Thank you for making my point so well :-)

Just because someone doesn't know what a person/group is doing doesn't mean that they're not benefiting from it. Nor that other people are aware of what that person/group is doing and appreciating it.

.

Yes. No. Maybe. Can you repeat the question?

The problem here is people neither know what the Council do or the aims of the Council to be able to make a fair and honest judgement.

Asking a quiestion like "Would you miss the Council if it was gone? " is a damm brave if not idiotic one to ask ! as it is hell bound to raise condemnation.

Nokia are to blame for all the bad being said here as they have FAILED miserably to give us anything anywhere near finished on the N900 that was marketed as a FLAGSHIP by the many many.

Qgil had a great input on everything software wise for our device and he failed miserably to deliver along with all his counterparts i might add.
If this is his fault we dont know but Nokia as a team stink to high heaven as a market leader in telecomunications.

The Council need to sit back and maybe take some advice on board about the stance they need to take regarding all us lame end users who have been brainwashed and lied to by Nokia and the frontmen like Qgil etc etc, this is the very reason any or almost all faith from Nokia has diminished sadly to the point of pure anger and frustration. They need to hit Nokia at the point they have no other way out but to listen and act on users wishes as a whole instead of putting out some stupid questionair about what we would like from a developer for what turned out to be beneficial for future devices leaving the N900 in the background.

Hang on a minute Nokia WTF have you done ? you left ius all with a device having HUGE capability and turned away from it to a future device leaving everyone angry pissed off and totally frustrated !!!.

Qgil back out if all you can do is make empty promises because most everything you brainwashed us with has been swept under the carpet and now nothing to look forward too for the N900.

A Council without proper aim should be disbanded untill they have proper direction WITH support from it's members US !!!!.

On a last note i have to say that Texrat is THE ONLY real person on this goddamm forum you can get feeling from because of his interaction and such qualities that leave the rest behind so i can only applaud Texat for all the work he has put into this and still does.

Interesting points have been raised in this thread, but I have to remind you all of two things:

YOU, maemo.org members elect the Council. Nobody gets a seat without stating intent and being voted on. I understand that a lot of people here did not qualify for voting or have seen the whole process because the N900 release did not significantly predate the current Council. The elections themselves were fairly well advertised on all community channels and everyone got a mail and voting token, with links to candidate manifestos (coincidentally, the elections are perfect vehicles for new ideas to emerge, directions to be found or change, etc).

Now, the for the meat (/me dons tomato-proof protective gear)

While the Council engaged in a lot of projects, as shocking as it sounds, our primary task is not working as in DOING (even though most if not all Council members have projects they work(ed) on for usually far longer than they are on the Council). Stop. Don't press that reply button just yet. Read on. Everyone can help on tasks, volunteers are welcome in all shapes and forms, from bloggers, greeters, through testers and all the way to developers. You don't need to be on the Council to step up - see the excellent example of kojacker and the application contest, or the hundreds of developers working on software in Extras. What is our primary task then ? IMHO, to help self-organize and make a link between individuals and the big corp. If something bothers you, we relay it. If Nokia needs input or suggestions how to proceed on matters touching on the community, they ask/write us. Now, I know there is a gag reflex about Flash 10.1, MeeGo, Nokia not listening, etc, but those, while VERY important questions, are by no means the only things that go on in Maemo land - and I agree that maybe some more exposure would be needed to make this visible (though I personally hate this as it reminds me of politicians opening new stretches of roads - they neither built it nor actually produced the resources needed). You need extra support/publicity for/guidance with your community initiative ? You go council. You are unsatisfied with how maemo.org operates in some of the myriad of it's aspects ? You go council. Note how many of the things the Council does (like the responsibility of the whole of Extras !) has little-to-nothing to do with Nokia per se. Let me underline - we're not a firmware request committee. It is IMHO wrong to see the council as leverage against Nokia (we can only blog, write open letters and similar - any of you can do that, too). What the council has is SOME level of authority to say 'hey, we're elected people, so represent the interests of a significant amount of users'... For unhappy people that means little, but it's a bit like dishes and cleaning - you don't realize the importance and effort people put in it until the stuff piles up.

In any case, when my term is up I will certainly present what initiatives I supported and how, what I feel was a success and what wasn't and what I wish the next Council can and should focus on (regardless of that Council's compositions provided there will be a Council at all :S ), especially in the context of MeeGo. As said above I think Council elections are a good time for retrospection, new ideas and re-establishing directions and goals, and one election is coming right up.

That's what I had to say about this topic.

Yes i agree with you on a lot of what you said especially the "Everyone can help" bit but i feel more needs to be done to get people more involved with helping the Council by explaining more about how people can actually help and some guidelines on the format of help that is beneficial for this community to address the main problems.

Things that are important would be to point out the failures or the area's that Nokia are failing and how to go about this.

Meego is not getting explained properly in terms of what Nokia will and will not do getting it to the N900 and if Nokia are failing then the correct route to bolster reasons why the N900 does need further development software wise.

If the council is to gain respect as a team then it must prove to the community what issues are being dealt with and the procedures being used.
Let the people know how important a role the Council has and why it needs input from the community members.

OK, I'll bite: what did the council actually do?

And I expect the answer to be void of "we wrote a letter to Nokia that was ignored".

FWIW, without reading the whole thread, there is just one thing I'd like to point out:

It is very useful to have the council not only for the things that they do, but for the things that *may* do and also for the things that they *don't* do. Just being there and saying "if you don't know whom to contact, contact me" deserves huge thanks.

The only thing I'd suggest is to rename the "council" to something like "elected members" or "elected representatives" or "elected representative members" or something like that, in order to prevent people with "too much free time" (tm) to start discussing their problems with something that is called "the council" (I believe that this discussion is against the term "council" or the "subject" and not against the members of the council or any of their actions - which makes the whole discussion pointless).

What exactly are you trying to do?

• Accuse the council members of inaction?
• Indicate lack of ideas and/or incorrect tactics?
• Present an assumption that some people should do the whole work or perform all initiatives?
• Something else?

Is there something that the members of the council should do and they didn't? Where is it written? What did you do so far? Did they prevent you or became an obstacle on doing something you wanted to do? Did they have any negative effect on you or the community?
Do you believe that you would do better (and if yes, why don't you try)?

Up until recently I hadn't realized the council existed tbh, but over the past few weeks I've found their help to be invaluable with the running of the contest. Especially attila77, who has dug me out of a hole on more than one occasion!

I think the council is not really something you notice until you need them.

I am trying to show that Nokia does not care at all about the N900, and the council, like many other things Nokia does, is designed to make people believe that Nokia does a lot of good things for N900, while not doing anything in fact.

About the members of the council, I'd guess that some are hoodwinked by Nokia, while others realise the truth, but hope they can do some good "working from within".