The codification is in german law and limits board only in the way that those directors being signed at court (at least 1, in our case Chair and 2 Vice) have to be either EU residents or EU citizens (with EU ID). Now if Board positions were extended to lets say 5*), no restrictions would apply for #4+5. The downside is that both can't replace Chair or the 2 Vice (in case they leave) if neither one is EU resident or citizen.

*) Believe it or not, for now, Board positions have a minimum of 3, that's it. There is no other rule in either bylaws, General Regulations or Board Regulations that limits this in any other way. We were happy to have the min. required volunteers and a limit didn't appear exactly as needed, so that simply was left open (for improvement, probably).
So much for the legendary coup d'etat and power garb...

Bylaws § 7 Board of directors:
(1) The Board of Directors consists of three or more**) natural persons at least 21 years of age. It shall represent the association legally and extrajudicial.
(2) Only active members may become Director.
(3) The Board of Directors shall designate a chair and two Deputy Directors. Any two of these three Board members together are authorized to fully represent the association.
(4) The Board's duties, especially rules to announce board meetings, their proceedings and executions of votes are regulated by the Board's internal regulations which shall be decided on by a simple majority vote of the Board of Directors.
(5) The Board of Directors executes the Council's and General Assembly's rulings.
(6) On termination of individual Board members, the duties of the retiring Board member can be taken over by the remaining Board members, provided that these agree. Alternatively, the Board may supplement until the next regular election by board resolution from the number of active members.
(7) Board members can be removed on request by the General Assembly with good cause. An important reason is especially given if the member is accused of criminal behavior, which makes further activity for the association unreasonable.

**) Just discovered a flaw in the translation... So far, it only said:
(1) The Board of Directors consists of three natural persons... (corrected now)
Since the german version gets considered at court, no worries there.

Again, here's all the legal docs:
Satzung/Bylaws: https://etherpad.mozilla.org/AMabik4zeD
Vereinsordnung/General Regulations: https://etherpad.mozilla.org/imtFYfpUKK
Vorstands-Geschäftsordnung/Board Regulations: https://etherpad.mozilla.org/uwQXMscA2n

I vote for #3 of juiceme's original question.

I was wondering about the relative small response in the main thread too, while it was active.
Probably it wasn't moderated too well from my side, then sorry.

But now, months after joerg himself founded MC eV (refusing to collaborate from the very beginning though), he already wow

For those still confused about "if Nokia owned the Maemo site", I offer this:

MidGard1, on which the heart of maemo.org runs, uses the LGPL (likely v2.1). That license clearly states companies and individuals may use the software in commercial products AND modify it, AND copyright, AND declare ownership of, AND sell or re-distribute the re-bundled product.

Henri Bergius, co-author of MidGard and full owner of Nemein, made this change on the wikipedia page himself in November 2003, clearly stating this to be the case. He likely did so in order to be able to sell the products of his new company, which offered CMS services based on MidGard1 to various providers, including Nokia.

Anyone claiming that all of Maemo and/or the m.o site are FOSS and "100% open source" is legally incorrect. But please, don't take my word on that! Read the page on LGPL, and follow the reference links to the FSF page itself and read the legal document.

It boils down to this: Who will you believe when deciding if Nokia owned this material and had legal rights to assign it to HiFo? You have two choices: Someone named "Joerg_rw" on the internet, who refuses to say anything but "it's all free!" Or the creator of the software, the company that sold the CMS system/service to Nokia, the legal team at Nokia, and a generation of lawyers from the FSF who wrote and maintain the LGPL.

AHA! See? that's the problem with you and your contributions, all the time since you joined HiFo: NFC but calling others names and trying to correct them:-/
For those who still are puzzled by woody's claims: The LGPL allows Nokia to link Midgard into own software and sell such software. It doesn't mean Nokia owns Midgard. Midgard is 100% FOSS (Henri's own words woody quoted/linked). And Nokia didn't ship any other (X86) software on maemo.org server that they could claim any copyright in (maybe except mentioned few hundred lines of php scripts that were a) without any copyright but buggy like hell, b) probably publicly available via aforementioned SVN repo and c) thus got replaced by versions created by new maemo techstaff & volunteers) Not a single byte of Nokia proprietary code runs on the server. (btw: just if in doubt about Henri allegedly sold a - according to his own statement which woody linked to - 100% FOSS software to Nokia, so Nokia can "sell" this software to HiFo now: after transfer of servers we did an update of whole midgard to latest available Midgard-1 FOSS version, so no matter what Midgard been on the servers, now definitely it's 100% FOSS) If that's Nokia who thinks they have proprietary code on maemo.org (would be in line with nokia's [lawyers] sometimes pretty flawed understanding of what's FOSS software and how to make business around it), then they shall hand over a list of filenames so techstaff can clean it out.
[edit] the sad thing is: I explained that to you maybe a dozen times already. Seems you are really not willing (or capable) to learn.
[edit2] before you start another round of your favorite game "bash joerg" with that one: for content just see bottom left of this very page you're looking at: "All Content CC"
No, rather it boils down to a choice between: Joerg_rw (software developer since 30+ years, managed dozens of projects, handled copyright issues in OpenMoko, talked with Eero, knows the server) or Woody (err, airplane mechanics? Neither knows the server nor the meaning of LGPL, uses "He likely did so" arguments[!] and blames others for "warped sense of reality")

BR
jOERG
PS: another possible hook to link the next baseless bashing on, which I want to correct before such bashing starts: I never said 100% of all maemo.org are FOSS, I'm well aware that HiFo paid for a commercial version of vBulletin. However Nokia didn't provide that software either, so that statement stands: not a single byte of code is running on maemo.org servers that Nokia could claim was theirs. When techstaff really missed out on some hidden file that holds Nokia proprietary code, you should point to it, rather than claiming midgard was owned by Nokia.
I'm not even going to comment all the other incorrect attributions like "since you now say you've always thought it was a bad idea." It's this constant spreading lies that makes you look pretty dishonest and sneaky, and anyway I'm fed up with it.

To juiceme: sure it's OT, but it sheds some light on a) who started OT, and b) on the compentence of some of those most vocal in here and the coherence and value and correctness of their claims. It's probably safe to assume that such doesn't differ much between particular posts. It also shows who thanks those incorrect posts and thinks they are "most accurate". So it actually helps on the topic.

As intresting as this discussion about Midgard ownership is, I do not think it is relevant to this thread.

Agreed. I really didn't want to get involved in this but in an attempt to set the record straight and hopefully end this bickering, I'll bite. :/ (Mods: please feel free to move this along with all other irrelevant posts)

It looks like you've misinterpreted the LGPL. LGPL is very similar to the GPL with the main difference being that LGPL software can be compiled and then dynamically linked with software of another licence (which can be closed/proprietary) and then be redistributed together as a bundle. Companies can indeed use it in commercial products, they don't need to change the licence of their commercial product however the LGPL part remains licensed under LGPL. Contrary to your claim, this means that they must divulge additions to the LGPL'd software.

See here for a summary of the licence and note the "Disclose Source" part under the "Must" section.

So, to cut it off before it evolves into another 30 pages of joerg's "spoiled kiddo" bickering:

We can expect to vote about Council status too, during upcoming referendum? I, for one, hope so.

/Estel

You claim I attack you, when all I've done is lay out my side of the argument. Something you've yet to do. Then you insult me and try to imply I don't know things. Pot calling the kettle black?

I NEVER SAID NOKIA OWNS MIDGARD! That's YOUR wording. You keep saying things and attributing them to others, when it's only you saying it.

I said, rather clearly: the bundled system, that Nemien sold to Nokia (with service) that was then re-bundled up and shipped TO US was owned by Nokia. And yes, there was and still is PLENTY on that server that was custom. Everything from the skin, to the structure, to the linkages.

MidGard, out of the box, does not have:

• Linkage to an external wiki.
• Linkage to any form of auto-builder
• They have a CVS based garage, but nothing like what we have.
• There is no concept of "Karma" or ranking
• There is no linkage with vBulletin (TMO).
• There is also no pre-built structure, and only one basic skin.

All of those things, and the configuration put into them, and the scripts, and the stuff you claim "we 100% rewrote" (a pure lie on it's face) were a rebundled distribution. That entire package, as shipped, was and is covered under the LGPL and was owned by Nokia.

That's utter bullshït, and you know it. I'll site ONE example among many, just to prove you wrong. But EVEN IF IT WAS TRUE, fact of the matter is that we started with the system given to us, which was owned, in it's entirety, by Nokia. And our existing system is based on that derivative work, which they hold full legal rights to.

Karma, one of the items I worked on as TechStaff, and got 98% working again? I changed all of about 3 lines of code in the end to get it working. It was mainly a permissions issue and re-pathing. It took time to trace it all, but in the end the actual changes were quite small.

Karma is NOT available as a "plugin" for MidGard. It, and lots of other scripts, used or not still, were commissioned by Nokia. They don't need to include a "(C) Nokia" in the php to make it theirs. That's not how the law works. Again, an area you clearly don't understand, but claim to.

"I had MS Word running in WINE on my Linux box. I updated to Fedora, and *viola*, MS Word is now suddenly FOSS!"

You see how utterly dumb that statement is? The one above it is just as inaccurate.

Updating a FOSS component of a system doesn't magically transform everything on the system into FOSS. At a bare minimum, the skin, the logos, and the linkages with other systems that are custom to this site (including Karma) are still under LPGL.


And I explained to you that the "content" being referred to is quite well legally defined to mean the stuff we're typing into form boxes and posting into the forums, wiki pages, blogs, and the like. The code and other components created by Nemein are covered under LGPL, NOT the CC license.

Tell me, if the "All content CC" includes software, doesn't that include vBulletin? That's a commercial piece of software that we purchased a license for to keep TMO running. Even you admit that's not FOSS later in your rant. So clearly, that license is talking about content as user input on the site, not the code running the site.

You have a clear lack of understanding of what is and is not FOSS on this site. And yet:

Funny... Just two years ago you were unable to fix anything on the system, while I was fixing Karma, and the voting booth, and... But clearly, now, I suddenly don't "know the server". How does that sync with "correctness of claim"?

Lol. Airplane mechanic?

No. I'm a software developer, have been for over 20 years. I hold a degree from RIT, 8 patents (software/hardware systems mainly), and have worked at Xerox, Kodak, and Nortel. If you ever use a color digital copier from Xerox, you're using my code. If you've taken a digital picture, I helped make the system that produced your CCD. (Well, unless you bought a Fuji based CCD...)

I now write software that's used in aerial systems, combined software, firmware, and hardware, spanning PCs to hand held devices to embedded systems. I have occasionally had to go out into the field to help fit, install, and configure systems for custom "planes". But I'm far from an airplane mechanic, not that that's an easy job, by any means.

As for you handling copyright issues with OpenMoko? I'll let people Google that for themselves and see how well that project wound up. Not sure I'd tout that if I were you.

This is my favorite part:

You can't even keep your story straight for one paragraph, yet alone one post. It's not 100% FOSS, but it is, but it's not, but it is!

As for "Nokia providing the software", they didn't have to. Nokia paid Nemien for the software. Which Nemien created, configured, maintained, and had perfect rights to sell. Nokia bought it, and through paying for it and the service via a contract agreement with Nemien, Nokia has/had full rights to everything on the site. That includes custom parts written by Nemien as part of that work. Again, a VERY SIMPLE AND COMMON BUSINESS PRACTICE that you seem to not grasp.

I have to ask... do you have a mirror near your monitor? That would explain a lot.

I agree. On both points. Though I doubt the reasoning is the same behind the similar conclusions reached.

The issue is not about "MidGard ownership". It never was. That's something Joerg made up. The issue is someone claiming that the servers, and the software running on them, are not legally held and operated by HiFo. By making the argument that Nokia was never in a position of ownership, Joerg is trying to "prove" that they had no right to to grant HiFo that ownership.

His argument, for some time, has been that we didn't need to negotiate at all with Nokia, because it's "all FOSS" and open source. Despite the clear indicators to the contrary, like the EULAs and clear ownership chain Nokia and HiFo can and has documented repeatedly.

Understand, the issue here is about authority. Joerg wants to claim that HiFo was ancillary to the whole process, and wasn't and still isn't needed. He's applying that same "logic" to the e.V. now. Reality is, without a legal entity, Nokia would have just shut the servers down, and we'd all have the equivalent of a Zune right now. And this argument wouldn't have a place to even be happening.