Hello all,

Jaffa (Andrew Flegg), has asked me to provide some coverage and questions of the candidates for the upcoming Maemo Community Council election [1].

I am planning to hold some sort of text based 'debate' on my blog after close of nominations. With that in mind, I am opening up the brainstorm to any community member to propose a question for inclusion in this debate.

Please post your question for all candidates here in this thread. If I like it, I may include it in the set that the candidates will receive.

Some rules to follow:

1. Questions are for all candidates to answer. Please do not single out any one candidate with your question.

2. Please do not post replies within this thread that are not questions for the candidates. It simply makes it difficult for me to weed through 'discussions' to get at the questions. The only exception would be to ask for clarification on the process.

3. Please keep questions concise and polite.

Also, please note that this debate may not happen if all candidates are not willling to participate.

Thanks! Happy voting to the electorate; and happy campaigning to the candidates!!

[1] http://lists.maemo.org/pipermail/mae...ch/004129.html

[2] http://lists.maemo.org/pipermail/mae...ch/004133.html

So nobody has questions for the candidates?

OK - how about topic areas that should be covered. I can work questions around topics as well.

I have not heard from all candidates yet. But I am hoping to get questions out in the next 24 hours.

I've a few, will post them later today .

General topic 1 : Transition from Maemo to MeeGo community

Examples :

1) How do you see your (new ?) role in the MeeGo community ?
2) What can you do as a community council to ease the merge between both community ?
3) What should be the objectives of the MeeGo council ?
4) In your opinion, what should happen to Maemo.org after the merge ?
5) Do you see the usefulness of a MeeGo council ?

General Topic 2 : Growing the community

Examples :

1) How should the community welcome its new members ?
2) What can the council do to help the community grow ?
3) I am a developer. I have a busy life. Why should I choose the Maemo community over another OSS community ?

General topic 3 : Nokia and the council

Examples :

1) Do you believe Nokia is listening to the council ?
2) In your opinion, what kind of relationship/communication there should be between the council and Nokia ?

I will think of more later. I hope it will do for the time being.

Ack-- Mandor many of yours overlap with EIPI's questions. I think that's what he was hoping to avoid.

EDIT: sorry, many is too strong. Only a couple actually do, but there's commonality between question themes. Still, I don't mind answering and will a bit later.

Ha sorry ! This is the list right ? I still believe some of my questions were not covered (or I am again mistaken and should dig deeper ?)


Sprint process
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is the main organised point of contact between Nokia, the paid
contributors and the community, however the maemo.org sprint process
is quite heavy for volunteers and it often seems to be a checklist
affair; rather than a collaborative planning exercise.

1) Do you see any flaws in it, and how do you think it can be improved?

2) What are your thoughts on ongoing communication during the sprint?


MeeGo
~~~~~
MeeGo is, IMHO, the single biggest thing to happen to Maemo since the
770. In many ways, it's the opening up of the design processes that
many of us have wanted in Maemo for so long. As Maemo as an operating
system disappears, this will have a big effect on the community.

3) As we move from "day zero" to "day one", what do you think the
priorities for the MeeGo community should be?

4) Should leaders in the MeeGo community (whether from a Moblin or
Maemo background) try to move the existing communities with them to
form the MeeGo community; or should a new community form around the
operating system and its devices?

4a) If yes, what steps should be taken to prevent overreactions and
allegations of "take over" that happened when internettablettalk.com's
theme changed to match the rest of maemo.org?

4b) If no, how do you see the relationship between the Maemo community
which has been "left behind" and the MeeGo community? How does the
Maemo community stay vibrant if large portions on moving on to Maemo's
successor, or drifting away to other mobile platforms?

5) What are your thoughts about existing maemo.org resources (such as
Extras, auto-builder, Bugzilla) as Nokia, and the paid contributors,
look to the future?

Community
~~~~~~~~~
6) How can we encourage more, and higher quality, applications for
Maemo - and specifically through Extras?

Wrong list-- that's Jaffa's. EIPI's went out to the community mailing list; I haven't seen it replicated here so I'm pasting below:

1. What is motivating you to run for Maemo Community Council?

2. Effective Council representation requires a commitment of
significant time and energy on your part. How are you planning to
fulfill your Council duties, while maintaining all your other
personal, professional and/or academic responsibilities.

3. The current Council has been criticized for lack of formal
communication on their activities. What formal methods and frequency
of communication do you believe are appropriate? Should all Council
members share this responsibility or only a select few?

4. The Maemo community has grown large, especially since the
introduction of the N900. With that, the issues the Community is
facing has grown in stride. Presently, there has been no formal
division within the Council, other than identification of a
Chairperson. Should members of the Council have roles or portfolios?
If yes, what portfolios are large enough to warrant a Council member
to devote a majority of their time to them?

5. Current terms are 6 months. Is this sufficient time for having
impact, or is it too short or too long?

6. The Council is privy to certain knowledge that a normal community
member is not. For you to function in your role, this is
understandable. However, the situation may arise where a subset of the
Council may be made privy to some knowledge, as happened recently with
the MeeGo announcement. Do you agree with Nokia's decision, or do you
think the entire Council should have been given the same information
at the same time, and under the same restrictions?

7. It seems that this term of the Maemo Community Council will be a
busy one with MeeGo unfolding, possibly a new device rolling out of
Finland, and of course, organization of the annual Summit. What
priorities do you think the Council should keep during this term?

8. There are many strong candidates running in this election. Some
have had open disagreements with each other in the past. How do you
propose to overcome such interpersonal differences while carrying out
your Council duties?

9. Previous Councils have put together proposals for new resources or
improving existing community resources. An example of this is the
creation of the role of Distmaster. What resources would you propose
requiring improvement, and why? What new resources would you champion
if elected?

10. MeeGo is our future. The future is unfortunately unclear at the
moment. The Maemo Community requires strong leadership at this time.
Can you provide a summary of your leadership style? What do you think
the Council's challenges will be with respect to MeeGo in the coming 6
months, and how are you planning on addressing them?

Actually, my questions went only to candidates last night. But having them here is cool.

Sorry EIPI, I didn't think that would be an issue. I was just trying to keep this a bit organized and was worried about getting hit with a lot of duplicates. But I should have consulted with you first.

No, that's fine. Better to be open and avoid duplicates. I should have thought of that myself .