@stezz, IMO you're misinterpreting joerg's rough style. That post wasn't meant to scare you out in a "you'll fail" kind of way, but rather welcome you here and save you the effort of trying to gather a community which is actually as hard as he describes. Many other forums exist, very very few of them are actually as tight as a community as this one.

It's like trying to create an ecosystem, a forest. (literal use of the word ecosystem) I'm certain there are man-made ecosystems in labs and parks, but you can't create the amazon rainforest. It is just naturally formed because of the conditions there. The conditions here created a vibrant community, which as Joerg said, even Nokia recognized and welcomed into the maemo world. We're inviting you to do the same.

When you have this kind of support, it's a shame to drop it and go elsewhere. Of course it is possible to build another community, but because it is a challenge, it doesn't mean you actually have to do it :-)

I also think that being independent gives this place a special something, and that's the reason we are still here after nokia left the building, and now we get to have maybe for the first time ever, two devices to call our own at the same time.

The maemo community council does all it's discussions in the open in the logged channel #maemo-meeting over at freenode, so the one does not exclude the other. It just might facilitate technical discussions about branding, CNAMES and whatnot.