Happy New Year Maemo Community!

As we move into the new year, we’re also faced with a very new phase of life — that is, complete control of the maemo.org infrastructure, meaning community governance of the Maemo Community and everything that it implies (community servers and software repositories, various maemo-related software and technology, the talk.maemo.org forum and wiki, etc.). It’s a lot to fathom, but we are certain that if any community can handle it, this one can.

Fundraising

Likewise, most of you know that the new changes require that we, as a community, foot the bill for all of these new responsibilities. Late last year, we began a fundraising drive that began on TMO and then received a permanent home at http://hildonfoundation.org/support/. If you haven’t donated yet, please consider it. You may donate any amount. Just keep in mind that you money really matters — it is what will help to keep this community alive and functioning.

Volunteers

Now, more than ever, we need your help. We need those who can donate to donate, of course. But, we also a need a President and others with advanced business-related skills such as accounting, marketing, public relations, and social media, just to mention just a few. We especially need those who can manage the technical infrastructure to step up and volunteer. There are many new ways you can now contribute even if you are not a software developer or engineer.

Sponsorship

Speaking of money, it is one of the reasons why we are asking for your ear — and cooperation — again. In the coming weeks, we are going to be asking a number of open source companies and projects to also consider sponsoring the Maemo cause. During the past eight years, Maemo has done more for open source than just housing a niche mobile OS. If you think about it, technologies such as Linux, Debian, GNOME, Qt, Mozilla (and a whole lot more) have all benefited from both downstream and upstream support and enhancements due to this community. Similarly, that corporations and technology of all sorts can flourish with the support of open source advocates. And, if you didn’t know this already, the Maemo Community has become one of the largest open source communities in the world, currently standing at approximately 60,000 members, 5,000 of you being active participants in some way or another.

So who are some good candidates who might sponsor Maemo?

As stated, there are several initiatives whom we might approach. But, these decisions shouldn’t just be made by the Hildon Foundation or the Maemo Community Council. They should be made by you — active, participating Maemo Community members — as well. Do you have any ideas? Are you in a position where you can help us contact someone you know or work with? Please let us know.

Open Communication

One of the things that the Hildon Foundation will attempt to do (when practical) is keep communications relating to possible community sponsorship in the open. So, keep this in mind when giving us your suggestions. We will have a standard, unified letter drafted soon in which we can send to any potential sponsors — and the community at large. Hopefully, this will help to create a cohesive conversation about our community in which every voice is heard.

Jolla

One obvious candidate that we are going to contact is Jolla. Not only does Jolla find its roots in the history of Maemo, but many of the people who started Jolla come from this community and from Nokia. You will see our correspondence with them soon.

In Conclusion

Please consider helping in any way. If you have the means to donate, do so. If you know people in the open source world who could help us, please connect us. If you’ve never known how to participate in the Maemo Community before, please let this be the time when you join us. Our community is important. Help us to keep it strong.

Thank you,
The Hildon Foundation

Thanks for the information and may the Hildon Foundation leads this community to the big win

( Long-wall posters should learn from the 1st post how to write, i never got bored reading it. )

Happy New Year to the board. Wish you all well, etc.

In the meanwhile may we change a little bit the subject from "money and Jolla" to "what is going on with the migration".

From letters flying over the mailing lists, posts on TMO, IRC chat, etc, what I understood so far is:

1. Board is out of touch with Nokia - it is unclear who and when will change DNS records to point to the new servers. That prevents Nemein from switching to "community owned" servers and keeps all the infra (wiki, autobuilder, etc) in a "frozen" state.

2. It is unclear (to me at least) what Maemo/Harmattan repos and when will be available for distribution by HF/Maemo community. The same for SDK images, firmware images, the rest. The status of negotiations is also unclear.

3. It is not clear who will administer and/or have access to autobuilder and repos. Offline mode (we're in now) of backup servers could be used to setup user accounts/groups/whatever of the community members who'll take over that task from Nemein once migration is done.

4. Jolla (again) - frankly, I don't get board's fixation on Jolla, but it could be just me. Can someone enlighten the community what is negotiated with them so far (if anything). Are there any contracts signed between the board and Jolla?

I would appreciate if someone from the board elaborate on the above topics. Time is running as we speak.

Board has been in touch with Nokia. The two Nokia contacts have been out for the holidays and their email auto-reply says they won't be back until Jan 7. Not much we can do about that. Nemein was authorized by Nokia in late November to order servers for Hildon Foundation. For whatever reason, Nemein doesn't have them installed yet. You should contact Maemo Council for technical details of migration of the maemo.org infrastructure. Please be patient as they are not experts like Niels was.

Nokia wants to only transfer maemo, not Harmattan (remember that when N9 was released, Nokia decided to not have it as part of maemo.org). We have asked Nokia to reconsider and to include Harmattan. Currently waiting for Nokia.

They sent us an agreement. We marked it up and sent it back. It is our understanding that someone contacted Stephen Elop directly about maemo, and an executive responded on his behalf. The next agreement we got back after that was less favorable in some respects than the first two. In particular, software development and distribution tools have become an issue. Currently, waiting for Nokia to sort this out. I don't want to say much more because it is a hard negotiation.

That is to be decided by Maemo Council, with approval and oversight by the Board.

The Community had the interest we thought. Personally, I haven't seen enough yet to be persuaded that the Jolla phone is going to be more open than N900 or N9. But we'll see. Nothing has been negotiated and no contracts have been signed. Speaking just for myself, I am aware of how Nokia said that maemo was open, and it mostly was, but there were enough closed source components to make hard to continue. Back then, we had no choice, but now we do. I want to avoid getting fooled again with Jolla in the same way. Haven't seen any open code yet except all the good stuff that is in Mer and Nemo.

I would appreciate if this could be continued on the mailing list if you have more questions so that I can be sure to see them.

The big difference IMO between Jolla and Nokia is that Nokia (intentionally or not) tangled open with closed beyond any hope of untangling. Up to now it is impossible to run maemo on any non-nokia device. Jolla may have a completely closed UI layer and apps, (or they may not, I'm not implying anything), but that doesn't obstruct mer and nemo from working by themselves. Because touchwiz or htc sense are closed, this doesn't mean that cyanogen can't do great things with android, and put it on all kinds of devices never meant to run android.

I like to make a tiny finance support but concern what is simple but spreading method. I would think it is to buy an app owned by Hildon on ovi store. Pls think about this and revert to us. I used N9.tks and Happy New Year to our heroes!