You've misread it, I said nothing about hosting...
Was talking about dismantling the current regime & establishing hifo (or something like it) from the ground up again, but this time outside the US?
BUT, that's only on the proviso that we have 100% certainty on the points I made prior to it, which you don't seem to have, right?

A better Qn perhaps;
What are the chances of liability being proven, what are ALL the ways in which it could come unstuck & .: linkages be clearly made between HiFo & 3rd-party host(s)?
If after doing thorough analysis there it's clear that the risk is too great, then perhaps we need to look at dismantling HiFo in the US, & re-establishing it elsewhere?

BUT, before we do any of that, we should try (just once more) to:
(1) Confirm that Nokia definitely no longer has hosting rights...
(2) If they don't, then we ask MS (once more) if they can continue to host.
(3) If Nokia has rights, ask them (once more) if they can help by hosting (perhaps HiFo can pay them for bandwidth/infra etc).

Who derailed this thread to off-topic?

not you, this single time ;-)
despite

firstly, woody, no offence taken mate. I didn't know if the issue was revolving around responsibilities regarding support as opposed to the legal stand point. I take on board your concern regarding your link to HiFo, so official images, as it stands unless some miracle happens, is out of the picture.

as you seem to have a better understanding of the legal aspect, do we have a defined list of the elements/libraries etc. that are affected, i don't just mean the closed source wiki page, which prevent us from hosting. Is it the 3rd party elements only or Nokia closed source apps as well we can't ship? Or simply anything in non-free repository?

if these elements are distibutable/available via repo at present, what would be ramifications of creating a stripped out image with these elements removed. would we be able to ship that as a firmware image or woud we need to go completely away from original images and created something from scratch, eg. using something like the debian wheezy image.

From my point of view, the concern is where to put my efforts. If down the line we can use a legally-sound, slimmed down and frankenstein'd nokia+cssu based image, i know to keep plugging away with what we've got. If we need to abandon them for a completely new image to be able to make it hostable then i'll switch efforts over more towards wheezy.

I've already had several projects i've had to put on hold because of outdated compilers/libraries, such as microbe and a jasper port, so I don't want to keep hitting barriers, especially one as great as not being able to flash devices.

That last point is especially an issue for the Neo900. Most of us around here would love to be running Maemo on it if and when its released, but unless you have a copy of the image laying about (which most of us probably do), how's any new users going to be able to experience it? No new users, no new devs.

i don't like saying this, because i don't like getting involved in some of the he said this, he said that arguements around here. Woody and joerg, just like pali, fmg, mag, smoku to name but a few, you two are big names in the community. for smaller devs like me, think about the negative impact this kind of behaviour has.

yeah, the neo900 team made a decision with original donation set up, which has upset some people as events unfolded. new ventures will always have issues to overcome, just unfortunate it affected money side. i don't see what its got to do with hosting images though. I've seen the same treatment to estel by several other members. he raised an issue, got a bit vocal and then everyone ganged up using body shell replacement against him. equally, think about the time and effort woody has put in to cssu.

from respected members of the community, i'd expect to see better.

Android_808,
please see http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=91308 which elaborates that Neo900 and fremantle images are not entangled. Also find explanations regarding closed blobs in fremantle and fiasco images etc there.
See thedead's post in this very thread about firmware images still being hosted by Nokia, in their fds-fire.nokia.com fileservers.
Please refrain from discussing Neo900 UG topics in here which are obviously absolutely unrelated to even this "off topic" thread and got sufficiently described in http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=93197 so no need to post an own partially incorrect version of the story here. If after reading complete http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=93197 thread there are still questions about what been the problem and who made which mistake and if or if not there been disagreements and which ones inside the Neo900 team, please ask/discuss your concerns there in that thread, not here.

As for "from respected members of the community, i'd expect to see better" you won't find me watching silenced when somebody starts bashing me and spreading false facts about me, about council, about Neo900, about Openmoko etc pp. Sorry.

Thanks
BR
jOERG

HiFo is the legal owner and operator of *.maemo.org and its' infra. This was settled in the agreement with Nokia and will be in effect when our obligations have been fulfillied and approved by Nokia which still holds all trademark rights. The agreement basically is a lifetime license to use the trademark and sadly prohibits HiFo from providing images and flasher tools, no matter the server or domain name. So no, we cannot hire or pay for a 3rd-party host.

This is not exactly an US-specific issue and HiFo is just about to dissolve into a german "eingetragener Verein".
All rights and assets from HiFo will be handed over the new Maemo Community e.V. once the registration at court is completed.

(1) Nokia would the only one with hosting rights...
(2) maemo was not part of the MS-deal, all maemo-related rights remain at Nokia Finland
(3) Nokia has no interests anymore in the maemo OS or helping our community, sadly.

And I would rather like to see this discussion/thread in "community" or "general" then in off-topic since it's quite important.

Apologies if it cames across as trying to tie the two (Maemo+Neo) together, that wasn't the intention, I was mearly trying to use it as a suitable example of a potential future direction. There will come a point where our existing devices become broken and we will look to projects such as Neo900 or some form of dev board for replacements.

Althougth the fds-fire.nokia.com servers are still available, there is always the chance that the images will go down or Nokia will somehow restrict access. As a result of this, I think it would be prudent to look at providing a safe, usable alternative that can be endorsed by the board/coucil. As Win7Mac said, to find a "sane" workaround.

What about web.archive.org?

Im sure someone will Blame me for It. IT always happen. Im always framed

That's Why I've added that line to footer.