I thought that six months minimum notice is what was promised, but is a promise really a promise when no one expects it to be kept?

I bought an Android tablet about two weeks before the company shut down its only site. (Entourage)

We are not going to get licence to host/redistribute binary blobs. Not sure if that includes flasher, but at least we have 0xffff as an alternative.

I strongly recommend everyone to keep a local backup of any firmware images they care about at least.

Those should be fairly easy to mirror (maybe it's already being done?) but we can't touch the non-free components as above.

AFAICT the licences are CC and GNU FDL so we should be OK (but of course that should be reviewed on a case by case basis to be sure). It would be useful if we could get a regular dump of the wiki though.

I think those are already being mirrored elsewhere, and if not it's trivial to do so.

Should be easy to migrate with a bit of cooperation from the current list admins. Worst case, we set up the new lists and post to the old ones inviting people to subscribe manually.

Some version control system and bugtracker for developers would still be useful I think.

Hm, not sure I like hacking DNS resolution in such a way, or even if it's feasible. Configuration files/gconf keys etc can be changed to point to the new domain of course.

But what about users who are not using CSSU for whatever reasons and devices that can't (ie, anything before Diablo)?

I suspect the vast majority are not even aware of it (or possibly even maemo.org) so willingness is not a factor. It's possibly valid to say that they are Nokia's problem, but Nokia isn't going to care and if we can avoid pulling the rug from underneath them why not?

This would be a good reason, if we can't afford to serve everyone. But I'd like to know that first before making any decisions.

What do you think for an update through some existing package which is installed on every n900, that will place a shortcut on the desktop pointing to CSSU-stable installer or wiki page? That way we can inform those who are unaware of CSSU there is someone who still cares and supports the system.

Just read this whole thread and it's obvious qgil and Kate are stuck in the middle between a company that is seemingly riding rough-shod over all and sundry and plenty of community members that are requiring immediate answers to their questions.

I think they are both doing what they can, given their present positions at Nokia, and maybe we should all give them a chance to release what info they may have when they have it and know it to be concrete.

There are plenty of 'me,me,me' posts here which could be best answered with 'how longs a piece of string?' yet members are still persisting.

At the end of the day we will still only know the situation when we know it - just as with PR1.3

Patience is a virtue.

Thanks and good luck to qgil and Kate, wherever your paths may lead.

Post #71 was a breath of fresh air to me

That would require a Nokia SSU. Good luck convincing Nokia to a) publish one b) include your code in it and c) direct users to a non-"certified" repository for system updates.

maemo-extras should pretty enough, there are enough packages there that could be used for the purpose.

Your post just about explains this community as it stands right now because it is full of know it all's who either want to dictate or think they know better then every one else and people who think they can say what they want, offend in any way they want and abuse there positions.
This community started off well with all the best intentions but then Nokia has gotten in the way practically from day one because the much needed source has never been given to this community called Maemo.org.

Maemo right now is a basic not much better than the day it was updated to 1.3 simply because of lack of source permissions and legalities who no one seems to be able to sort out including qgil i might add.

I agree with you entirely on Kate's magical post #71 because for once someone came on here linked to Nokia and said clear to the point without any guessing the way it is and i am sorry to say this as i have said before but qgil has always but always talked riddles and never got anywhere because obviously of Nokia not giving where they should have.

Even if and when this community has a new home on the web the situation with Maemo will remain the same as it ever was unless Nokia are willing to give everything needed to further progression on Maemo.

I get shouted down on here but i tell you i am right in that without the needed source and permissions for Maemo and Meego it simply is not going to happen, Maemo could easily be taken further and beyond the N900 if Nokia are prepared to give what is essentially needed for this to be able to happen.

I will quote once more what stskeeps said to me on this very community "yes i have all the source for Maemo and Meego but i can not release it for legal reasons" THERE is your problem OK for what ever reasons he said that.

Get back to fundamentals and realise where we are all going even when a new place is found and is all shifted without any more support from Nokia, this is on the cards 100% and i am sorry to say but the way it is going it is all doomed to end simply because there are far too many problems at source level from Nokia.

Am sick of people pushing there weight about on here when at the end of it all unless people realise that without Nokia to play ball with this community by the release of everything required then it is and always will be a shambles.

I started the thread about getting Nokia to release the source code for Maemo and it has been arguments after arguments ever since when what is needed is exactly THAT the complete release to this community, now how many times do i have to tell you lot before you all realise what is going on, what is going to happen and what will never happen without this.

Remember one thing here, the arguments will never end until the tools for progression is there for everyone to use and no doubt now we will have a repeat of old, what about this what about that what about legalities etc etc.

This is a community lost in its own cause because of the vital components that is stopping progression, you all need to realise this and go in the right direction to get this mess sorted out otherwise Maemo Meego or anything else is going no where but as it is right now and in my opinion not much further than PR1.3 of Maemo that was put together WITH source by Nokia engineers so if you want to progress any further than that then you must get back to fundamentals and get this sorted out.

Nokia has completely stopped work forever on Maemo and Meego and is on the verge of collapse please remember this and think ok.

If we can't redistribute the original firmware than a flasher is for most users kinda useless (not everyone flashes a different OS or kernel to the device).

Maybe we could make a wiki page on how to backup all non-redistributable files? Maybe even a script that can do that automatically?
I could very easily make a script that downloads all firmware images automatically requiring only your WLAN id as input for example.

I also think is should be easy enough to make the N900 and the N900 scratchbox targets point to a local repository instead of a remote Nokia repo for the nokia binary files.
On the N9 I don't know if it is that easy because of aegis when installing packages.

Making a modified scratchbox Maemo 5 SDK install script that uses a local repo should also be relatively easy.

I believe you can also add a different location to the QtSDK maintenance program, so you could host the Maemo and meeGo targets and emulators yourself. But maybe it would be better to make a very big offline installer that includes all latest maemo and meego files. Anyone know how to make a QtSDK installer with different parts from the update/maintenance tool?

The best start would be a wiki page with a list of all files related to maemo/meego that Nokia currently hosts that we are not allowed to redistribute.

Just for clarification, there are three topics mixed in some posts of this thread that belong to different baskets:

- Funding the maemo.org server maintenance. The topic discussed here. Kate and I keep working.

- Keeping the *.nokia.com repositories and downloads for N900, N9, etc. This is related to the products life cycle, customer care, guarantees, etc.

- Opening Fremantle / Harmattan Nokia proprietary source code. It´s not going to happen. As discussed previously, and in the current context it is even more complicated.

Back to the maemo.org funding, Kate has been doing progress with the budget owner and is in talks with Nemein to see what can be done with the budget available. The idea is to share details with the Council as soon as we have a budget confirmed and a draft proposal of what to do with it.

Is it official yet or what's going on in this thread?