Task:Community Council/Candidate declarations for March 2009

Ryan Abel

 * Name
 * Ryan Abel


 * Company affiliation
 * None


 * maemo.org username
 * GeneralAntilles


 * Motivations
 * I had a lot of fun serving on the Council the first time around and I really feel the inaugural Council accomplished a lot in its 6-month term (see Andrew's post for a list ;)), as such, I'd like to serve a second term and continue working for the Maemo Community. There is still a lot of work to be done to see the accomplishment of major goals like improving Nokia's understanding of open source and encouraging greater collaboration between Nokia and the community. There are also a lot of smaller-scale project like integrating the Application Manager with Downloads, implementing a strong QA process for Extras, and improving the state of Maemo documentation (to name a few of my pet projects).


 * This is a pivotal time for Maemo, with Fremantle and the next tablet looming on the horizon and likely a major marketing shift for the platform within the next year or two the platform will be undergoing many major changes and quite a bit of activity, I'd like to be here to encourage things in the right direction.

Jamie Bennett

 * Name
 * Jamie Bennett


 * Company affiliation
 * None


 * maemo.org username
 * baloo


 * Introduction
 * I'm a Senior Software Developer for a large games company based in Holland (I'm actually based in the UK though) using embedded technologies to produce visually stunning games. A large part of my day job translates well to the vision required for a next-generate tablet, good UI, flowing user experience, rich graphics, functional whilst being compelling. I would like to bring this experience to the Nokia tablets.


 * As for Maemo, I organised the Maemo community presence at the Nokia's OSiM booth last year and was responsible for the video coverage at the first summit, something that I would like to continue to do this year.


 * I'm active in most parts of the community, maintain a blog at http://www.linuxuk.org and generally have a real passion for embedded technologies.


 * Any questions then just ask away.


 * Motivations
 * Maemo is at a defining moment in its history. When the 770 came out, maybe ahead of its time, the Nokia device was in a market space pretty much on its own. Today, the new device comes into a world where expectations are high, competitors are plentiful and success is not guaranteed. I want to be there to help translate the community's vision of what they want to see into something that is commercially viable for Nokia. I want to lend my professional experience to helping make the new tablets a success whist strengthening this unique community we have here, one that I am sure is the envy of many companies that try to straddle the open/closed source world.


 * I stood for council in the inaugural community elections but missed out to a great team that did an excellent job in their first 6 months. This time I would like to have the opportunity to do my part.

Andrew Flegg

 * Name
 * Andrew Flegg


 * Company affiliation
 * None relevant to Maemo


 * maemo.org username
 * Jaffa


 * Motivations
 * I'm proud to have been a member of the inaugural Community Council. In the last six months, we've seen a sea-change in the way Maemo is progressing: the summit; community ownership of maemo.org; better use of Bugzilla; the realistic vision of a community-led "hacker edition" in Mer; a webmaster, docmaster, bugmaster and now debmaster all being paid for for us; open communication and - importantly - progress indicators like the pre-release SDKs, which would've been unheard of back in 2006/2007.


 * The Council has been involved in many of these, but would claim credit for few. I believe we've truly fulfilled our role as facilitators and would like to continue my role there. We've not got everything right, but I think we've proved the idea; and that it can be a cohesive force within the community.


 * I think there's still work to be done, though. Nokia are being more open, and projects like Tracker and GUPnP are being developed openly. Modest has slipped back into internal development; some patches to Application Manager have been merged, but the community's vision for application management in Diablo - and Fremantle - looks unlikely to have been realised. The system as a whole, and the application environment which so clearly defines the Maemo brand, are architected internally. Design decisions are taken internally.


 * Slowly, hopefully, we can change Nokia management into utilising the enthusiastic talent at their disposal in a way which is truly ground-breaking in the industry; with a root-to-tip collaboration between us all.


 * Thanks for reading this, and I'll happily answer any questions anyone has.

Andrea Grandi

 * Name
 * Andrea Grandi


 * Company affiliation
 * None


 * maemo.org username
 * andy80


 * Introduction
 * My name is Andrea Grandi, I'm 28 and I live in Pistoia (Tuscany, ITALY). I'm a programmer, in particular very interested in Linux and opensource. I've been working for some years as computer programmer, then I decided to begin studing at university, and currently I'm attending at "Università degli studi di Firenze" to get the Computer Science degree. I spend lot of my time to manage the Pistoia Linux User Group I founded in 2001.


 * My life in community
 * I'm part of the community since I bought my first Nokia 770. I started contributing to the mailing lists, I wrote some tutorials (in italian language, then I translated them to english) and I ported SPIM (a MIPS emulator) to Nokia 770. Later I had the possibility to buy a N810 and I was able to experiment more with the Maemo SDK. I was at the Maemo Summit in Berlin, doing a light talk about Maemo development using Eclipse, PluThon and EsBox plugins.


 * Motivations
 * I really would like to be able to do more for the community and one of the best way could be to be part of the council, to help both users/developers to explain their requests to Nokia and Nokia to understand the requests from the community. There are a lot of fantastic ideas comung from the community that could improve what we are doing: the key is to organize them and giving them more attention. This is what I've always looked for: working together to build something great!

Tim Samoff

 * Name
 * Tim Samoff


 * Company affiliation
 * None


 * maemo.org username
 * timsamoff


 * Introduction
 * I'm a veteran graphic/web designer, filmmaker, and musician. I'm also 1/5 of the inaugural Maemo Community Council. During my time on the Council I've been instrumental in the development of the new maemo.org website (currently under development), hiring our new (and first) debmaster, communicating community-relevant issues with Nokia as well as the greater Maemo Community, organizing the first Maemo Summit, and more.


 * Motivation
 * If you hadn't heard by now, I'm not a developer. I'm a regular Maemo user who happens to have an eye for design aesthetic and general user experience. I have been an open source advocate for many years and have taken part (and have been intimately involved) with several open source communities over the years. I believe in the current philosophy behind Maemo (http://is.gd/ltB4), and I am passionate about being a part of the future possibilities. While my motivation might not be centered around developing software for this platform, it is centered around the desire to see our software (first- or third-party) live up to its potential and compete with other software platforms.


 * You can find me spouting off about Maemo at the above URL, my blog (below), Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, and Jaiku -- just Google my name if you're really curious. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.


 * (And, like our current Council Chair, I also like long walks on the beach.)