First and foremost, thank you for your introduction. While it may not have had the desired impact, it's good to see communication with the community is a priority. I'm also glad to see you asking the community if they desire your presence here. That alone speaks volumes.

Understand, this was not how things were presented to the community. No fault of yours, I get that. But keep in mind that some/most of the anger you're hearing has less to do with who you are or what you're saying than with the context in which it's being interpreted. In some cases, things said can be misinterpreted as insults where none may have been intended (in both directions), like this:

There's a large difference between a fool and someone who's been fooled. Many here feel they've been tricked or fooled into supporting something that they now no longer recognize.

Consider in the future that you may not be aware of how things have happened, and may not be fully up to speed on the topics at hand. Commenting on things you don't understand without seeking input first, to some, would be consider foolish. Some see you in that light. Combined with other factors around your presentation, it's not unreasonable that they are upset by how they perceive things to be unfolding.

Agreed, which is why some of the community is upset about what it perceives as the Board not following those rules. I for one am not certain that the letter of the law has been followed here, and I was involved in the writing and refining of them. I can tell you with certainty that the spirit of the law has not been followed.

I think you need to educate yourself before speaking on this.

Maemo is a commercial product created by Nokia. At no point can the community or HiFo sell it, give it away, or authorize it's use in another product. While some rights are being transferred from Nokia to HiFo, some are not. I'm still reading the terms of the contract, but I can tell you that some of the base code for portions of Maemo will remain closed due to third party agreements with Nokia if not for Nokia's own sake.

That said, many portions of the ecosystem around Maemo are already in, or are finding their ways to other projects. And commits from this community going up-stream in FOSS components have benefited several other cell based and ARM based communities.

I'd also like to point out that while there is an over-arching goal for HiFo to promote an open arena for portable devices, it's first and foremost commitment is to keep this community alive. The mission statement in the bylaws is very clear on that point, placing it before the other objectives and goals.

I think that is in part what's being proposed by holding new elections as soon as possible (e.g. announcing them at the next Foundation meeting, which is overdue at this point). This allows the community to (re)consider you, Rob, myself, and any new potential candidates from the community. This is in the spirit and the letter of the bylaws of the Foundation, and what the community clearly is calling for at this point.

As Directors, we can call that election at any time for the Board. Think of it as a vote of confidence in a normal Board setting, but applied to all members equally instead of just the chairman or one particular member. It's really not that complex, but will take over a month to do. It's an intentionally slow paced process and requires little additional time on behalf of standing members.

I for one see a great need to allow the community to validate (or rebuff) the current members of the board, since all of the directors have now been appointed, not elected as intended and desired by the community.

In the mean time, we can continue to act and resolve these critical issues in our infrastructure. But we must be mindful of the community while doing so.