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Community Council/Council election Q3 2010/Candidate declarations

Candidates for Q3 2010 Maemo Community Council elections

The following candidates have been nominated for the Maemo Community Council. The third column contains the status of the nomination (accepted, waiting, declined) - this is relevant for candidates who did not nominate themselves.

Candidate declarations

Where applicable:

Andrea Grandi

My name is Andrea Grandi, from Italy. Most of you probably already know me, but I'll introduce myself for people who joined later.

I'm a computer science student at Università degli Studi di Firenze and I've worked in the past as software developer for some companies. I also lead the Linux user group of my city (PtLUG), and for this reason my programming interests are directed to opensource development.

Working for PtLUG I've also gained a lot of experience about how to relate to a community and how to organize events.

Past and present in Maemo Community

I joined the Maemo Community since the first Maemo device was out (Nokia 770) and I've been always so excited for being able to contribute to this project.

In the past I've attended at both Maemo Summit doing a short talk. During last summer I collaborated with PyMaemo team during a stage at Igalia and at the moment I'm developing a couple of applications using Python and Qt.

Areas where I could help in the council

In the Maemo Council I could help mainly for two things. First of all I could help for the organization of the events. Finding a strategic place to organize an event and selecting interesting contents to attract more people is not an easy task. I think that there are still some areas where we can work better to give to the Community a better Summit.

Being a developer too I think I could help improving tools that Maemo developers use. For example a lot of work could be done to improve the Maemo Garage (did you notice that main Maemo project have their code in Gitorius, mailing list on Maemo Garage, website on another hosting service etc...... ?!).

What I would like to do in the Council

• Maemo(MeeGo) Summit organization: as I already said, there are some areas that we could improve and I'm going to work in this direction.
• Promoting developers contests: a nice way to attract developers is challenging them. We could organize a contest and I'm sure that a lot of interesting applications could be created by community.
• Improving the "getting started" part of all areas: I've noticed that for a new developers or users has never been easy to find where to start from. I think that a lot could be done to improve this.

Of course I've also other ideas for the Community, but first of all let's see how this Maemo+Moblin fusion will evolve. We are no more just "Maemo" now, we are a larger community so I think it's better to start as soon as possible working together to create the best community ever  :)

Tim Samoff

It's funny to think that I've been laying low in such a way that many people within the Maemo Community might not know me. For my absence, I apologize -- although, my absence has not been without just cause. In any case, I feel like my life is coming back into a place where I might be able to lend a hand -- and a voice -- in much more of a deliberate capacity.

That being said, I would like to nominate myself (again) for this esteemed position within our amazing community of software rebels... Even so, this is not to say that I wouldn't like some of the newer blood to demolish me in the elections. But, for that to happen, we need the newer blood to nominate themselves -- or nominate others -- and make this an important election... Not just one that was left by the wayside.

These are important times for our community. Not only are we on the verge of another community conference, but the community dynamic and infrastructure is about to take a dramatic shift. With the advent of Meego, we, as a community, must forge a path in which the community (members new and old) have a say in the future of our development framework and operating system. Enough said.

I am not going to make my nomination a history of what I have contributed to the community. There are plenty of forum threads, blog posts, etc. to prove my worth. But, this is the forum, I think, to stress the importance of having a Community Council and of remaining diligent in expressing out beliefs, our ideals, and our desires to Nokia and Intel.

We are the voice. That's what Maemo was built upon. Don't let laziness, shyness, or some sort of self-imposed form of self-motivation get in your way.

This is my self-nomination. But, I'm an old hand. Nominate yourself and become a pivotal force in Maemo and Meego.

Rüdiger Schiller

In the first place, I nominated myself to encourage more former or active council members to volunteer.

In the 2nd, I offer my heart and my soul to stand a ground for developers who cannot or do not want to do it (also for the whole community but I think the developers come a bit short regarding the masses of users in the commmunity). I like doing the background work (heavy lifting) as well as I like to communicate and fight for opinions, sometimes even if it is only for the better good and not my own opinion. I like to question behavior and reflect situations differently as other people. I think I may do a good job in supporting the old council members and give some fresh air to the dungeons down below and light up the secret pathes to nokia's embassy. (I was asked to not declare war...) May you support my self nomination? Let a vote decide!

Cosimo Kroll

Many of you know me already from a summit or another event.

Currently I have my own site http://meetmeego.org and I am organizing our very successful event, the mobile freidae (more information at http://mobilefreidae.org). Both are focused on Germany, or the German speaking part of the world.

As you may know, I'm also focused on helping newbies for example via instant messengers. I'm always thinking that I was a newbie, too. This will be even more important with the move/merge to/with MeeGo as the devices will be more mainstream than ever.

Andrew Flegg

As with Tim, I'm an old hand and the current chair of the council. The last 6 months have been interesting and challenging for the community, coming as they did after the announcement of the merger of Moblin and Maemo teams at Intel and Nokia and to form MeeGo.

The thing I've learned is that Nokia's planning didn't seem to extend to the community and Intel (not having much of a Moblin community) didn't think much of it either. This has resulted in fear, uncertainty and doubt. The new MeeGo community is also making wholly new mistakes, for which we need to bring our extensive experience of maemo.org and the Maemo Community to bear; for example, the ability of community packages to depend on each other. It's also entirely unclear whether meego.com should be the home for MeeGo device discussions, let alone Harmattan or MeeGo-Harmattan HE on N900.

The MeeGo community is forming, however the Maemo community feels like it's stagnating. There are a few reasons for this, however the big one is that of fear & uncertainty, as I mentioned above. We all want a continual updates to our device's OS, a steady stream of enhancements and a vibrant ecosystem. What's unclear is the best way of achieving that:

• Core MeeGo Handset port to N900
• MeeGo-Harmattan port to N900
• Maemo 5 Community SSU

Certainly in the short term, the last one is the easiest to achieve and can even provide benefits whilst waiting for (hopefully) PR1.3. That's what I support MohammadAG's efforts in this area; and hope we can get some real traction there. Hopefully the other two will contribute to each other and they will become realistic day-to-day alternatives to Maemo 5. But they're not there yet.

The budget for maemo.org is being reduced and the number of hours contracted for the paid staff is decreasing. Nokia are also less interested in Maemo and its community. Therefore, if elected, I plan to:

• Clarify the position of the paid team and what we can expect from them (a task which is currently underway[1])
• Hold a referendum in this term, no later than February 2011 on the topic of whether the Community Council needs to continue for a future term, and have discussions about the governance of maemo.org.

Hopefully, by January a new device will be out and we will be able to see the effect of consumer-quality MeeGo devices on the Maemo community; and it'll be clearer how the MeeGo community is operating.

Since making the decision to run again (I was in the founding council, chaired the following council and am chair again now) we've had a set of new candidates come forward; so I revisited this decision. I think, however, some form of continuity would be useful at this critical time.

If you have any questions for me, please don't hesitate to ask. I also encourage people to come up with questions for the other candidates.

Stephen Gadsby

While I'm pleased to see enough community members have now stepped forward that the election can proceed and the full, five member council can be filled, I'd be happier still to see a larger pool of candidates during such an important time for this community. To that end, I add my own name to the candidate list, and I encourage others to please step forward.

The time period covered by this next council term promises to be an interesting one. I support the decision not to forcibly merge the maemo.org community into MeeGo. However, even without that, MeeGo already casts a large shadow over our community, and the impending release of a MeeGo (or at least, MeeGo-ish) handset by Nokia promises to draw away an as yet unknown, but potentially large, quantity of people, talent, and resources.

Communication will be key. The current council, and councils past, have established good communication channels, and MWKN has proven to be a wonderful asset. In the turbulent times ahead though, I see a need for even greater coordination and sharing of information.

There's widespread, and growing, anxiety in the community regarding MeeGo. What does MeeGo mean, offer, and not offer to owners of current devices? And what of the community members who choose to stay with Maemo and maemo.org? What can be done to best position Fremantle and Diablo, at a minimum, for continued community support and enhancement, and how can the maemo.org resources the upon which our community has come to rely be continued into the future?

It will be essential that the next council assist the community in disseminating the information we have, and finding answers to the questions that remain. More than technical skills, the next council will need communication skills and a willingness to seek answers. And yes, that's a direct hint to bears and others who fear they're insufficiently code-savvy to stand for election to the council.

I'll be doing my best to help.

Felipe Crochik

I don’t expect anybody to vote for me with so many good and well known candidates but I have had such a good experience with this community that I would like to get more involved with it.

All the community/open source experience I have I own to this community. I am an independent software developer and started writing software long ago when the “new kids on the block” were talking about windows.

I own an n800 and couldn’t wait to get my hands on the n900 after I heard about it. I have to say that got disappointed but finding this community has made all the difference.

One common complaint I hear about maemo is the supposedly small number of applications. While I don’t agree this is necessary true, it is clear that maemo has failed to attract “commercial” applications. I don’t see why an “open platform” based on open source has necessary to scare off “commercial” applications. One common subject among consumers is how the n900 compares to android and the iphone – the applications available always end up being the most important maemo disadvantage. Also, how many times have you read about how bad/useless the “ovi” store is for maemo?

It is obvious that the hardware will not evolve but the software can. We may get a chance or two to update the OS with “plain vanilla meego” but eventually that will also stop. I believe that the ability to get new applications to be the most important aspect of keeping our devices/community alive. We must make sure that Qt and Qt Mobility packages will continue to evolve/exist on the n900, I would even say that we have to invest on getting the latest qt back ported to the Diablo as well – n800 owners are a big part of this community.

More important than my candidacy I would like to offer some questions for the candidates and future council:

• Is meego a “suitable” replacement for the maemo community? We have debian but there is also the ubuntu community. All this assuming that at some point it will make sense to replace fremantle with some meego flavor.
• Can we find sponsors for the maemo so we can continue to exist? Can’t we talk Nokia into making maemo the house for the new nokia “meego” devices? I am quite sure Nokia will also have a “meego by nokia community” of some sort.
• Can we figure out some model where the device owners will contribute money so their devices don’t get obsolete? Anybody that had to pay for the device will probably not mind paying to get better/more software. Maybe bringing somehow the “ovi store for the n900” to the maemo community will be enough to justify maintaining it.
• Unrelated but important: Security and Privacy. Shouldn’t this be an important issue? How can we just ignore all the current vulnerabilities?

My name is Felipe Crochik, I was born in Brazil and live in the U.S. I have created MyContacts, WakeOnLan, ported (and enhanced) Macuco and tried to help other developers with my experience.

If there is any room for a “fresh/green” candidate I believe my experience with “consumer software” development can be useful to the community as the “community experience” has been very useful to me.

I hope my ignorance will help bring some new arguments/ideas to the table. Please forgive me for being so “naïve”.