to push for exactly this "we do whatever we like, since we are legally responsible". The organizational details are mostly not really dealt with in the bylaws which are first and foremost for the legal part, rather the organization got negotiated and discussed by community in the usual community channels (based on what I called "good will / cooperation"). Now fighting for organizational changes by (ab)using the only legally relevant bylaws means disregarding the community and the decision it made back when.
When community who discussed and finally voted for HiFo thought it would obsolete Council and take over Council's responsibilities and duties, then why did community install TWO entities to start with, instead of simply redefining Council into HiFo foundation resp creating HiFo and same time abolishing Council? Community decided to have TWO entities (or rather a discernible dedicated already existing sub-entity of the whole thing), so don't you think they should be complementary like MCeV council and MCe.V. BoD, rather than competing against each other inside same e.V./foundation? AFAIK even Nokia insisted in HiFo at least for one year keeping council alive, in a sidenote in the still NDAed contracts - probably inspired by Rob taking same approach of "now we own maemo, we do with it what we like".
HiFo and MCe.V. both have a "council" as only previously existing sub-entity even installed by those entities' bylaws. I don't think abolishing that council sub-entity is even possible, and the question who tells whom what to do seemed to be pretty obvious to everybody until Rob started to reject Maemo Council being HiFo council as well, and insisted in elections for said HiFo council.

In short Maemo Council doesn't "have authority over HiFo", it rather has some non-legal-level but nevertheless binding (and backed up by proper elections, by whole community) authority inside HiFo/e.V. over the BoD, since the Council is a part of HiFo and actually already also of MCe.V.

In its role as Maemo Community Council it's bound to obey the 5 years old (though updated) Maemo Council Rules. In its role as MCe.V. council is bound to obey the MCeV bylaws. We cannot do something that is allowed by one of those regulations when it's forbidden by the other one - though according to win7mac's holy vow that should never happen to become a real problem since both sets of rules are 100% compatible. I think a "the general assembly can change council rules by a 2/3 majority (OWTTE)" is already NOT compatible to "Changes to any of the above rules must be approved by community referendum." in http://wiki.maemo.org/Community_Coun...ection_process.
Generally nothing would be wrong with MCeV when it had no GA that clearly conflicts with Maemo Council Rules (and that can't get fixed thanks to German laws). The only way to cure things and get them on rails again: Limit the power of GA instead of trying to boost it. We already have a working "General Assembly" of whole maemo community, called "vote / referendum". We don't need any better concept replacing it, and actually trying to do so is the root cause of all problems. Limit the number of GA-members allowed in MCeV to maybe a 10 persons, who maybe even get elected by community vote before MCeV accepts them as regular members, and have those 10 people promise to *cooperate* with council and community instead of fighting against them, and everything should be fine for the next 10 years. It can be done! MCeV BoD has the power to reject any memberships(!) according to result of maemo community elections voting for a few community members who become regular members of e.V., there's no German law I know of that forbids, and there's also no law that forbids those regular members in their application to the community election giving such promise to cooperate.
Thinking of it, such limited-number-of-members elected-by-community General Assembly could fit pretty nicely into the (now obsolete) role description of the Nokia Community Manager to replace it, stepping in when things go completely haywire but the rest of the time simply staying in background and let community do their thing.

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

joerg_rw

thanks for the explanation of your position,

i belive you are correct in saying the board cannot do whatever it likes, in most countries there are either regulations, or case law meaning they need to act responsible in regards to who put then in charge, that in its own right does not give anyone else authority over them though

your other point seems to be that because the council is elected that they have authority?

the way i see it the board of directors ( http://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/...fdirectors.asp ) is exactly that. and the council is essentially THE advisors for them, little more

so i respectfully disagree with your position

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

You still are mixing legal ownership/responsibility/liability with organizationally agreed upon chain of command that isn't based on any laws and thus can't get enforced. Do you? Please read my post again, I still hope it will eventually become clear, maybe on reading it a third time.

While legal liability (and thus power) is sorted (from high power/responsibility to low) like:
HiFo BoD
HiFo at large
Council
(community, zilch liability)

the chain of command is - not coincidentally - exactly other way around (sorted from boss to subordinate):
community (has all the power)
Council (serves as community's proxy, steward)
HiFo BoD (owner, thus serving as and usually called 'cashier' to make clear they don't decide on themselves what to do with assets)

The first hierarchy is written down in bylaws and legal laws. The second got agreed upon in community as model how stuff should work and thus the second established the first in result. Seems to me this is the basic concept of any democratic organization anywhere. "Lower" levels delegating power to "higher" levels, nevertheless expecting that those "higher" levels do what the "lower" level (the people, in the end) tell them to do. Every president gets sworn in to act in best interest of his people. The better constitutions even have means to asure he actually does (impeachment? Meh, probably the wrong country ;-D ) Anyway maemo community always been quite good at this, until recently.

PS: ""BoD can (not) do whatever they like"" - again depends of your POV. BoD actually legally can do whatever they like - first approach, since they are owner. However they are not supposed to and in bylaws there might be some rules that try to make sure they don't. In very hard cases (like giving away all assets without consulting community, to somebody that is not in line with the purpose of HiFo) they actually can get sued by law, and not only BoD but everybody faintly involved who agreed with any rogue activity and didn't try to stop it (thus my 'veto' which woody mistook as me self-appointing myself to any leader role - I didn't, actually I'm absolutely convinced maemo never had such leader role at all, and shouldn't get any now). I'm afraid this could bite our rear when we transfer assets to MCeV that doesn't adhere to the definition of "community" as written down in HiFo and Council bylaws/rules. Any GA is not the Maemo community, no matter how hard you try. It's at least highly questionable if this was legal according to PA laws that apply to HiFo .

PPS: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/...fdirectors.asp is about a commercial company which, no matter how hard you try by issuing shares or whatever, always is a hierarchical top-down management, aka "dictatorship". Maemo community however is the exact opposite: a true democracy and we don't want this to get turned into a commercial "dictatorship" by MCeV or HiFo - exactly the root cause for Rob eventually leaving.

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

Wait a second. Why? Why are we trying to limit the power of the "GA", which is actually the Maemo community? GA=maemo community.

Is there any need for this? Many other organizations work just fine with a GA and an elected board of directors who then do what the GA wants. There's no need for any middlemen. Or is there? What's the purpose of having a middle-man in this scenario?

We do know that the Hifo and CC relationship was never a good one. There were too many questions of responsibility, liability, funding, etc... the MCeV concept essentially eliminates these issues and gives all the power to the community (the "GA".)

This is, of course, assuming that the GA is the most inclusive group it can be, and I believe it should be. I hope that the rest of the community rejects the idea of a small 8-10 GA. I don't believe that will represent the community at large, nor actually work in practice. We'll have the same power struggles and dichotomy that we have now, IMO.

But I'm curious, Joerg, why do you think the MCeV concept is flawed? I'm not asking about what the HiFO or CC is now, I'm asking about what the MCeV could be and how it might work better than what we currently have. Which you have to admit, is not working for various reasons.

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

GA is NOT "the community". No matter how hard you try to convince everybody it was. Aside from "the maemo comunity" clearly being defined in Maemo Council Election Rules as well as HiFo bylaws as "those with a garage account plus some other requirements regarding karma", and for sure nowhere is a note about "BoD can accept or reject applications for regular garage membership", I can give you two very simple examples:
1) one of our sysops will never become a regular member of MCeV since he doesn't like his identity / full name getting published/disclosed. It's been Council that managed this case assuring him to keep the data private. I wouldn't trust in a MCeV regarding that.
2) I know of several community members that live in countries that would not even offer any method to transfer membership fees to Germany, neither by PayPal nor by money transfer. Moving HiFo to Germany since the payments (when ever due) are less complicated than when done from USA to Germany, and then expecting all "community members" paying membership fees, doing same cumbersome money transfer from any place in the world? And those who already donated now have to pay *again* so they are allowed to have a word what's going to happen with their donations? Makes no sense at all. Remind me again please: why exactly we *need* that MCeV?
And I can tell you that FOSS communities are generally pretty averse of both disclosing their identity and paying for being allowed to participate in a FOSS project.
I never said that MCe.V. is flawed per se. Please read my post again, I actually said "Generally nothing would be wrong with MCeV when it had no GA that clearly conflicts with Maemo Council Rules"
And I disagree completely with a "is not working for various reasons". Except for all this bickering from those who want new things since new must be better than old, nothing is "not working" in current maemo community and its management. The biggest problem is that we already have too few volunteers, and many of those that are actually volunteering have no clue about what are the tasks pending. So excuse me when I don't see how a "GA assigning tasks to a new council invented by GA on demand" will ever fly. Best thing about GA: We don't need it as a maximum inclusive group, we have the true maemo community already. The only one who needs a GA is a German eingetragener Verein, but there's no law that tells that this GA has to be of a maximum possible size, nor that it's not allowed to listen and obey to the true maemo community that's already well defined and existing.

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

the above listed things - "ownership, responsibility, liability and organizationally" are very closely tied, i believe discussing them separately will only lead to mis-understandings.

yes this is essentially how i see it aswell.

And this it were our interpretations differ:
council and HiFo members are voted in for, by voting you are entrusting the person whom you vote for to manage what their respective entities have responsibility( and authority ) over. there is no direct way to tell them what to do except the methods stated in their respective by-laws.

there is nothing in the bylaws of HiFo stating that the council can directly tell it what to do, only that the council can "communicate the needs of the membership to the Board"

of course you can also ask them, but the decision is up to them


well kinda - they can do what they like in the sense that i can steal my neighbors car, its still illegal though.
if they do not act in the interests of the body whom elected them then there will be either federal(in USA) or case law (previous law suits used as precedent )you can use against them

please keep in mind the meaning of the word "veto" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veto i think "boycott" is closer to what you intended to mean


shareholder/stockholders == parties who hold a vested interest == maemo community ( as defined by bylaws is garage members )

and no, it is not a dictatorship - there are ways for shareholders to replace the board of directors

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

I give up, you refuse to appreciate that I'm talking about chain of command and not legal liability. You also refuse to even notice my "Maemo community however is the exact opposite: a true democracy and we don't want this to get turned into a commercial "dictatorship" by MCeV or HiFo". Rather you love to argue about how much of a (no doubt ever) hierarchical top-down and NOT democratic system a commercial company is.
Worst of all: you insinuate that community had no means to tell council what they want, other than elections. That community elects council for 6 months to do whatever council likes. That's evidently not true and would be pretty bad for council and community if it was. Maemo is no delegation democracy, it's meant to be a direct democracy, happening on lowest level by council listening to community at least once a week at council meetings and directly acting on whatever community asks for, to make it come true. A stewardship, no government. Council is *defined* as "listening to communityand doing what community asks for", that's what council got invented for basically. You turn that into "council is not legally obliged to do what community asks for". And that's exactly the mindset I dispise like hell in that whole MCeV thing as it's moving along right now. The "let's see what we are obliged to do, let's hope we find ways how to minimize obligations" instead of a humble "we're serving the community" mindset.

sidenote: I spent another factor 10 of what I can afford to spend of my time to maemo. So I will not show up another 10 timespans at least, if at all again.

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

maybe i need to clairify:

i believe that the maemo community is a form of a Representative democracy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_democracy

and yes, the the maemo community cannot tell the board or council what to do, except for methods stated in the bylaws (elections are one way, i am unsure if there is a way for the community to force a referendum, but it is generally a good idea )


the community is free to give requests the board - but it is up to the board whether it will grant or decline it, unless their hand is forced by the community [i]using the bylaws.[i] the board also has a legal responsibility to act in the best interests of the body that elected it

the basic structure is essentially the same across all elected groups, from governments, the (elected) board of directors for a giant multinational company, or the (elected) committee that is organizing the fund-raising for the local pool. you elect whom you see fit. by electing them you give them both the authority and the responsibility for what you elected them to do, you cannot tell them directly what to do once they are elected without some prior agreement to back you up - in the case of an NPO ( i believe that is what HiFo is ) the agreement is in the bylaws

you are free to debate with them about the responsibilities you gave them and how things should be done. but you also also gave them authority,and the final decision is theirs unless the prior agreement lets you overrule them

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

IIUC, there are 2 "streams" on how the things should be done:

1. Turn Maemo (community) into a corporation, with GA on top and BoD(or whatever it is called in german) as executive body. In this scenario I don't see (or didn't get it) what exactly role has the community council. If GA is "the community" that tells BoD what to do, there is really no need for another entity doing the same. And how's that going to work legally. So maybe completely removing CC in this scenario is the sanest thing to do.

2. Keep the current structure(see the note bellow), with roles and responsibilities as were agreed back in the times, just replace HiFo with MCeV and make some fictive GA to please the german law. Or even better - make sure that MCeV's BoD has legal duty to execute CC's orders (unless these orders are illegal).

I don't understand how taking route 1 benefits the community. How turning a FOSS community into a corporation with requirements that GA members have to disclose their name address etc and(maybe) pay to become such members, esp now that more and more people stop contributions is going to help?

What is wrong with the MCeV being a cashier only? After all, BoD members are (supposed to be) community members, so if a legal action should be taken (like removing Nokia (C) or similar from maemo.org) they can always tell the council, which in turn can either do it (by telling the sysops) or tell BoD if a legal action is to be taken. Sure, some may argue that in such a scenario CC has too much power, but there is the BoD that cares for the legal stuff and sysops, who I bet will refuse to do something stupid with the infra.

BTW is it possible to turn the council to MCeV's GA? With limited membership (for the duration of the council term)? IIUC this will make both parties happy - we will have a corporation with the community on top :)

note: The (OPERATIONAL)structure that was agreed on when HiFo was established is: community tells the council what to do and the council(if needed) tells BoD what to do and BoD executes it, unless illegal.

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

I think we should ignore any "this is how it is now with HiFo and MCeV", and focus on "how do we want it to be". This seems to be lost in some of the posts here.
Once we have found such a 'perfect' scenario, we can start looking into how to achieve this, e.g. by a referendum changing the by-laws or whatever.

Subsequently, I will be stating some things in a 'would be nice to have' way, even if those are already in place.

As far as I understand it, the current problems are the intersection between GA (General Assembly, the membership of the eV) and the Maemo community as a whole (garage account, etc), as well as the future of the Council.

There was also talk of membership fees, but that is NOT a requirement for an eV and IMHO the fact that this was talked about should not be used as an argument here. Membership fees can NOT be introduced by the board simply at their will. So let's ignore this piece of the argument for now.

In practice, all of this shouldn't be such a massive problem.

First of all, there shouldn't be any fear of rogue board members. The bylaws should be defined in such a clear, concise and close-fitting way that there are very few opportunities for the board not to act in the best interest of Maemo and its community. As pointed out before, the board is accountable to the GA!

There would be two bodies in the eV, the General Assembly, and the board, elected from and by the GA.

Now, the board should open up and delegate as many of it's duties to the Maemo community (not just the GA). That is, the board appoints techstaff, moderators (all chosen from the community), and does whatever else is necessary to run Maemo community's daily business.
Basically, it acts as a supervising and steering entity.

Whenever there is something to decide that is outside the normal course of business and/or that affects the community, the board holds a referendum amongst the entire community (i.e. garage account holders, which ideally includes all of the eV membership).
There is no legal requirement that the board can only listen to the GA. It can seek 'external' advice at will, which just happens to be the community. Such a referendum would, of course, only offer options that are in line with the eV's bylaws, hence adhering to the outcome shouldn't be a problem for the board.

Such important issues can, of course, be brought to the board's attention from anyone - member of the eV, member of the community, or even an outsider.

Now, to be a member of the community, to use TMO, garage, etc, and to vote on important matters, there is no need to be a member of the eV, and no need to reveal one's identity.

However, if one wants to support the eV further, one can become a member of the eV and vote for a board, or even run for board oneself, if desired.
Membership should not be limited to a 'select few', as that will for sure cause resentment, one way or the other. As was mentioned before, it is also possible for non-EU citizens to become mebers of the eV, and even run for board as well (the latter with limitations).

There is no need for a council in this scenario. There may, of course, be 'working groups' or 'steering groups' as appointed by the board from volunteers from the community. Or the community can create such groups by itself.



This is my 10 cents on this. I may have forgotten something or stated the obvious, as mentioned above. Please don't flame me for this. There have been enough flame wars and attacks here already.

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

Bingo! I was just about to post something along those lines but you expressed it much better.

HiFo/MCeV, Council, GA... that's at least THREE bodies representing the community. Four if you consider the BoD a separate entity. If you ask me, two (or three) of them are redundant.

If I get Jörg's arguments right, it is the Counxcil that has (should have) the most power and therefore it is the one that should stay. Unfortunately this is not possible for legal reasons. So there is only one option: keep the eV. That means doing away with the rest.

I am not saying do it overnight. Exactly in accordance with foobar's excellent opening line, I suggest that this is the optimal terminal state where we want to be. Now we need to work out how to get there. I imagine not simply dismissing the Council, more like merging the responsibilities. But, in the end, having a simple structure with just ONE body standing between me and the dark world of banks, lawyers etc.

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

Exactly, except that with the eV you will always have two legal bodies, the board and the GA, for legal reasons, even if board = GA. But that shouldn't be a problem and shouldn't hinder us in any way.

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

No, three: board, GA, council. See the signed and approved-by-court MCeV bylaws and HiFo bylaws. Tell me how "dismissing the Council" is going to work with this. "shouldn't hinder us in any way" and the ones you voted into positions supposed to act illegal? Don't forget Nokia will frown at this, they rely on the bylaws of any entity inheriting the stuff are warranting that no rogue stuff is done with the maemo trademark etc. HiFo/MCeV now acting like there's no rules at all will convince Nokia that such entity isn't trustworthy.

On a sidenote referring to some former criticism:
""At a bare minimum, the skin, the logos, and the linkages with other systems that are custom to this site (including Karma) are still under LPGL""
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_(media) (nobody but OP said content = software)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_content
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_(computing)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theme_(computer)
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
http://maemo.org/legal/terms_of_use/trademarks/logos/ !! ""Maemo.org logos are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.""
The OP's reference to "LGPL" is completely inapproriate here since 1) doesn't apply to content and 2) the LGPLed linked software doesn't establish any licence whatsoever for the linking software. (but maybe that's what he tried to say? No idea. And also irrelevant since the linking software been a maybe 400 lines of [publicly available via SVN?] php code that he claims he edited 3 of them (and did _not_ fix karma by that), but ignores that I said techstaff edited and replaced way more than that, during the 99% of time he's not been around and thus not witnessing what been done.) OP also seems to insinuate that I doubted if Nokia was allowed to hand over maemo to HiFo. That's obviously nonsense, of course Nokia was allowed to do so. What I said is community was and is allowed to use all that stuff without Nokia's consent. So Nokia has nothing to 'sell' to HiFo, except of the hw, trademark and the domain. Nevertheless it's of course nice when Nokia explicitly grants HiFo permission to use all of maemo.org server data (executable and content), no matter if such permission is legally needed or not.

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

Wrong. Turn Maemo into a real non-profit organization, which need to have Board, and maintain legal responsibility. We may like it or not, but this is how law works, and it seems to work well for other organizations like this, of similar or different scale (see Debian)

2. Keep the current structure(see the note bellow), with roles and responsibilities as were agreed back in the times, just replace HiFo with MCeV and make some fictive GA to please the german law. Or even better - make sure that MCeV's BoD has legal duty to execute CC's orders (unless these orders are illegal).[/quote]

And where we will find masochists that want to take legal responsibility (board in your scheme), but still get ordered what to do by guys without legal responsibility (Council)? Maybe you should candidate for being Board member in such scheme?

The BoD having "legal duty" to execute CC orders is so ridiculous against the (any even remotely sane, including the german's one) law, that it's not even funny anymore. Well, technically, you can have some kamikaze people executing such orders unofficially, but it won't help them if law gets on their asses for breaking the law - Board is responsible, no matter what idiocy we write in our internal rules.

Againt, not corporation, but REAL non-profit, unlike the joke we had before. Then, maybe, just *maybe* we will be able to legally provide basic functionalities, that our Community should serve - like, for example, easy availability of setting development environment for new interested developers, which is, practically, non-existant now.

Sure, guys like you, who set up they dev machines ages ago don't care much - maybe it's the reason you haven't noticed, that the "Organization" (a joke of an organization) that resulted from joergs sabotage doesn't server such basic things for more than a year, already. and it's just one example of basic things that are not working, and can't be working, if we listen to shouters that have no idea about law.

And no, thet fact that we have "working" irc channel and TMO, +semi-working autobuilder DOESN'T mean that we're properly functioning organization. It is less than emergency life-keepinjg, actually.

No one will tell anything to the Council, as the Council is no-one by the law. Following your logic, anyone wanting to take any legal action on Maemo, could take any random average joe from the street, and start demanding it from him.

The only responsible part is Board, as they're legally responsible for functioning of organization. every party outside Maemo will talk with Board only, and only Board will be held liable for anything. No sane person will want to have such responsibility, with random unofficial dudes (Council) telling them what to do.

...and we end up with current limbo. joerg from Council always want board to do something stupid with infra - like, paying him for his doubtful hosting, and then, complaining that "rules" were broken, when board decide to do with other, free, and responsible (without someone constantly threatening to wipe out infra) hosting service.

Of course, this is just an example - with your proposition, we would be living in constant conflict. What is "stupid" for one party, may be clever for another, and vice versa.

We can integrate Council members into Board. they will still be Board for anyone outside, and calling them Council would be internal thing to Maemo, without anyone else carrying about it. Practically, it would still mean we're disbanding Council and replacing it with Board - we would just use fancy name for our Board, to satisfy some egos.

This is a lie, repeated by joerg over and over, and i see you have swallowed it whole. Council have no rights to tell BoD what to do, and never had. Many people have quoted bylaws zillion of times in this thread (even got some "bravo, someone finally read bylaws with understanding" comments, afterwards), so I will leave exercise of finding it to you.
---

Anyway - what Board tries to do, is to make Maemo a legally functioning organization, with Board responsible to members (and it would be done long time ago, if joerg wouldn't be - until recently - threatened like spoiled egg, with too much care and tries on negotiating).

Council may or may not function as volunteer bunch of people that act as Community relations contact for Board (I think we don't need such weirdo, but of course it's point for discussion). Or Council can be just Board members, with fancy "Council" name used by Maemo, for no reason.

There is no middle-ground - you *can't* have legally responsibleness people ordering around legally responsible people what to do, period. and you *must* have some legally responsible people to have officially working organization, no matter where you set it up.

Sorry, I'm unable to write it simpler than the last paragraph, so if you still haven't grasped it, move along - this is not the post you're looking for.

/Estel

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

Thanks for this EXCELLENT demonstration of your troll nature and lack of any clue. Techstaff *did* provide the stuff you ask for, alas we had to revoke it due to Nokia asking HiFo about LEGAL issues with such providing. And of course council and techstaff immediately fixed the issue to not expose HiFo to any legal threat. You hoping for this to change with MCeV already discredits the MceV, you're doing damage to the whole community with such nonsense, which I bet you don't care a cent about, as long as you can insult and bicker and spread lies. This been a case where legal issues took effect in which case BoD - as owner - is highest authority. This doesn't mean BoD usually is supposed to decide anything on their own, unless asked for by anybody like council or Nokia or $patent-troll (the usual chain of command situation where BoD is lowest in chain and community has all the power, council acts as proxy). Well, when not even chainsawbike gets the concept of difference between legal authority and democratic decision and delegation which are frequently exactly reciprocal to each other, then how could we expect you to grok it.
And: Which sabotage?? Blatant sneaky Liar!!

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

I am short on time so I cut in to the worse part of this conversation.

I see that people do not understand that there is no way to have a fictive General Assembly (GA), GA is another term for "all regular members" and is nothing you may bend to your needs, it is a fact and a requirement to have for a German registered association (e.V.).

Why you guys are discussing what is not there I do not get at the slightest approach from my side - there is no membership fee and as long as the GA does note vote to have one, there won't be one.

Member's Personal Data, German law applies, we are not allowed to disclose anything public if we do not have permission to do so.

With the MCe.V. there won't be any change for the community, it has its garage and has its council. If you do not want to have the council as part of the e.V. you can have that voted by GA but I'd prefer a referendum about that - ask the community what it wants.

And just for the record, both HiFo and MCe.V. are currently NOT registered NPOs. But that is actually something already set in the bylaws so turning them into NPOs (in case of HiFo "turn it back into a NPO") is just a matter of paperwork but is not sane in our current financial situation. Both are not registered corporations and must not act as such.
(As you guys are always about facts, you beat me to it.)

For fmg and joerg, I cannot track what you guys are actually on about anymore. Find another form of entity that suits you and is actually able to act as legal representation of the maemo community... all I hear is "not your way MOFO" and "FU". Instead of nagging about every detail (true or false) you might just use your energy in a productive way and ADD to this community instead of trying to demoralize what is left.

For all the chain of command things, Anonymous will take credit but never liability.

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

Typical Chemist post, lots of bashing while blaming others for exactly that. Not to the point since too much in hurry to even read stuff. Going "Leeeeeroy Jenkins", turning around and hoping others will finally get the point that been soooo obvious if not everybody except of you was a complete idiot. Right?
For "I see that people do not understand that there is no way to have a fictive General Assembly (GA),": nobody asked for a "fictive" GA. So I don't see where you see that. Re-read the posts! I'm tired of repeating sht for you a 5th time.
For "And as I was Council and Techstaff *) at that time and also member of the BoD I highly doubt that there was anything "official" about these actions?!" you best ask Woody who been the HiFo member who approached me and asked me if we provide tablets-dev.nokia.com. I explained him that we technicall cannot provide *.nokia.com sites, but that we fixed the broken (like so many other services, after migration2) stage.maemo.org (DNS IP assigned to us by Nokia!) that feeds the akamai serverfarm owned and operated by nokia, and he asked me to stop that since Nokia thought somebody was pirating their *.nokia.com website, which I forwarded to our sysops who took the required actions - was that incorrect? This tells something about Nokia, but that's not relevant here. What's relevant is that the above is the absolute truth and I never stated anything different and am willing to disclose the relevant non-public communication to you when you can't get it inside HiFo. I also don't see any problem in all this, except your leeeroy jenkins idiotic attack against me, and quite obviously Nokia got a problem caused by them not expecting techstaff to fix broken services in maemo.org A pity people never change and never seem to learn.
BR
jOERG
*) Yeah, I recall that: You been council but missed about three quarters of council meetings, when you showed up you bitched about the time of day and day of week, we changed it but you still didn't show up. On maemo admin channel where all techstaff is supposed to be available 24/7 for organizational conversation and keeping track of what gets done, you simply didn't show up either, allegedly you didn't know about that channel's policy. Seems your communication inside HiFo been similarly tight and verbose.

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

ehrm read again... smart *** (the first time you asked for it, this time it was fmg)

You know there are logs and stuff?

Don't recall you being some role-model lately, are you?

I knew about the channel policy and did some alterations to my client after you refused to fix the channel settings (don't call me idiot when you are unable to set channel flags right! And yes you could have done that the first time after I asked to fix it...)
But as this channel seems to be used by you to talk privately with techstaff about your frustration about what is going on at the moment but actually not being techstaff (I remember you stepping down right? or was it being discharged by HiFo?) and comparing supporting MCeV as some Nazi Germany move from 1933 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933

original quote:
15:07 < chem|st> I wont discuss anything with you in private channels
15:08 < DocScrutinizer05> https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ermäch...M.C3.A4rz_1933
15:10 < DocScrutinizer05> (discuss) yeah, why should you. You already accomplished that mission
He also believes I want to become CEO of MCe.V. in the future, charge members fees to save me a nice job with proper income...

How about me pushing some theories now?

Just below, way below me... good night!

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

I'm never convenient with stuff like this, rather concerned when having to deal with haters like you.

insulting again. Now that I'm in quite a similar position (you put me in) like Rob, I've learned that some things are nescessary indeed, no matter how much you want another one.
And falsely assuming this is a oneway road where HFC "was made to be" MCC (this already hurts to my ears).
And what second referendum exactly are you talking about?

Oh, is that REALLY so? Here's what Mentalist Traceur had in mind when he announced the referendum:
(Sidenote regarding legacy MCC rules applying to HFC after referendum: honestly, my understanding when writing that referendum was precisely that that would no longer be the case. If it is, there's very little point to even having that referendum. If that's what I thought it was doing, I wouldn't have even bothered writing it at the time, because most of the mess it's supposed to fix remains a mess, under that interpretation. However, I don't have the energy to argue about this right now, so whatever. My interpretation is not the common one by now anyway.)

and again here:
Unrelated: I am really tempted to make a post with a poll asking how many people sincerely believed when the HiFo bylaws were written, that the HiFo council was NOT supposed to replace MCC.
(the next few lines being pretty interesting too, telling a lot about joergs err, mindset I believe)
I didn't exactly find the part where joergs interpretation was taken as Council decision or even granted by any kind of vote. Please help out.

And after reading (who's done) latest edits to the wiki for said referendum, it all makes sense in a way though.
This speaks for itself, I believe: http://wiki.maemo.org/index.php?titl...71&oldid=51171

joerg, upon own discretion, turned "We need to set up election rules for this new body (Hildon Foundation Council) and transform Maemo Community Council to Hildon Foundation Council." into "We need to set up election rules for this new body (Hildon Foundation Council) and *eventually* Maemo Community Council accepts the duties of Hildon Foundation Council."

MCC was clear about this, nevertheless:
"...forming a Council with similar rules including a few tweaks to adjust to new practicalities; instead of being a Nokia conduit.
This will allow the two bodies to be aligned for the current and any future term. Hildon Foundation will therefore be left with one Council and a Board of Directors. In future this shall result in a single election performed for the unified council.
We believe the above is an important step for moving the Community forward with a unified Council in the post-Nokia era. So:
MCC hereby declares the bodies of HFC and MCC to be one single body in perpetuity.

No, I said council election rules are 100% same, nothing more.

Where exactly did *I* suggest that? - I obviously suggested to keep Council in form of a legal body being part of MC eV, just like expressed in the bylaws. To be clear, I am still in favor of option #4 I pointed out here:

4.) Council adheres to MC eV bylaws, becomes a body of MC eV (while the individuals may not) that can have limited power and responsibility as defined in the bylaws.

but now that we're talking about it... I start to tend to think that abolishing council might actually be not that much of a bad idea indeed.

I never said that Council is flawed per se. Please read my post again, I actually said "Generally nothing would be wrong with Council when it would not clearly conflict with MCeV Rules"
Already get it, probably?

Amen my lord. You are the ultimate wisdom and no one shall ever raise his voice against joerg, since he is the one only true emperor errr saviour of maemo. ROFL...

It is more than obvious that you, by all means, are acting against HiFo as well as MC eV (and all that it entails).
And I find it hard to stand that your resignation as councilor shall be executed due to removal of your signature. Your disrespect towards either party knows no boundries it seems. At least give your council-collegues the honour to put a valid resignation somewhere, in case you're lacking the backbone to do so publicly. Otherwise I will ask Council to discard you for boycot/sabotage/subversive activities if nobody else does.

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

Where is your god now?

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

""ehrm read again... smart *** (the first time you asked for it, this time it was fmg)""
so why don't you point at that "first time [i] asked for it"?
conveniently evading the main topic where you are calling me a liar and suggest my reputation sank to zero, while now you edited your post to completely remove that passage? THAT's smart ***.

btw did you notice the huge¡ number of community members commenting on this thread? Never mind, mission accomplished, you killed community which silently turned away from all this mess. Good luck with your elitist GA that gets appointed by a BoD which in turn is "elected" by that GA. I will be honestly amazed to find more members in GA than posts in this , any time. Which automatically moots my suggestion to limit the number of regular members in MCeV, alas it doesn't guarantee those members were willing to cooperate with the only true maemo community, rather that feeling like the new elite that now does everything different and better.
My condolences to the maemo community, probably it been inevitable you had to die.

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

chemist: come on man, is it really needed to put my words out of the context just for the sake of the fight? What are you fighting for with me?!? Read my post again, please http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...1&postcount=51. I was just stating what is my view of what options we have. Not necessarily the correct vision, but still.

So, me asking questions and trying to find a solution to the current state makes me joerg's puppet? Put yourself together, please.

Or it is because I was the one to tell you that you miserably failed with your role of being the maintainer of cssu-stable? Are you really angry on that still? Yes, you failed, and that is a fact in my book. No matter if that makes you angry or not. But that is completely irrelevant to the matter of the thread.

Anyway, I did my try to lower the "temperature" and to have some productive talk. Sure, I have failed. Is it me to blame or not does not matter, but for sure I won't participate in such kind of conversations again. Do as you think is right guys, wish you luck.

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

Quick message...
I do not understand anything about roles of these different organizations. And please, do not throw around references to previous state of things (because I do not understand it, either), such as "merge", "replace" or whatever. And do not attack other members, their personalities, or previous posts. This thread is becoming too long; a wiki page summarizing the information would be helpful.
Trying to say aloud what I know:
* HiFo is legal, non-profit organization based in USA.
* e.V. is legal organization going to be based in Germany. It has to have seven (or more) founders (EU residents) who will be ordinary members.
e.V. and HiFo could co-exist. Or e.V. could replace HiFo. Or HiFo could stay as it, without any e.V.
One stated problem was that HiFo's accounts are 'frozen' due to bank not accepting new board members. How is it going to be resolved?
About EU citizen-or-permanent-resident restriction... Just for that, I am going to look for a way to become EU citizen. Being a citizen of Finland would be brilliant :) But that's a long-term goal.
Block diagrams would be helpful. I can remember that there were some elections on Maemo.org in the past, but I cannot remember anything about them.
Best wishes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Per aspera ad astra...

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

Just one point, the E.V. is not a corporation, it's an "association". Think of a hobby club where the membership elects people to run the club.

In a corporation the employees can't tell the BoD what to do, rather the other way around (through the CEO/president.) HiFo was/is a corporation essentially (my understanding, I may be wrong there.) The EV is not. The membership ("General Assembly") runs the show completely.

It sounds like the MCeV is or will soon become a reality, so the issue lies around:

1. what the role of the CC is (and it sounds like it is currently much as it is now, and for now until or unless a referendum is conducted by the GA to change that). and

2. who makes up the GA (it's all maemo garage accounts right now?)

This is very melodramatic. Anyone who wants to be a member of the GA, could be, right? So anyone who wants to have a say in the community can quite easily do that. There's no "new elite", the GA makes the rules. Some people in the "community" may decide not to join the GA for whatever reason. They can contribute in other ways, or maybe don't care about elections, or any other topic that the GA may decide to vote on-that's up to them.

Also, the community won't die. I remember people thinking that when HiFo was formed. It didn't happen then, it won't happen now either. It might, maybe, be able to move forward on several fronts, one of which being given the rights to use some of Nokia's trademarks legally. Hopefully it will clarify responsibilities, liabilities, organizational structures, finances, etc...

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

That's not true. There is a clause that allowed the Foundation Council to call for a re-election of the Board. That was the "fail safe" put in, and the only power Council had over HiFo. That was also the reason the "two Council" needed to be merged, so that Council could exercise this power as needed.


That "idea" was in the head of exactly one person. HiFo was intended from the start to be a group that fulfilled the role of legally holding items and taking actions needed to continue operations. That included delegating roles for upkeep on things it's legally responsible for (like servers) and negotiation legal contracts with parties involved (IPHH, Nokia, and others).

The idea that it was nothing but a bank holder is frankly absurd on it's face.

Actually, they are basically the same thing. The only difference is that German law (correctly IMHO) separates NFP groups and LLC type corporations. In the US, all things are corporations, be that the neighborhood little league club or Microsoft.

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

A fine question, which sadly goes unanswered. I see no reason to limit the power of the GA.

Again, I think there is a misconception here.

When HiFo was put into place, there was a desire to make the transition as small as possible for the community. It was seen as a "good idea" at the time to leave the Council/Community system the way it was. But to have the same thing with HiFo/Community seemed unwieldy. Let's hold a referendum every time we want to take any action?

The compromise was to "split the bill", giving election rights for Board to the community, and a legal "reset button" to Council, while allowing HiFo to be rather autonomous. Legal matters and actions would be communicated between Council and the Board, but there was no direct "power" of one over the other.

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

Which is the problem. If you think you're going to have problems with people giving their names to be part of a body of people to vote on those with legal liability, where do you plan on finding a group willing to give their names and be legally liable for things, and have no say or control over what they're being held liable for?

It helps the community by keeping the lights on. There needs to be a legal entity to take responsibility for these items. That could be a single person, or an e.V., or a corporation. You may be able to pull off having servers dangling out there is space for a while, an even have illegal things going on (ala Silk Road). But we've seen time and time again where that ends, and it's never pretty.

Because there are other legal items that it needs to do. Filing tax forms, renewing trade marks, handling requests from governments and other companies.

Tell me: If someone in tech staff were to post something they thought was legal, and it turns out it was not (just randomly, lets say something like an Angry Birds app). When Rovio comes after those servers, it's not going to go after "the community" or "Council" or even "GA". It looks for the legal entity responsible for the servers and goes for them. And there is always someone legally liable. Minimally the company or individual providing internet access to the server if the "owner" can't be found.

As for TechStaff and sysops not doing something requested if they feel it's "bad for the community", that was the core of an argument about device images. Nokia claimed it's images were copyright and needed to be removed. TechStaff bulked at removing them (someone was claiming they were "all FOSS") and they were vital to community. Legally though, we had to remove them. Nokia was nice about looking the other way for months while we had that debate internally.

Who will put themselves in a position of being liable for that, while having only the job of "cashier", and no say in what's going on?

Which is exactly what HiFo is, with the exception that HiFo is elected by the masses, where the e.V. board would be elected by the GA (in this case Council) only. GA elects the Board, and can force a new election. That is it's main power. Council has that same power over HiFo, except that it must potentially give up it's own reign at the same time by calling joint elections.

True, but with a caveat. There will also be times that the Board gets legal requests for action from outside, and in those cases, it must have authority to take the actions needed to sustain the community legally. And while that may include consulting Council, at times there are legal limits on who one can tell about things as they are required to do. (Like contract negotiations, some court orders, etc.)

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

Understand, in most countries "real non-profits" are in fact corporations. This is the case in most of the English speaking world.

HiFo is, by law, a non-profit corporation. A corporation is one of the only "entities" besides a "natural person" that can legally hold rights and/or take legal actions. Even most townships and cities are "incorporated" for this purpose.

And things are not that different in Germany. In order to have signers on a bank account, they must all be present at a local bank to show ID and sign for that right. This is the same issue with HiFo trying to add other Board members: None are local enough to do this.

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

There been no changes whatsoever to the channel's flags, regardless of you suspectng them to be incorrect and later on you obviously found out that they work nonetheless for you. And "policy" is meant to refer to something completely different than channel flags, it's the "nettiquette" which I told you like every other member of techstaff about, which is about "24/7 logged in to admin channel". I am not calling you names.
admin channel access is controlled via invite-exempt list (/mode -I), in the very beginning it been based on access-list (/msg chanserv help access). You been on both lists from the time you first got invited into admin channel and showed up there. When you don't authenticate to nickserv, you can't get identified by neither of both lists and access cannot get granted. When your client tries to autojoin protected channels on client startup, before you authenrticated, then you'll run into trouble. Nothing a chanop could do about that, call that "refuse to fix" if you want.

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

I noted that Nokia claimed we were doing such, and was confused on how that could happen, as I knew we did not have domain control for maemo.org at that point, yet alone nokia.com.

For the record: Just being Board doesn't make one all-knowing. It's a good thing that Board members ask questions when they don't know answers to things, IMHO. As I did not fully understand what was happening, I turned to you, as a member of TechStaff, to find an explanation. If only the reverse were true, things would be very different now.

And yes, this was one situation where things were resolved rather quickly. Though it wasn't instant by any means. I recall a good amount of consternation and haggling before finding agreement on the needed action(s). I also recall a rather nasty back-lash in TMO the day after, being called out as "agreeing to be Nokia's watchdog", and "signing away rights we don't need to", because "everything, including images, were FOSS". Do you recall that?

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

The above is correct.

My understanding is that citizenship is needed only to be President, or Vice-Chair. GA members can be non-EU citizens, can they not? I honestly don't know... I'm asking.

This is mainly incorrect. The bank account was frozen after Rob's departure. That was fixed about a year ago, but is still in a tenuous state. The Board can draw funds as needed currently.

It's correct that we may be entering into a similar state in the near future due to the signing issue. Currently I am the only signer, and as such the only one with access. Unfortunately I am moving in the near future, and will not be able to maintain the account. At that time I'll need to close it and forward the check to an existing Board member. We will be in a similar (slightly better) state than we were after Rob left, as it will be a controlled hand-off. That date is fast approaching, FYI.

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

Theoretically yes, but meanwhile HiFo board decided to terminate itself and hand over all assets to MC eV.
MC e.V. and HiFo co-existing was a possible model where the eV would be a "Förderverein" only.

We thought it eventually would be doable for a regular bank to have signers accepted EU-wide for an account with reasonable fees + charges, but that's yet to be seen. Chemist is after it.

Yes, those 3 boardies signing at court have to be EU citizens or residents. But since board positions so far are unlimited, everybody may participate in addition.

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

Two.
There is no legal requirement to have a council in an eV.

Nobody is asking anyone to do anything illegal. Transitioning from "eV with council" to "eV without council" or any other kind of transition can be accomplished in a completely legal way, even if council or whatnot is mentioned in the bylaws. I'm sure you are aware of this.

And Nokia frowning (is that a legally binding term? what's the legal consequences of someone frowning over something?) over an eV without council... Is there a clause in any of the agreements with Nokia that states something to the effect of: "if you ever transition HiFo to a German eV, make sure there is a council installed in that eV, even if you see no need for a council!"
I don't think so.

If there was something mentioned in those agreements that requires a "council" and which board felt would need to be followed, there could be a 'working group' created within the community (NOT a body of the eV) called "council".

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

AHA!
10char

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

foobar, thanks for looking into things, exactly my knowledge as well.
Further info: german wiki-page

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

I saved most of my replies to Joerg into one post. Not to say it's not relevant the conversation, it is. But it's more rehashed correction than it is "new material".

Quite the ego you have there. A non-native speaker, telling a native speaker he doesn't understand the language.

Since we're speaking grammatically: You should say "of the English language". The "the" in this case is required, and skipping it is as offsetting to native speakers as interchanging der for ein would be in German. Also, names of languages are generally capitalized in English.

Again you use words incorrectly. I said I was one of three that took on the legal responsibility of crafting it, setting up the bylaws, and signing for the legal formation of it. Inventing implies I came up with the idea, which I did not. In fact, the community had discussed the possibility several times, long before I was involved.

And had I to do over again, no, I would not have done that final part. Not because I don't want to see Maemo continue. But because knowing the legal headaches and position of liability it has put me in, I would have simply avoided taking on a legal role.

I have e-mails from you, signed with your private key, threatening legal action against WinMac and myself. Are you now denying you did that? Would you allow me to publish the proof of that? You've burned yourself on this one before. Think before you answer.

This is one of my biggest gripes about you: You make agreements (or threats) in private, and then deny them in public (or in a smaller group). It's a common thread with you, which has replayed itself several times.

And when Chemist found a free alternative, and put that in place, you accused him of starting a coup. Do you recall mentioning that about 15 posts ago? Why was it "a coup"? If it was "just a service you were stopping", why would you be upset when someone else addressed that need?

Which is your problem. You see no linkage there, when there is in fact a legal requirement to have it. You want "command" without the liability. To do that, someone else must have liability without command. Good luck finding that.

Were you around for the term where Rob was sole Council? Or the one after that, where Council "did as it pleased" with CA, despite huge community uproar over it? There have been plenty of times where this exact scenario has been the case. To say it's not true, when it clearly has been true, and claim others have a "disconnect" with what Council is and is not seems... just like you, actually.


I agree that Council is there to advocate for the community, but no, it's not legally obligated to carry out the whims of the community. The community has called for Flash 10 on the N900 for ages. If enough people petition, should Council put that on the servers? No. There are levels of sanity and legality to consider here. Yet that's exactly what you ask of the Board: To obey and be legally obligated to carry out the whims of Council.

Council is exactly what most have claimed it to be: A focal point for the community to channel it's noise through to the entity in charge of legally maintaining and operating the "stuff". Nothing more, nothing less. It's not TechStaffs manager. It doesn't hire people at Nemein. It never controlled what Nokia did, or when/how it did it. It's largest product has been ego and hot-air, neither of which are in short supply now either.

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

excuse me when I stop reading on "Since we're speaking grammatically:". You boldly failed to get the point, and skimming the rest of your post it seems you don't ever get it.. We're NOT speaking "grammatically", it's you turning "A=B" into "A parrallel to B"
If my conception of "it's not like those, so it's X" meaning second "it's" referring to first "it's" and NOT to "those" or "apples" is incorrect, then sorry for my poor english.
Honestly, what do you tell your wife, when you talk to her? You already stopped beating her? (<-- this been a commonly used phrase when illustrating how to ask questions in a way that's not leading to a meaningful answer. You all the time do exactly this sneaky twisting of words. Or you take statements out of context and put them into a completely different, then go on tedious length about that false context and conclusions thereof. Lost you already? Hint: Estel: "you threatened to shut down servers" Me:"you are only copying woody's BS who has the copyright in that nonsense of me threatening anybody by anything [like shutting down servers], or just 'asking money for my services'." you:"ooh you liar! You did threaten! 9 years ago, you threatened me that I have to take the consequences of my illegal actions. I can PROVE that" Yeah, you can. Keep it, it's not been the question. Actually I didn't even make the statement you accuse me of it being a lie. I just said you have the copyright in that nonsense. and my "threat" stands and I repeat it publicly: when you spread lies that damage my professional reputation, I will take legal measures against that)
You started claiming "IT'S under gpl" (and insinuated that GPL was NOT FOSS). I said "no matter what IT'S been before, now IT'S xyz", you blamed me for saying "THEY are xyz" and corrected me on "THEY are _not_ xyz". In any school test you get a F for missing the topic - not for wrong grammar. (IT=midgard, THEY=servers).
Some monks or tora students learn that kind of rhetorical nonsensical debate, are you one of them? Anyway I thoroughly get bored by this absolutely futile silly argument.

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.
 

And as part of this productive talk, you quickly ignored the one-and-a-half A4 page post reply that I gave you, explaining why your idea of how organization should work is:

a) completely absurd in the context of law (any law, to be honest, not only german one - as woodie rightly stated)

b) based on wrong assumptions (inherited from joerg, apparently) about Council having any role governing Board, at any time in the past.

Sure, you might have not find my wording pleasant, but running from talk base don *arguments* - by replying only to post by chemist (unrelated to any of your ideas) isn't a mature way for having a "productive talk".

Personal sympathies doesn't have a s**t to do with it - I may not like your view/behavior on many things lately, but still I have spent n amount of time to write long reply to your post, as I *thought* that you're really trying to contribute productively to that discussion. In such case, it deserved answer, not being sunk in the surrounding constant spoiled-kiddo-joerg related bickering. Instead, you're pushing it into your personal arguments with chemist - like it would be more important than the serious matters at hand. Disappointing...

/Estel