===

A publicly available blog post from the Hildon Foundation, which
contains the exact text found below, can be found at:

http://hildonfoundation.org/open-let...tion-to-jolla/

===

Dear Jolla,

Happy New Year! And, congratulations on your successful launch in
November. We were all watching in hopeful anticipation and were
pleasantly surprised. You are doing things that many of us never thought
possible.

Like Jolla's open ecosystem, Hildon Foundation has also been born as the
only fully incorporated, non-profit organization with a mission to
promote open source software derived from Maemo. So, naturally, it makes
sense that our organizations should cooperate with each other.
Hopefully, you won't mind that we're publishing this as an "open letter"
on our blog (http://hildonfoundation.org/open-let...tion-to-jolla/)
in the hopes that a greater community dialog will occur. If you would
like us to conduct any of our conversations privately, just let us know.

As some of you are aware, the Hildon Foundation finds itself in quite a
difficult spot at this new year with the impending departure of Nokia.
Not only are we gaining full control of the maemo.org infrastructure
(housing, developing, and supporting related open source software), and
receiving pleas from N9/950 users who need a new space for community and
support, but we are also taking over all financial responsibilities.
Thankfully, after our initial fundraising effort, we have received over
$2,000.00 US from our gracious community members. But, we need more.

In fact, we are now in the process of finding willing sponsors of all
types to help fund our open software ecosystem. This is why we're
writing to you. We would like you to consider sponsoring or working with
Hildon Foundation in some way. In particular, we would also like to open
the community venue for Sailfish OS.

In our eyes, it would be hard to deny that the Hildon Foundation would
be a beneficial advocate for Jolla. Jolla is special to us. In essence,
you are Maemo's sister. And, in all honesty, we would like to support
you. In fact, we have been quite supportive to many projects and
initiatives over the years based on these "gifts" (both downstream and
upstream).

Some examples of the work that has been done over the past years include:

* Very intensive Google Summer of Code application development
* Three successful Coding Competitions
* Extensive progress in CSSU development
* Over 100 million software downloads
* Unified development efforts for much open source software (Linux,
Mozilla, Debian, etc.)
* An Extras repository full of QA tested community applications
* Crowd-sourced brainstorming of all types
* Major global conferences (under Nokia's sponsorship)
* Developer Device programs
* Local meetups and hackfests
* General community evangelism
* Etc.

Still, the track record doesn't address the current challenges or pay
the bills. We would welcome discussion about a relationship between our
organizations... If anything, we would like to form a friendship. If
Jolla would be willing to become a sponsor and aid us in promoting the
open source software aspects of Jolla and Sailfish -- or, possibly even
foot the bill -- we would offer valuable community support to Jolla. In
fact, we see a huge possibility of the Hildon Foundation becoming a part
of the Jolla ecosystem or Sailfish Alliance itself.

Thank you for considering this suggestion of formal cooperation.
Regardless of the outcome, we wish Jolla nothing but success, for this
year and for the unforeseeable future.

Best Regards,
The Hildon Foundation

--
http://hildonfoundation.org

The link has somehow being shortened (has "..." replacing a part of the URL) and is thus invalid. This is also present on the hildonfoundation.org website.

I'd be interested to know what sort of program/process destroys links in this manner.

Full link:

http://hildonfoundation.org/open-let...tion-to-jolla/

And, fixed above... Hmmm...?

Thanks for letting me know.

Tim

Finally, Good work to all that worked with that!

Very well formulated letter, though I'm not thrilled by their response. It's basically just empty phrases and I'm getting very weary (and wary) of their constant marketing speak (let's be unlike, together, blabla).

Where's their response, why is it not posted here? TY.

*EDIT*
I guess you were referring to this:
http://hildonfoundation.org/open-let...la/#comment-41
Pretty poor response IMO...

I see it as a polite 'No, maybe in the future when we're successful'. It's a disappointment, but what could've we expected - they haven't generated any income, their funding has probably quite a strict target.

We want to do things in an unlike way as compared to those of your former friends ever have done. It’s the future we want to create – together with all of you.

I can see this unlike malarkey becoming their catch all answer to numerous "wtf?" moments from Jolla in the years to come. Maybe asking for their sponsorship was a little too premature and the HF should have waited until Jolla have announced what they ARE like before approaching the subject?

I think this needs some clarification from the Board of HF. I mean prior to this open letter were there feelers sent out to Jolla or were there already (formal/informal) discussions with Jolla or its representatives?

It seems very strange that HF sends out an open letter and in less than a day Jolla have the response ready and posted... It seems like some discussion took place, HF didn't get a good response hence this open letter to show their efforts... Jolla's response seems a kop-out in all honesty; they wouldn't want to say a straight NO and see their main fan-base in this Community lost hence they posted a reply which most of their twitter/facebook fans won't really understand hence no PR-disaster for Jolla...


Edit: Maybe we need to look from Jolla's perspective too... What really are they going to get from HF? Other than goodwill nothing much so maybe that's why they feel their limited budget can be spent elsewhere... After all the Community is not a tangible asset of the HF so they can always get Community interest if they have something interesting... In pure business terms; Jolla must be thinking their dollar gets them zero tangible value hence no interest...


Edit 2: Another point though some above think the letter sounds very eloquent, let's be honest; doesn't it sound like pay us and we'll support you? HF is in no position currently to offer support as this is a Community.

Secondly, there were no proper details given of what exactly HF needs the money for. IMO a private email should have been sent along with the open letter to Jolla saying we need $X/mth to cover x,y,z which leads to the benefit of the Community. Your support would extend this benefit.

We need to remember HF is an entity set-up first and foremost to pay the bills and handle IPs so this should have been put in.

From Jolla's perspective they would see that HF is asking for support without specifying anything in detail so how would they say well can you tell us what you need the money exactly for?

tl;dr version:

Hildon Foundation: Jolla, please help to support Maemo community.

Jolla: No. Problem?