woody14619 | # 131 | 2014-10-02, 03:45 | Report

Show you the url? What url? What are you blathering on about?

With tech staff like you? I vote to pull the plug now.

Happily most of the rest of the group acts like adults. What's next? "You are, but what am I?"

Look community. Look well. This is who you're choosing to be your "leader"? And you wonder why people are leaving?

chainsawbike | # 132 | 2014-10-02, 03:54 | Report

in my view there seems to be a poor understanding of what Nokia actually gave HiFo, and how they did it.

this is my view on thew situation.

Nokia handed control of an entity to the Hildon Foundation ( not the community, not the board members, and neither of the councils).
this entity had, as part of it a number of things:
1, the server hardware.
2, the data stored on the server hardware.
3, permission to use the maemo.org domain and its sub-domains*.
4, the goodwill that was associated with the above things.

* this status may have changed after the transfer.

point 1 is fairly simple. i feel it is not necessary to explain it.

point 2:
there are various licenses and copyrights held on the data on the servers.
i will focus on the LGPL and GPL licenses for simplicity.

both these licenses only apply on distribution of the code.
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq....cePostedPublic
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq....anIDemandACopy
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#UnreleasedMods
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq....alDistribution

so you are free to make a clone of this site, but you cannot demand a working copy of it.

a similar concept applies to the information in the databases, you can copy the user-accessible content provided it is under a suitable license, but you cannot demand a dump of the whole database. this is controlled by copyright law.

point 3, fairly simple again but very important for point 4.

point 4, "goodwill":
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/goodwill
this is by far the most valuable and the most fragile thing that as part of the entity nokia gave HiFo
is is also the one thing a new clone site _cannot_ take, it instead will need to build this on its own, and without a community who wants that clone site to survive it will be very hard work building it up.

Dave999 | # 133 | 2014-10-02, 05:06 | Report

What do you think? Let me give you a clue. You were elected, right? So some ppl voted for you. Does that mean anything to you?

Also to all. Arguments are great but only if a decision is made in the end. How do the council take decisions when dissagree...ing?

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Last edited by Dave999; 2014-10-02 at 05:21.

joerg_rw | # 134 | 2014-10-02, 05:22 | Report

what do you suggest I could do? I joined this term's council on the premise/promise to "provide some continuity" which meant I planned to share a bit of knowledge how things got handled during the last years, and why. Obviously that's irrelevant to my peer-councilors. Seems instead of continuity they rather are interested in abolishing their own entity the council. How about asking *them* what they think what for they got elected? Also I don't see any significant number of community participating in this annoying discussion, so a few vocal ones can take over and determine the direction all this will move. According to my own definition of what's council, we probably actually should listen to the few shouters, then all step down and declare "you asked for it, you got it". Not even maemo council rules could stop or cure that. Somebody here said "'frowning' is no legal term" (OWTTE). Nevertheless I'm convinced Nokia will think twice if they are willing to finally sign any agreement with a legal entity that by itself obviously has no clue about own role and own liabilities and fights with what Nokia considers "the community"

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Last edited by joerg_rw; 2014-10-02 at 05:48.

Wikiwide | # 135 | 2014-10-02, 05:43 | Report

Quick reply...

Abolishing the Council... That's complicated, yes. Right now, it is suggested that e.V. will have a GA and a Board elected by GA. GA is apparently not elected - just a sum of all ordinary members who joined e.V. Maybe, GA will replace the Council. Right now, I do not know who is going to be in e.V. and who the board members of e.V are. With time, I hope for detailed page, and explanation on how e.V. can be joined.

Most people in the community just avoid this 'annoying discussion'. Or I reckon so. I avoided it for a long time, too. But then, if politics are avoided, who will get things done? Partially, I attempt to distract the speakers from seeking out personal insults, and lift the mood of readers, so that whatever they want to be done, would be done.

Best wishes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Per aspera ad astra...

joerg_rw | # 136 | 2014-10-02, 05:57 | Report

Yeah. and I'm looking forward for a GA replacing the council and having any clue about what are the council's duties and daily tasks, and when they are 25 they will probably be 5 times more productive and 25^2 times faster than a council of 5. My own take on this: the best (partial) terms I had on Council where when there were only 3 members. 5 started to get busy with self organization more than getting stuff done. 25 or 50 (or more??) members of a GA replacing council, suuuure.

Dave999 | # 137 | 2014-10-02, 06:27 | Report

I'm not telling you what to do, you are free to do as you please. (unless you want me to give you direct orders ) I hope you and the council are in until you have voted for a path forward. If you can't decide? Who can? Last resort put the options to a community vote. But I think the leaders have the authority to make a decision in this question.

Too all elected. Show us what you are made of...quality beer and not some cheap lager

pichlo | # 138 | 2014-10-02, 08:13 | Report

This is exactly where I was coming from when I suggested option #3.

The way I see it,

1. In the beginning, there was Nokia. Nokia created Maemo and Nokia saw it was good.
2. And Nokia said, "Let there be a Maemo community!" And there was a Maemo community and it was good.
3. And Nokia created maemo.org to support the community.
4. But the community felt Nokia did not provide enough support. Nokia would not/could not negotiate with a faceless crown and thus a Council was created to represent the crowd.
5. Nokia decided to abandon the Maemo community.
6. A new foundation was created to continue the support for maemo.org and the Maemo community. This is no longer an "a faceless crowd against a big corporation" situation; the foundation is the crowd. Therefore I fail to see the point of an intermediary between us and... err... us. Ergo, the Council is no longer necessary.

Of course, there are technicalities. Who is responsible for what, who is whose b!tch etc. Also, I have not read the paper signed by Nokia and HiFo that negotiated the terms of the transfer and even if I had, I would most likely not understand it. So there may well be limitations on what we are legally allowed to do. But those are technicalities and I think we should focus our attention on how to deal with them (even hire a lawyer to help) instead of finding arguments for keeping the status quo.

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Last edited by pichlo; 2014-10-02 at 08:17. Reason: Fixing typos. If you still find some, you can keep them.

foobar | # 139 | 2014-10-02, 08:14 | Report

To get back on track it seems necessary to figure out what the current state of affairs is.

It would be great if someone in the know could answer/correct/ammend the following (based on actual facts, not wishes, dreams, etc):

• What is the current state of HiFo's negotiations with Nokia? Have all the agreements been signed?
  I was under the impression that this is the case, until a recent comment here suggested otherwise.
  
• What is the state of MCeV?
  As far as I understand it has been established.
  
• Is MCeV currently owner/operator/whatever of anything (Maemo-related)?
  
• Has there been consensus (in the past) to replace HiFo with MCeV?
  I guess yes, or otherwise founding it wouldn't have made sense. But I've also seen talk of having both exist alongside each other here, hence my question.
  
• Provided the previous question is answered with 'yes', what is the state of 'negotiations' between HiFo and MCeV?
  I guess this thread is part of it.
  
• What other problems are there that prevent things from moving forward? Banks have been mentioned. What else?

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Last edited by foobar; 2014-10-02 at 08:36. Reason: typo

chainsawbike | # 140 | 2014-10-02, 09:06 | Report

my understanding of how you see this situation is something along the lines of:

I am a member of an entity , within that entity I am part of a group which has control over the actions of the entity, I believe this entity may be trying to do something illegal.

If this is the case i would advise anyone in that position to _IMMEDIATELY_ seek legal advice, if this intact is the case you are putting yourself in a legally risky position.
If for some reason you cannot immediately seek legal advice I would strongly recommend formally resigning from power, and distancing yourself as much as possible from the entity, but if at all possible _GET_ _LEGAL_ _ADVICE_.

I also believe this is not the case but IANAL and personally I would prefer you stayed a part of this community, as i believe the loss of your input in the fields of electrical engineering and programming on their own right would be significant. ( not saying you don't have valuable input to add in other fields - you do )

aaron m