Because all papers have to be filed in german language to authorities. It'd be quite a mess to go the other way round and have an english articles of incorporation and then make it comply to german requirements/typical language.

Comments and ideas are still welcome here.

edit: misiak beat me...

And for clarity, by german law

• any EU citizen or resident can be founding member
• any EU resident can be director

The founding members have to vote for the directors on the initial founding meeting. We just want to make sure to
a) have a stable core staff of HiFo who don't completely change each year.
b) keep logistical problems minimal, some signatures on some documents need notary approval and have to be paper-mailed.

Disclaimer(again): I'll be a happy founder, but not available as a director. I know there are others who can do much better.

We did this in forming the original Foundation by having the three founders agree that they would abide by the decision of the community and vote for the directors chosen by a general election. A similar setup to retain the existing directors (or by holding an election) would seem reasonable.

This is a tougher one to do while staying true to the idea of community elections for Board. The closest I have come up with is as follows (which I though of well after existing bylaws were in place):

Each Board position is for a two year term.
Elections are held each year for new board members.

This sets up a ladder of overlapping members, where about half of them are stepping down or are up for an election at any given time (one would hope). Not at all fool proof, but it's an idea.


If you can pull off actually getting an e.V. started, it shows you're more than capable of being a Board member. I hope when that moment comes you reconsider.

It does just one task more than Treasurer, in that it is also a key holder. It holds the responsibility to ensure continued operation of the systems running on the communities behalf. (Not to administer directly, but to be sure things are being administered.) It also holds any legal rights and responsibilities that the community simply can not, since the community is not recognizable as a legal entity. (That includes things like having a bank account, paying bills, signing agreements or operational contracts, doing any tax paperwork needed to exist, etc.)

Otherwise HiFo should be (and has been) intentionally not directly involved in day-to-day operations. Those tasks are mainly handled by techstaff and council, with HiFo only stepping in when asked or when it is legally necessary to do so. Currently there are some overlapping members, where some are Directors and techstaff. But one is not, and should never be, a requirement of the other.

I'm starting to wonder if community needs any such entity, after all. Being the FOSS project maemo is, we effectively didn't need HiFo for a whole year now, and it gave us much PITA and nothing else during that year.
What exactly can maemo community expect HiFo will do for the community in future, once the whole mess got sorted and turned into the exact opposite of what it been so far - except somehow handling the already donated funds which we also had to make a living without them for the last year?

Just as a recap, in theory HiFo was established as an entity that Nokia could transfer intelectual property to. E.g. limited *legal* use of firmware, and binaries needed to keep autobuilder running. In addition *legal* use of the name maemo.org (but not necessarily Maemo). the thought was maemo.org (especially the autobuilder) would be paid for by the locked up funds. As I understand it, currently maemo.org is being run free for a year as a gracious favor.

But you know that already. So I'm guessing what you are really asking is "is it realistic to assume we'll ever actually get ownership of maemo.org actually transfered and ditto for the firmware/ stuff needed for the autobuilder.

Speaking as just another general citizen of the community, someone NOT involved with ANY communication with Nokia, I'm pessimistic. On the maemo.org front, it can stay up as long as someone pays the bills, and once that stops I'd imagine we could buy the right to the name when it becomes available. The important thing is to have an update to date copy of maemo.org. As for the binaries, they're being used by Mer/Sailfish for N9 project but cannot be redistributed.

If maemo goes poof, it would depend on whether MS bought those binaries from Nokia and whether they see Maemo as some kind of threat/possible source of revenue. if they think it's worthless, they likely wouldn't bother with a C&D order. If they begin treating it like Android, then we'd have to negotiate for a license. Again speaking completely out of my ***, I just don't see Nokia caring past a certain point. They may not officially allow it, but I just don't see them wasting time on preventing it.

But what do I know, HP managed to get Qualcomm to pay money for what's left of the IP assets related to Palm that HP had acquired.

Almost as much or as little as I (don't) know, and you came to exactly same conclusions as I. Well, it's not about paying for the maemo.org domain, but that's basically irrelevant. Also not really relevant that usage of the non-distributabe stuff for autobuilder (if there even exists such stuff, which I doubt) is not revokable.
The question is: what can we expect HiFo to achieve for community - mainly regarding the topics you targeted. The little bit more I know from hearsay out of sekrit HiFo board negotiation circle makes me think that we most likely won't win anything we really need, but may lose quite a bit of what we already got, when signing any such contract with Nokia (something I doubt will happen anyway, since Nokia already gone poof and gave us a last order call for end of 2013). From my point of view it looks like Nokia is just trying to cover their a** by negotiating a contract with maemo at large that offers use of maemo.org only when we don't use maemo.org to e.g. host CSSU, something that Nokia themselves installed a few months ago and deliberately and explicitly fostered the project. I doubt they could legally "convince" us to shut down CSSU repos unless HiFo signs a contract that appreciates such obligation. What we gain in turn? A domain name and nothing else, aiui. Since nothing else in maemo at large that we use / provide right now is owned by Nokia, and quite obviously Nokia is definitely not willing to allow us to continue what they already stopped: provide the fiasco images and flasher. And it's up to anybody's guess when they will stop/shutdown the Nokia fremantle core repos, but once they do we for sure can't provide those either. Heck we can't right now, since Nokia isn't able to update their signature key that expired, despite much help from community on finding a way Nokia could fix this issue.
So again: what will we gain in turn? I'm not sure I'm willing to sacrifice CSSU for http://maemo.org DNS admin-c changing from "Nokia" to "HiFo". Rather I move the complete content of maemo.org to arbitrary other domain and if needed even other servers (yes we still *have* backups of that). The impact would be that every maemo device owner had to edit the URL in her HAM-catalogs, and all our google hits would point to /dev/null (we probably can edit the internal crossrefs of the site). And legally I couldn't move user database when HiFo doesn't agree, sinct that's no publicly accessable data and thus actually "owned by maemo-owner". TMO is a separate case and would need separate evaluation of what's not possible, since Nokia never owned TMO and thus it's clearly and 100% owned by HiFo already. When HiFo would sign a contract that includes an obligation to remove certain subfora from TMO, then community at large resp your council and techstaff can't do anything about that, TMO is hardly copy-able, only archivable.
I wish HiFo board would understand that community needs to know what HiFo tries to achieve and plans to sign regarding Nokia.

cheers
jOERG

maemo is not a FOSS project. It's is a commercial product with a number of FOSS elements interwoven. Nokia handing out a copy of third party binaries under EULA to people who purchased an N900 does not make it FOSS. They didn't just hand it all out to anyone wanting to run this on their ARM device. If all it took were this action to make something FOSS then MSOffice can be consider FOSS, as it's being "handed out" to those buying MS hardware, like the Surface. Windows8 is FOSS for that matter too, right? You can download drivers and updates for free off their site... all FOSS.

Keeping the lights on for one. The servers and software running on them were donated by Nokia to HiFo to carry on the community. Their continued operation, without interference from Nokia, has been contingent on closing on-going business with them. Do you honestly think that if that business is not resolved before HiFo or Nokia "goes away" that Nokia itself won't send a C&D to IPHH within a week? MS wouldn't even need to be involved...

FWIW: MS did not "buy" Nokia. It bought certain IP and divisions of Nokia. Nokia, as a company, is not going away. And even if it's not in the field they own any more, they will go after anything that could tarnish their brand. (And if the IP is part of what MS bought, they'd go after this in a heartbeat.)

Actually, no. Many of the closed source binaries in maemo are actually pass-throughs. Meaning that at least part of them belongs to a 3rd party. Consider the flash plugin, for example. If Adobe found there was a version being distributed from a large static site do you think they would ignore it? Would Nokia have to even be involved?

But Nokia does care. The fact that they're taking as long as they are on this is because of the way things like copyright and trademark work. In some countries if you don't enforce your trademark, you can lose it. Same with copyright. And again, this isn't just something they own. There are lots of 3rd party bits thrown into the mix, which opens up potential legal issues for them. Ignoring that is not something they're likely to do.

At a minimum companies try to hold anything they can if they think it could make them money down the road. If that means taking it to the grave with them, it's really no loss to them. There are lots of dead OSs, tools, gadgets and programs already in that bucket to prove this. Add the potential liability of 3rd party contracts to the mix, and even without MS involvement I could see Nokia holding maemo on it's way to the grave. (Besides, who wouldn't prefer maemo running as an interface on their web-enabled TV instead of WebOS?)

Note the key phrase there: aiui. Just after saying:

Whole continents drew the conclusion that the sun and moon orbited the earth because they lacked key observations or information about the nature of the universe. Two people without knowledge on a topic drawing the same conclusion does not mean that conclusion is correct.

Really? You have a contract stating that? I know I don't.

X-Fade was quite concerned when migrating and handing over said auto-builder, since to his knowledge it did contain non-distributables.

If those are still in there, and Nokia demands their removal, what do you plan to do? Start them on another server? With what funds? At what hosting site? Do you expect Nokia won't go after someone doing that? How much are you willing to be on that? Just Maemo.org? The Neo900 project? Your flat? Your retirement savings?

Who's using scare tactics now? You say you know nothing about it (clear from your ranting here), and then spread your "what if" FUD to whip up a frenzy and make people worried about HiFo potentially "might sign away" in a contract.

Should I threaten legal action against you for spreading such FUD? Hypocrite.

I wish you had the business sensibility to know that any time companies negotiate contracts they generally can not discuss them with the general public. In most cases revelation that discussions are even going on is forbidden. Release of any details is usually done strictly on a need to know basis to limit legal liability. Meaning if your *** isn't on the line to get sued for things you don't get to know every detail.

This is why the community was asked to consider carefully about who they elected to the Board. It was also the reason those running for positions get a long speech about what it means to be a Board member, and the legal implications of doing so. If you wanted to know details that damn bad, you should have run for a position.

Instead, you now spread your crazy imaginings across the community, poisoning the very well you drink from. All the while threatening others when you perceive the same being done to you. Double hypocrite.

Moderators: Feel free to give me points or ban me if you feel the need, but this needed to be said. The continued pounding of the irrational made up FUD drums serves no purpose but to destroy this community, and I frankly tired of it.

PS: You can cancel my Neo900 vote. If the last month or so shows any indication of your business sense, that project was pretty much doomed from the start.

TL;DR
sorry I don't feel like reading the rest after this futile effort of sarkasm.
To the best of my knowledge there's not a single piece of Nokia-(C) non-public code shared on maemo.org, and the maemo.org site says "all content CC-BY-SA" though it adds a standard disclaimer of Nokia that states that proprietary material of nokia on that site is property of Nokia - just that there is no such material anywhere on maemo.org (btw it seems Nokia asked HiFo to remove that NOKIA licence together with several other mentioning of Nokia, quite some time ago). Neither your bitching nor Nokia on their nokia.com site offering closed blob drivers for a FOSS-by-definition linux system is changing that fact or turns maemo at large into nokia's property.
I could start turning your pathetic sarkasm into the exact opposite direction, elaborating about manufacturers of routers or settop-boxes who thought Linux turns into their property just because with their pirated Linux system they shipped one or two binaries they maybe developed themselves (and which undoubtly is owned by them irrespectively of the rest of this case). But I don't feel like copying that style. So it's just: Sorry, Maemo at large is still linux and GPL and thus FOSS, and for sure the complete maemo.org website is not proprietary and consists of only FOSS and CC-BY-SA material, except the domain name itself.
I may copy *.maemo.org as long and to any extent I want, I may distribute and share it, and neither Nokia nor Microsoft or even you will find a law that says otherwise.
If you do, please let me know before you waste your or my money for a lawsuit.


(Oh, and I thought x-fade didn't participate in migration at all. I was rather close to migration and I didn't see much of those concerns mentioned by x-fade, tbh I didn't see him at all. Also it doesn't really make sense to me, considering that it's been NOKIA who ordered the migration and helped shipping the hardware)
No, I won't. Just like I won't delete apache from the server or any of my own PCs when apache the inc suddenly requests to remove it since they don't like me to use it any longer. The stuff been shared to use it and the permission to use it can't get revoked. No matter if that's on my N900 or on autobuilder.
And then the next point: please show me which of those binaries on autobuilder we actually share! There's 3 problems you'll face: 1. there probably aren't any, 2. you have a hard time to find them and ask me to remove them, since 3. WE DONT SHARE THEM, they are just USED in autobuilder (though they actually don't exist)

So who's the one with no knowledge? You or me and jcharpak? When the latter than whose fault is it that we don't know what HiFo plans?

Maybe not. but that's irrelevant since: check where you might find any such flash plugin! For sure not on maemo.org.

Hardly the software since, as elaborated above, all software on maemo.org is FOSS. The only commercial or proprietary piece of software we use and own is vBulletin running this forum, and that evidently not been donated by Nokia. Maybe when you would not wear your hate-cap, you could see why I'm very concerned about your negotiations with Nokia.

If that means you think that maemo could get shut down completely by Nokia, either by them not providing support or by not "allowing us to continue", then that's just one more argument in line with last one for my concern. I'm afraid HiFo could feel the urge to sign whatever Nokia asks for, just to avoid such anticipated doom pending when you don't.
A C&D to IPHH? Hardly, since IPHH has nothing to do with all this. (blaming me about scare tactics and spreading FUD, eh?) I actually can't see the C&D getting sent to anybody, since there simply is nothing wrong with maemo.org that they could ask us to cease. Actually even the DNS is owned by Nokia, so they hardly can blame us for it pointing to wherever it does point to. And that DNS (aka domain, aka "maemo.org") is the only thing they can "donate" to us - except all the binaries we don't have and never will get.
Again, when you know of any (C)-Nokia binary on maemo.org then I think you as HiFo would be obliged to rise your concerns to techstaff so we can find a solution, either by removing it or by negotiating with Nokia about the conditions under which we may use it. When Nokia tells you "software on maemo.org got donated by us, so now we rule what of that software you may continue to use and what you have to delete" then I think it would be a pretty good idea to also contact techstaff and maybe even community and ask about this. This doesn't mean you need to disclose anything about the contract you're negotiating, but nobody expects that you or anybody in a similar situation knows each little detail about maemo (or generally the subject negotiated) and could do such negotiations without referring with your experts. That's something you should know from general way how business in industry is done.

I'm really puzzled what madness Nokia(?) managed to plant into some minds. :-S

/j

Are you really asking me to post internal mail between HiFo and council, from you and win7mac?
If you honestly insist, i'm willing to do. Just to prove WHO is going scare tactics here and hypocritical.
I already offered it in one of my last mails to take the whole topic to public. I didn't yet since I felt it's in *your* best interest I don't.
[edit] since i heard you stepped down from any position in HiFo, it's maybe just in win7mac's best interest I don't publish those mails. And I'd hope you guys at HiFo would take my "rant" here as the honest concern it is, about nobody but HiFo knowing what's going on and OTOH your posts above once more showing off that there might be a massive dangerous misconception in HiFo about status of maemo.org content. And I hoped you would use the occasion to internally straighten a few things and maybe even reach out for proper info from those who obviously know better than some of you seem to do (not necessarily me, there's a huge community to ask "are there any (C)-Nokia bits on maemo.org?"), instead of resorting to assumptions and diplomacy behind closed doors.