Uh, where to start... Let me first express how important forums are - I absolutely hate mailing lists (even tho most of the projects I'm contributing to are handled that way) and I solemnly swear that I won't develop and contribute, heck I won't even shake a stick at anything that is handled by mailing lists ever again! Forums have much easier structure to follow, threading is much better and it doesn't depend on particular user's mail client, you can do more detailed searches, you can have far better data structure and you can easily ignore noise, and all that in a fairly easy and user friendly manner. And that's what puts forum systems ahead of any `social networking` system I have ever seen. Forums just work! Same goes for IRC, I left that type of communication in mid '90s and times of BBS, and I have no desire to go back to that. So, for me it's clear, no forums == no me on MeeGo.

Anyway, first about the forum system, Drupal is way too basic for the needs of an extensive community, it would be a PITA to use it even here, and it would exponentially grow to a major PITA on a community that should unite all MeeGo users. No matter how much more I prefer non-proprietary solutions, Drupal just doesn't cut it. Then again, vBulletin also lacks (to my knowledge, never installed it on my servers to look in the back of it) several crucial features - one of them being ability to mark several posts for quotation in response, I prefer to reply to several posts in one post (reduces clutter), and in current t.m.o I actually have to open several tabs using 'Quote & Reply' and then merge all the quotes into a single post. I guess my preferable option would be IPB, tho it also lacks some other things. Maybe a half-breed between vBulletin and IPB if that would be possible

Either way, besides the regular ones, it must have features such as ability to completely ignore complete sub-forums that are of no interest to you (even if it has to be done through group memberships), it must have a good search (good search == everything that better searches the forums than Google themselves), it must have thanks/rating/kudos/whatever system for rewarding productive members of the community (and for couple of other things I'll mention in that other thread about Karma) and ranking threads, and it would be very sweet if it could have multiple quotations (interface wise), tags, attachments and such.

On to the structure, I'm somewhat undecided should t.m.o be transferred there or left here. At one hand, all the current Maemo devices have nothing to do with MeeGo, so it's somewhat natural for Maemo discussion to remain here, but then we might be creating a huge community split - I for one will probably, with time, focus only on one of the forums. Also if we are to transfer all the data from here on meego.com in a possibly separate sub-forum, we'd have to transfer all the members as well, and some might don't want that, and others might not deserve that.

So, I'm for tabula rasa on meego.com, with a possibility to transfer members from here, but only optionally. One of the simplest way to do that is to reserve all the available active users on t.m.o there, but to set expiration date of a week with no login, and post an announcement here. That way only really active users (who wish that) will move there, and after a week anybody could take their nickname or whatever.

I'm perfectly aware that either way it's approached, it will probably mean slow death to t.m.o, but a community is not about a domain or some specific forum - it's about the people.

And in the end, I actually think that the most difficult thing would be to create an useful structure on the new forums as it will no longer be about several devices, nor about Nokia, it will be far broader and it's hard to integrate discussions about some future car multimedia system, a handheld device, a TV and a microwave (why not? ). Maybe it should be something like:

I wouldn't split development per device type (at least when it comes to Applications), but rather encourage users to either use tags, or even better to integrate in their title what device/platform are they targeting in the title name (e.g. [N900] App Name, or [Maemo 5] App Name... ). That way people that explore the future development might get an idea for application for a platform that might not be available or provided by the original developer, or people using devices not supported might encourage that person to develop a version for that platform...

Also, I think that Moblin guys should be included in this discussion, after all, we are merging communities. If they don't want to come here, let us set up a neutral ground somewhere and address both sides of the MeeGo coin.

That would be my somewhat lengthy 2¢...

Actually, it does, it just has a number of options for that slot. The Moblin netbook UI and the Maemo UI are the two that are there at the moment (other manufacturers are apparently welcome to bring their own if it suits them).

It provides a reference UX as per the MeeGo architecture. People can, of course, forego it for their own solution, but that is another question. I know I'm totally boring with this, but the this is the same problem as with the 'first MeeGo device is an LG phone' branding problem, now everything is called Meego, regardless of how much it actually has in common with a 'full' implementation of MeeGo (if there is such a thing).

Hi from rushman
after reading forum comments regards to Maemo,Moblin coming together
I decided to have a look.

I downloaded an img file to a pen drive so I could test on all my family computers.
Computers are.

AMD quad 965 clocked 4 gig. 8Gig memory
Lenover laptop 3000 v200 2gig intel duo 4 gig ram.
Samsung N10 netbook intel.

I will only comment on the netbook. No problems with the other 2 computer.
Other than to unbelievable fast to load and use.

The netbook triple boots, XP, mint Linux, and opensuse 11.1.
My wife thought it was the easiest OS she has used and now wants installed.
My sister did not like the icons across the top of the desktop,but my wife and sister
after 1 hour were both at one with it.

My brother in-law thinks if this comes to cell phones it will be the bee's knees??.

For me I was impressed it boots up in under 10 seconds,once you get used to the icons at
the top. Using it becomes very easy, very fast, an logical. No 3 g internally.

There has been no mention of novell or KDE in meego but there is a connection somewhere
I use both rpm's and deb I do not have any problems with either.

I believe the marriagee ofMeemoo and moblin could give one of the best mobile experiencess

if not the best available in the very near future.
With regard to forums they do not seem to use them on the meego site . Why not leave things as they are with a separate section for joint use.

So, there is a decision now to:
1. have a forum for meego (good)
2. use vBulletin (good)
if I understand correctly?

Would it be possible to implement single sign-on already at the start? I mean the "future" in future integration should be in about 2-3 weeks, when the 2nd wave hits meego.com.

(Sorry for commenting on the one person who actually does something...)

Just to say that vBulletin is perfectly capable of mult-quote. I'm not sure why we don't use that feature here.

The UI and UX are indeed on top of the OS:
http://meego.com/developers/meego-architecture

Not what is part of MeeGo brand, but what is the MeeGo OS.

And the point of distinction against Maemo, MeeGo has reference (in other words, "voluntary") UX and UIs, which are not part of the OS. Has Maemo 5 ever offered the choice of voluntary UX and UI? - As far as I know you had no choice so some people referred (perhaps improperly so) to the UX and UI as part of the Maemo 5 OS or inextricably hooked into the OS.

This is important thing. It can lead to Android-like ecosystem which is quite different in this respect from Maemo.

There is a scheduled IRC meeting on Wednesday (or maybe Tuesday) to discuss the services needed on the meego.com website. One of the topics will be the forums.

Here's the email from Tero about it:
http://lists.maemo.org/pipermail/mae...ry/003956.html

That's a slippery argument. It can equally be said that Maemo 5 never prevented you to employ a different UI/UX. While certain components were closed and welded, there is quite a bit that could be replaced. We even had a Diablo clone a while back with different UI/UX (Optima something ?).

Yes, I agree it's not cut and dry, but my understanding is that the Diablo clone could not be done despite significant efforts of very talented people (was it timeless?). And, it would probably be easier to put Diablo on top of Meego than Harmatton (because Meego intends to have different UI and supports GTK+), which is not an argument, but an assumption I am thinking out loud.