Hildon Foundation/Board candidate declarations for June 2013

This page lists every candidate in the June 2013 Hildon Foundation Board of Directors election, in alphabetical order. A brief summary of their declaration is given, along with a link to their full position and a link to individual Q&A responses where appropriate.

Contents

[edit] Ryan Abel (GeneralAntilles)

"I have one goal in mind in running for the Hildon Foundation Board: to help make keeping maemo.org running as painless as possible.

"Long-term, the community may need to branch out. An obsolete, unsupported platform is not going to provide the fertile soil to maintain a vibrant community forever. But, ultimately, any growth into new focuses must be organic and bottom-up. Strategic partnerships with Jolla, Canonical, Qt or whomever established by the Hildon Foundation will not be productive unless a large percentage of the community's interest is focused on those things."[1]

[edit] Rüdiger Schiller (chemist)

"For those who are not aware of who I am yet; I am sitting member and Chairman of our Hildon Foundation Council and Maemo Community Council. Lead Administrator of talk.maemo.org and therefor admin of our forum.

"This year will bring and already brought changes to our community and we need to remain active and vital. I'd like to see a full body for BoD so please nominate any people trustworthy, even yourself!"[2]

[edit] Craig Woodward (Woody14619)

"My views on the community and it's future are very similar to many already expressed by many candidates already. We need am immediate focus on the present, both in keeping current services running and getting the legal items needed to continue to function as an independent entity. For future goals, we as a community will naturally grow toward another platform as Maemo ages. Weather that is Jolla, a MeeGo device, an independent start-up, or something as yet not even visible in the market place, in the end that's for the community to decide. But I'm willing to bet that the direction will be pretty uniform when it happens."[3]

I will also answer questions from TMO here:

1) Where do you see maemo.org in 1 year? In 5 years?

I see maemo.org currently as slowly winding down with a core group that is dedicated to this wonderful line of devices, who will remain as long as there is interest. I am hopeful that over the next 1 to 3 years the community will be invigorated again by adoption of a new system and/or device, be that community driven (like the GTA04) or a commercially driven (like Jolla, Samsung, or another open provider).

2) What do see you as the primary role for the Hildon Foundation Board of Directors?

I see HiFo's primary role as being a support for the community, both in keeping vital systems running/funded, and in handling legal tasks that a loose-knit community legally can not handle. That includes handling donations, dealing with contracts for services, and maybe even having discussions and building relationships with companies or similar groups the community is showing interest in or could benefit from having ties with.

3) How do you envision the relationship between the Hildon Foundation Board of Directors and the Hildon Foundation Council/Maemo Community Council?

The HiFo Board exists to serve the community. The HFC/MCC exists as a channeling point to funnel the thousands of voices into a more coherent stream of thought. The Board serves, and acts as a check for, the HFC by reviewing and acting on their requests as appropriate. This service should be done in a timely fashion, and as openly as possible.

4) Are you able to attend board meetings at least monthly?

I have attended Council and Board meetings with regularity, even when not on the Council or Board. I plan to continue that regardless of the outcome of this election.

5) Do you own a Maemo device? Do you (regularly) use a Maemo device? Are you at all interested in Maemo and its community?

I currently own two N900, one of which is my daily use device. The primary was a pre-order, and was one of the first batch sent out. The other I picked up about a year ago, and do occasional testing on, though I tend to do that sparingly as it's my "backup" device in the event of hardware failure on the first device.

6) What kind of collaboration do you expect to see from Nokia, to ensure survival of the most important assets?

Sadly, due to several factors over the past 6 to 9 months, I see very little collaboration with Nokia in the near future. At best we will strike a reasonable name use agreement, and retain that until one group or the other ceases to exist. (And frankly, it's unclear to me which will cease first.)
While I do see a very loose line of communication with Nokia long term, I do not suspect we will see any additional support from them beyond what is currently in place.

[edit] Krzysztof Kuska (fw190)

I'm nominating myself so we have 4 candidates and can proceed with the voting ;) [4]

[edit] Andrew Flegg (Jaffa)

"I accept. It's nice to feel appreciated

My time recently has recently been at a premium with a relocation to (very sunny[1]) southern California with work. However, this weekend we're moving in to our new house and - apart from a mass of Ikea building and waiting for shipping - things should calm down.

My view of the Board is that it's there to support the Council in whatever ways they require; whilst advising them with my long-term community involvement, and professional experience. I'm an IT consultant working in the asset finance industry, and have worked at a number of different companies. I believe my professional experience, as well as open source contributions, will well place me for the responsibilities a Board position requires.

I do not believe it should be the policy of the Hildon Foundation to chase any open source or mobile phone project looking for approval and continuation. We have a large community of N900 and N9 users - as well as a strong-collection of N8x0 users. I believe the primary purpose of the Foundation is to ensure these devices is supported. A secondary purpose is to foster additional devices (such as Joerg's suggestion to the OpenMoko community earlier today on maemo-community[2]) and to try to ensure the community's continuation. As an example, I encouraged Ash Nazir (when he was working at BlackBerry) to reach out to the Qt and Maemo/MeeGo communities to provide a bridge to BlackBerry 10 - for those who wanted it.

I would be honoured to serve on the Hildon Foundation Board, and would hope that the stumbling start it experienced can be solved with board members who understand Maemo, having been involved in the Maemo community for a long time.

Thanks for reading, if anybody has any questions (for me - or any other candidates), please do not hesitate to ask.

Best wishes,

Andrew"

[5]

[edit] Gido Griese (win7mac)

I am nominating myself for HiFo Board of directors. Further info on my person and incitement will follow shortly.

Basically I want to make sure this election actually can be held.

Here's a brief introduction of myself:

I am self-employed in the domain of videoproduction, mainly as a cameraman. In april 2012 I purchased a N9, my first linux device and you can imagine I needed some help with it. So I joined the maemo community and what I've found here instantly comprised me. Since then I am a daily visitor of the forum and later on agreed to help maintaining the wiki. So my practical experience with Linux and IT in general is limited, but I think it's not the most important thing for a position like this. I do believe though that a healthy common sense about what is good for the community is invaluable. I toss my hat in the ring basically to make sure this election actually can be held now and because I believe the actual BoD needs to be replaced in order to serve the community, as it deserves much better.

Let me answer some questions that came up on TMO:

1) Where do you see maemo.org in 1 year? In 5 years?

A year ahead, I'd expect the community at least as vibrant as today. We still get new members every day and I believe many maemo + meego users will stay faithful. And if our Harmattan-devices will run sailfish OS and probably even vice versa, there is a promissing 5 years perspective IMO.

2) What do see you as the primary role for the Hildon Foundation Board of Directors?

Actually the HiFo-page states "The Hildon Foundation is a nonprofit organization elected by the Maemo Community to handle community oversight and infrastructure."
I'd change it to something like "The Hildon Foundation is a nonprofit organization elected by the Maemo Community to represent it for legal and other official practices and to preserve the maemo.org infrastructure."

3) How do you envision the relationship between the Hildon Foundation Board of Directors and the Hildon Foundation Council/Maemo Community Council?

As maemo.org now is completely community-driven and represented by the council, I believe the BoD should provide service for community/council demands where needed. Close collaboration is a requirement here.

4) Are you able to attend board meetings at least monthly?

Well, as a freelancer you can never tell exactly till date closes, besides that I gladly am ;-)

5) Do you own a Maemo device? Do you (regularly) use a Maemo device? Are you at all interested in Maemo and its community?

Despite feeling a bit under-equipped here with one N9, I'm a happy camper. There actually is no alternative for me and this community with it's spirit just fascinates me. And I realized that everybody not only can, but needs to do something to actually keep this great community alive'n kickin. Like you and me, remember this little story?

6) What kind of collaboration do you expect to see from Nokia, to ensure survival of the most important assets?

Some serious collaboration can't be expected I guess, because the relation seems quite screwed. But I do hope the contract once figured or somehow adjusted can finally be set effective. Though chances are low, I'd support any attempts to gain Harmattan assets wherever possible. Oh, and one fine day Nokia will give Meego a 2nd chance, acquire Jolla and we lived happily ever after... :-)

Kind regards

[6]

[edit] References

  1. ↑ Ryan Abel's nomination
  2. ↑ Rüdiger Schiller's nomination
  3. ↑ Craig Woodward's nomination
  4. ↑ Krzysztof Kuska nomination
  5. ↑ Andrew Flegg nomination
  6. ↑ Gido Griese nomination
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