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dneary is offline dneary
2010-05-05 , 18:56
Posts: 263 | Thanked: 679 times | Joined on Apr 2008 @ Lyon, France
#1
Hi all,

For those of you not on the community mailing list, I sent this proposal there yesterday (and it's generated some interesting discussion): the thread is here. I've included the full original proposal for comments and suggestions.

---

No sprint meeting's been announced this month, but since we didn't have
one last month, I think one is necessary.

I propose that we have a meeting which is a little less formatted than
usual - with an agenda, and with discussion among maemo.org staff, the
council, prominent Nokia people and interested community members, to do
something like renew a 100 days sprint.

An off-the-top-of-my-head agenda for the meeting should look like this:

1. Review of progress over the past year of maemo.org team (open discussion)
2. Setting priorities for next 3 months for the community - not
micro-tasks, but larger goals
3. Allocation of ownership & co-ordination responsibilities within these
tasks to members of the maemo.org team
4. A full & frank discussion of the impact of the MeeGo project on the
short-term goals of Maemo

The monthly check-list meetings have not been satisfying for me. Nor has
not having a meeting at all. Over the past 3 months, it's felt like
large sections of the Maemo community have moved into wait-and-see mode
with MeeGo, and no-one wants to be working on things now which end up
being obsoleted by MeeGo/Harmattan work in a few months.

It feels like we need to mobilise the community around a couple of
shorter-term goals where we have people actively working together and
publicly.

Council members, how does this sound to you? It (obviously) doesn't make
sense to organise this for today, but perhaps later this week? Perhaps
we could start by opening some discussion based on the agenda I've
proposed (or one that you'd like to propose to replace it) on Talk and here?

---

I propose next Tuesday for the meeting date - at our usual time (15h UTC IIRC) in the usual place (#maemo-meeting on Frenode).

Thoughts? Comments? Rants? Suggestions for agenda items?

Dave.
 

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SD69 is offline SD69
2010-05-05 , 22:23
Posts: 1,513 | Thanked: 2,248 times | Joined on Mar 2006 @ US
#2
Thanks for posting this.

Yes, c'mon people, have a meeting. No need to focus on MeeGo though, there are other things in maemo.org which warrant your attention notwithstanding.
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SD69 is offline SD69
2010-05-06 , 00:44
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#3
Ok, I've read the thread and this part troubles me on several levels.

I think that a good step forward might be to work to get maemo.org staff assigned for part of their time to meego tasks and community co-ordination in meego - I've mentioned this to you before, and Tero was clear that in the short term, our main priority remains Maemo. Perhaps we have an opportunity to clarify this now.
1) maemo.org resources being diverted to MeeGo
2) Nokia personnel aren't supposed to decide how maemo.org staff are used

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Stskeeps is offline Stskeeps
2010-05-06 , 04:27
Posts: 1,671 | Thanked: 11,478 times | Joined on Jun 2008 @ Warsaw, Poland
#4
Originally Posted by SD69 View Post
Ok, I've read the thread and this part troubles me on several levels.

1) maemo.org resources being diverted to MeeGo

2) Nokia personnel aren't supposed to decide how maemo.org staff are used
This was an idea from dneary, asking for ways to help transition and use his skills within the MeeGo framework, read: 'can a maemo.org employee devote part of his time to MeeGo in his current role'. Any sane council who wants to help to make MeeGo a better building to move to would want their employees to go forward and prepare. But as the idea, how do we go about maemo.org in the next months until MeeGo is at cruising altitude.

I personally have a part role in MeeGo (no use denying it by now) and as I've said before, I personally don't want to get stuck when/if the maemo.org rapture comes around. My own role has to develop as well and I assume that's what dneary is trying to do too. And do good in the process.
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daperl is offline daperl
2010-05-06 , 05:58
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#5
I know this might be slightly off topic, but I spent a decent amount of time yesterday at the development section of MeeGo. I am in awe. The combination of the progress and the priorities has been texbook. In my opinion, if MeeGo keeps up this pace and focus, it could become one of the most significant projects in recent tech history. I hope the powers-that-be can continue to keep the team's enthusiasm high, and their frustration low.
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X-Fade is offline X-Fade
2010-05-06 , 08:41
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#6
This doesn't mean that maemo.org needs to be abandoned. Even when MeeGo is the next best thing, it is not relevant to current owners of Maemo devices. We can't let those people down by not doing anything. There is still a lot to improve.

A lot of maemo.org users will migrate to MeeGo at some point, but maemo.org needs to stay for a few more years at least. We can't give out the signal that a product which is still being launched in new markets is abandoned.

MeeGo is not something End-users will be using for quite some time. (Especially handset UX)

For people like Stskeeps it makes sense to move to MeeGo as he is working on the low level platform. All other maemo.org roles should not turn their backs on maemo.org yet.
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dneary is offline dneary
2010-05-06 , 09:47
Posts: 263 | Thanked: 679 times | Joined on Apr 2008 @ Lyon, France
#7
Hi,

Originally Posted by SD69 View Post
Ok, I've read the thread and this part troubles me on several levels.

1) maemo.org resources being diverted to MeeGo
I made the request to have part of my time allocated to MeeGo - we're in the very important bootstrap period of that project, and I want to make sure that the project provides all the hooks required for a vibrant community, that means fighting excessive bureaucracy, getting processes and licensing right, identifying points where communication is insufficient and Linux Foundation, Intel or Nokia people are not providing sufficient information to allow people to see what is and is not being done, etc.

Basically, it's vitally important that we establish a culture where people don't feel that they have to ask for permission to do stuff that's useful to the project, and I am spending a lot of time trying to help make that happen. So I wanted to know if Tero was OK with me billing part of that time, in the context of my agreement with Nokia.

2) Nokia personnel aren't supposed to decide how maemo.org staff are used
I hope I have explained above the context - Tero is the project manager who signs off on my invoices, and it is reasonable that I ask him whether he is OK with me billing certain things (which I think are vitally important to the Maemo community).

Also, if I may say so, I haven't been getting much of an agenda set by the Maemo community in recent months, so it's also reasonable that I ask people (including people who work for Nokia, the council, etc) what I should be working on. See http://lists.maemo.org/pipermail/mae...il/004205.html for an example.

Cheers,
Dave.
 

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SD69 is offline SD69
2010-05-06 , 12:32
Posts: 1,513 | Thanked: 2,248 times | Joined on Mar 2006 @ US
#8
Originally Posted by Stskeeps View Post
This was an idea from dneary, asking for ways to help transition and use his skills within the MeeGo framework, read: 'can a maemo.org employee devote part of his time to MeeGo in his current role'.
And the answer to that question is No. Commitments were made to maemo.org.

Originally Posted by Stskeeps View Post
Any sane council who wants to help to make MeeGo a better building to move to would want their employees to go forward and prepare. But as the idea, how do we go about maemo.org in the next months until MeeGo is at cruising altitude.
But here council is the council of maemo.org, not MeeGo, and not of the world of linux based touch screen mobile software. They have responsibilities to the maemo.org community that would be subverted if they allowed scarce maemo.org resources to be used for other projects (and let's admit it, MeeGo has plenty of financial backing, why raid maemo.org's resources?)

Originally Posted by Stskeeps View Post
I personally have a part role in MeeGo (no use denying it by now) and as I've said before, I personally don't want to get stuck when/if the maemo.org rapture comes around. My own role has to develop as well and I assume that's what dneary is trying to do too. And do good in the process.
Yes, I noticed before when you said this and it's an understandable concern. What about MeeGo adpatation for the n8x0 devices? Is that not a project which: a) benefits the maemo.org community and b) allows you to progress your knowledge and skills (and you will someday be able to transition to MeeGo)?
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SD69 is offline SD69
2010-05-06 , 12:39
Posts: 1,513 | Thanked: 2,248 times | Joined on Mar 2006 @ US
#9
Originally Posted by dneary View Post
Hi,

I made the request to have part of my time allocated to MeeGo - we're in the very important bootstrap period of that project, and I want to make sure that the project provides all the hooks required for a vibrant community, that means fighting excessive bureaucracy, getting processes and licensing right, identifying points where communication is insufficient and Linux Foundation, Intel or Nokia people are not providing sufficient information to allow people to see what is and is not being done, etc.

Basically, it's vitally important that we establish a culture where people don't feel that they have to ask for permission to do stuff that's useful to the project, and I am spending a lot of time trying to help make that happen. So I wanted to know if Tero was OK with me billing part of that time, in the context of my agreement with Nokia.
That's all fine and good. But don't be using maemo.org funded time to work on MeeGo. Maemo and MeeGo are both worthy, and MeeGo is the future of the OS. It's natural that people are involved in both

BUT

maemo.org has scarce resources and there was a COMMITMENT that Nokia would continue to pay for maemo.org staff notwithstanding MeeGo. That commitment would be subverted if maemo.org staff were working on MeeGo projects rather than maemo.org. I don't mean to say that people can't work on MeeGo on their own time but it shouldn't be done with time paid for by maemo.org funding.



Originally Posted by dneary View Post
Also, if I may say so, I haven't been getting much of an agenda set by the Maemo community in recent months, so it's also reasonable that I ask people (including people who work for Nokia, the council, etc) what I should be working on. See http://lists.maemo.org/pipermail/mae...il/004205.html for an example.
It is unfortunate that Council is not giving good direction at this time, but they are council of maemo.org (not MeeGo). DNeary, I take your action as a responsible way to proactively raise the issue and I thank you for doing that. But even in the absence of direction as to specific projects, these obligations should be clear that work should be done in the maemo.org realm. It seems as though it is now time for Council to fulfill the duties of their position. It is important that these concerns be respected so that maemo and MeeGo are properly treated as complementary rather than competing projects. Please allow some time for the issues that you have been raised to be considered by the maemo.org community.
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Jaffa is offline Jaffa
2010-05-06 , 13:07
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#10
Originally Posted by SD69 View Post
It is unfortunate that Council is not giving good direction at this time, [...] It seems as though it is now time for Council to fulfill the duties of their position.
I think Dave's point is longer lived than right now. Managing the maemo.org staff is not the job of the council - we're customers and stakeholders who want "things" done in a timely and open way. By moving to a position where we state our requirements and it's up to the team to organise themselves to deliver them, alongside their internally generated requirements (BAU) and Nokia priorities.

As Dave kick started this, the council was discussing with Niels (X-Fade) the handover of the administration of the sprints to the maemo.org team themselves.

The council, and Nokia, would feed our priorities into that process - and the process would be open for everyone to see as the team split up the tasks, take ownership and deliver them. Volunteers from the community would be able to chip in in either specific areas (and the council can act as a rallying point if needs be) or on whole tasks of interest.

With that, some of the requirements from the Council are, in rough priority order:
  1. Finalise SSO for maemo.org; including Talk account merging.
  2. Bugzilla easier to use (requires upgrade?):
    • Bugzilla style improvements
    • Bugzilla voting improvements ("me too" button?)
  3. maemo.org/packages/ QA improvements for maintainers and testers
  4. Consolidated documentation for developers (see Info Center thread for my thoughts)
  5. Autobuilder auto-optification
  6. Donation framework on maemo.org for authors to accept donations, if they so wish

Items #1 & 2 have no real benefit to a future MeeGo transition, but meet immediate problems. Item #5 may help as appplications are increasingly written with tools like Nokia Qt SDK and we need the auto-builder to improve them.

The others will give experience we can translate to meego.com, and possibly even implementations.

It is important that these concerns be respected so that maemo and MeeGo are properly treated as complementary rather than competing projects. Please allow some time for the issues that you have been raised to be considered by the maemo.org community.
Not that it is the opinion of those like qgil (who know more about the details) that, come November, most people who are current Maemo users will think of themselves as MeeGo users - and be using meego.com rather than maemo.org. Personally, I think that's optimistic on the information we know; but it's something to consider.

(Note that this does not mean that maemo.org will be turned off if it's still providing services to Maemo users)
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