Task:Community Council/Candidate declarations for September 2008

Contents

[edit] Candidates for Community Council Elections Sept 2008

[edit] Ryan Abel

Name
Ryan Abel
Company affiliation
None
maemo.org username
GeneralAntilles
Motivations
I have an intense interest in the tablets and the community around them. I'd like to help improve the community and the tablets by providing leadership and working to facilitate better-coordinated and more effective community action (like the maemo.org brainstorming sessions). I'd also like to help facility better communication between Nokia and the maemo.org community.

[edit] Jamie Bennett

Name
Jamie Bennett
Company affiliation
None
maemo.org username
baloo
Motivations
I'm a senior software developer in the gaming industry with an intense passion for Linux and mobile devices. My day job's ideals spill over to the tablets ambitions, usually on a one to one basis. Good interface, great user experience, good visuals e.t.c. I feel that as a passionate user I can bring my professional experience to the tablet environment along with my motivation to make Maemo on mobile devices the number 1 choice.

[edit] Andrew Flegg

Name
Andrew Flegg
Company affiliation
None relevant to Maemo
maemo.org username
Jaffa
Motivations
I've been interested in Maemo devices since about mid-2005, and bought a 770 the day the went on sale. Since then, I've been increasingly involved in the community - both on InternetTabletTalk and, increasingly, maemo.org.
I believe Nokia have yet to fully tap into the community that exists, and the community needs to help Nokia grow membership and activity within the Maemo ecosystem.
I want to push for Nokia to do more and more Maemo development in the open, with them *truly* having to justify why a component is closed. I want to have the community contribute more directly to the development process, whether in roadmapping; specification writing/review or testing of pre-released products.
The maemo.org community is growing: we need to ensure it keeps growing. I'm pleased to see that, already, some of the points I raised in "maemo.org: what next?" are coming about. I want to see the Council pushing this agenda to increase the level of dialogue happening at the Maemo *strategic* level between Nokia - as its corporate sponsor - and the maemo.org community - as the passionate, experienced, but currently undirected, community that it is.

[edit] Eduardo Lima (Etrunko)

Name
Eduardo Lima
Company
INdT - Instituto Nokia de Tecnologia
Maemo.org username
etrunko
Motivations
I've been involved with maemo software since the very beginning of the platform, thanks to my job at INdT. When Nokia released the first Internet Tablet device, Nokia 770 together with ITOS2005, we started providing applications to the platform, such as ports of GNOME applications and games using SDL library. Other contributions pre OS2006 include participation in the definition of the Telepathy spec and a very strong participation in the development of BlueZ, the linux bluetooth implementation.
Another remarkably contribution to the platform has been the maintenance of Python programming language since those days. Python has been widely used in the platform for various projects, and in my opinion it has brought the attention of many developers to Maemo, increasing its value and visibility in the Free/Open Source Software world.
With the release of the first version of Canola media player, we started to explore deeper the various possibilities the platform provides us. With a completely different approach of user interaction, it quickly became one of the most used applications by the users. It was written in C language and had SDL as its core lib. We then evoluted the idea of Canola and have rewritten it from scratch, now using Python programming language and using the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries (EFL) as the core libraries. I'm currently the maintainer of the whole EFL, python-efl and Canola packages for all internet tablet devices (770, N800 and N810).
Another interesting project I was deeply involved was the first version of Carman, which turned your device in a full OBDII analyzer.
I personally think we can do much more for Maemo and at the same time, there are many other ideas and opportunities that can be exctracted from it. This initiative of a community-driven project really instigates me. We can achieve a lot more together and I would like to participate closer to the community decisions.

[edit] Ryan Pavlik

Name
Ryan Pavlik
Company affiliation
None
maemo.org username
megabyte405
Motivations
I have been involved with the open-source community, starting with the AbiWord word processor, for several years now, and am a user of all three Nokia tablets. I look forward to fostering broader adoption of the Maemo-based devices through evaluation of community needs. As an AbiWord developer and also as a user, I see a disconnect between users, developers, and Nokia that is hampering developmental efficiency and leading to bad blood.

[edit] Simon Pickering

Name
Simon Pickering
Company affiliation
None
maemo.org username
lardman
Motivations
I like hacking (e.g. DSP and Jazelle) and the Nokia tablets provide lots of scope, especially due to missing information/drivers/etc (e.g. PowerVR, IVA, EAP_* headers for direct DSP audio output). I'm very keen to establish closer links between the technical staff/groups at Nokia and the community developers who would like to enhance/expand the tablets' abilities. I would really like to have the community more heavily involved in emerging features of the internet tablets, with component alpha-/beta-testing and access to more information (if it can be arranged). It is nice to see that we (Nokia & the Community) have made progress on the communication and information side of things with e.g. the "Questions for Nokia" page (http://wiki.maemo.org/Questions_for_Nokia).

[edit] Tim Samoff

Name
Tim Samoff
Company affiliation
None w/ Nokia
maemo.org username
timsamoff
Motivations
I have a vested interest in Maemo/maemo.org as a tablet user, UI designer, UX specialist, and developer. I am passionate about this community and desire to help it (us) succeed in both tablet-user community relations, tablet usability, and open-source software development.
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