Maemo Meeting Minutes 26 March 2011, 1400 UTC...

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the delay in meeting minutes. I want to tank everyone who
attended. As you'll see, the attendance list only includes those who
are/were members of the Maemo Community Council. But, I really
appreciate the others who graced us with their presence.

This meeting ended up being almost two-hours long (one hour longer than
intended and an hour after I had to leave). This being said, I don't
know if I adequately included all of the important points from the
meeting below. If you're interested, it would be best to read the
meeting transcript[1] yourself.

In Attendance...

Outgoing Council:
* Andrew Flegg (Jaffa)
* Tim Samoff (timsamoff)
* Attila Chipa (achipa) - beginning at 1650 UTC

Incoming Council:
* Alan Bruce (qole)
* RM Bauer (SD69)
* Felipe Crochik (fcrochik)
* Attila Chipa (achipa) - beginning at 1650 UTC

Agenda/Notes:
1. Introductions

* Call for new Council to choose a Chair (this will be accomplished this
week via the council@ email address).

2. What was done during last term

* The legal ownership of maemo.org was handed over to the community,
with Nemein (Henri Bergius as main point of contact) managing it on our
behalf. There are now only three members of the maemo.org team, all
part-time. X-Fade (Niels Breet) webmaster; Andre Klapper (andre)
bugmaster; Reggie Suplido (Reggie) talkmaster. Nemein have further
budget which equates to one full time person.

* The Council was involved in the sponsorship of people for the MeeGo
Conference from a "handset" background.

* The Council sponsored the Maemo 5 Community SSU; providing support &
advice to MohammadAG; dealing with the thread on bugs.maemo.org and
helping triage the bugs (j.mp/communityssu-bugs).

* Passed on a refresh license change request queue request from
DocScrutinizer & jonwil to Quim.

* Asked Tero (tekojo) about maemo.org funding, given the concern voiced
from the community after Feb 11th.

* Held a brainstorm redux meeting with the maemo.org team to work out
how the Maemo Brainstorm items were progressing.

* More work on community bug reporting process, liaising with Qt
maintainers around Qt versions in Extras-devel, and liaising with Forum
Nokia folks who are doing Qt hotfixes.

* Ramped up efforts to keep Council visible via Council blog on m.o.

3. What was not done during last term

* Getting a handle on the maemo.org staff & Nemein. Despite committing
to come up with a community involvement process (to help lighten their
workload), it's often a black hole. Problems need to be chased sometimes
to support@nemein.com email address to raise a ticket in their internal
system.

* Andre is still doing lots of work in Bugzilla triaging bugs both for
the CSSU and Extras projects.

* Niels is still helping to set up the Community OBS which can be used
for MeeGo, Fremantle and Harmattan; but there's no clearly communicated
plan for transitioning to it from the autobuilder, but the committed-to
donations system for maemo.org/downloads hasn't been worked on at all;
nor is there any documentation about the structure (AFAICT) of maemo.org.

* Council/Community should have a root access process concerning admin
and maintenance of maemo.org, but the details are still up in the air.

* Council isn't involved in MeeGo Conf sponsorship decisions for SF in May.

* Justify the Council (the new Council needs to figure out of they are
the last Council or not; how the Q2 Council may differ from preceding ones).

4. Past Council reflections/comments

* There's increasing pressure from the MeeGo community, and some
Intelians, that Nokia *don't* get an exception to call Harmattan MeeGo.
This might put a big spanner in the works for the Harmattan community.

* Development and marketing of the CSSU needs to ramp up and become much
more organized.

* Thoughts about the Maemo Community shrinking over the next year or
so... So, the Council will have to be quite vocal in organizing
community efforts (site maintenance, app dev, etc.).


5. New Council comments/questions

* Many questions about Council Chair, m.o root access, funded employees
of m.o, CSSU, etc. Most of these questions are, as yet, unanswered.

* Questions about "friendliness" and cooperation between Maemo and
MeeGo, of which the outgoing Council answered "yes."

* Talk of the Community OBS. X-Fade and lbt are the folks involved, and
there've been some comms about it on meego-* mailing lists.

* Comments about the Council taking on a bridging role between
forum.meego.com and talk.maemo.org.

* Has there been discussion about open source activities around next
Nokia device? Not yet. There are two schools of thought - it's a
dead-end, don't bother OR we can make it such a success that Nokia's
board reconsiders their medium-term plans...

* It will be tricky getting a centralized forum for the Harmattan
community. It was hard enough with t.m.o. and the mailing lists, and no
one has a clear vision about a "Harmattan Community." Should maemo.org
just assume to be the place for the Harmattan community forum? Meego.com
forums are a no-go, at least that was dawn/quim's stance a while back.
The question is why exactly do we need another forum? Just because of
the name? It might also become obvious once it's clear if harmattan will
be "marketed" as Maemo 6, meego or something completely new.

* Do we have any "hard figures" on how the community has changed since
the beginning of Mmeego?

* More questions about the maemo.org infrastructure and how it will
continue. Neiman will play an important role in this.

[1]
http://mg.pov.lt/maemo-meeting-irclog/%23maemo-meeting.2011-03-26.log.html

On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 02:55:13PM -0700, Tim Samoff wrote:

Hello!

I'd like to say to the Maemo Council, old and new, that there is an
excellent way to move Maemo forward. Not just as a legacy operating
system for Nokia devices, but even for newer devices. That way
forward is through Debian.

Debian has the advantage of being non-commercial and completely open
from beginning to end. It hosts infrastructure, build farms, mailing
lists and IRC which maemo.org can use. Most importantly, decisions
made in Debian will not be undermined by shifting commercial interests
that do not take into consideration the investment of individual
developers.

Many Debian developers have N900s and would be happy to see more Maemo
devs in their midst. There are also Debian developers who have joined
Maemo and contributed directly to Maemo since Maemo is buit on Debian,
so the two communities are linked. To strengthen that link, I'd like
to ask everyone on this list to participate here:
http://wiki.debian.org/Derivatives/Census/Maemo

That is the entry place for Debian developers and users to get
involved in Maemo. I think the council has a responsibility to make
sure that page is up to date and well taken care of. I'm currently
listed as the contact person, but I think someone from the council
would be much better at that position. I kindly request that the council
consider taking on this responsibility.

I'd also like to ask the council members, in fact everyone from the
Maemo community, to consider joining the Debian-derivatives mailing
list. You can do so by going to the Debian Derivatives Front Desk:
http://wiki.debian.org/DerivativesFrontDesk

I'm on that mailing list as is the current Debian Project Leader who
has worked very hard with other Debian Developers to create a vibrant
resource for derivatives to contribute to Debian and for Debian to
contribute to derivatives. This cooperation is very important and
works to enocurage the health of the overall Debian community.

Thanks for caring about Maemo and Open Source software in general and
I hope to see everyone on debian-derivatives.


Regards,

Jeremiah



> Hi everyone,
>
> Sorry for the delay in meeting minutes. I want to tank everyone who
> attended. As you'll see, the attendance list only includes those who
> are/were members of the Maemo Community Council. But, I really
> appreciate the others who graced us with their presence.
>
> This meeting ended up being almost two-hours long (one hour longer than
> intended and an hour after I had to leave). This being said, I don't
> know if I adequately included all of the important points from the
> meeting below. If you're interested, it would be best to read the
> meeting transcript[1] yourself.
>
> In Attendance...
>
> Outgoing Council:
> * Andrew Flegg (Jaffa)
> * Tim Samoff (timsamoff)
> * Attila Chipa (achipa) - beginning at 1650 UTC
>
> Incoming Council:
> * Alan Bruce (qole)
> * RM Bauer (SD69)
> * Felipe Crochik (fcrochik)
> * Attila Chipa (achipa) - beginning at 1650 UTC
>
> Agenda/Notes:
> 1. Introductions
>
> * Call for new Council to choose a Chair (this will be accomplished this
> week via the council@ email address).
>
> 2. What was done during last term
>
> * The legal ownership of maemo.org was handed over to the community,
> with Nemein (Henri Bergius as main point of contact) managing it on our
> behalf. There are now only three members of the maemo.org team, all
> part-time. X-Fade (Niels Breet) webmaster; Andre Klapper (andre)
> bugmaster; Reggie Suplido (Reggie) talkmaster. Nemein have further
> budget which equates to one full time person.
>
> * The Council was involved in the sponsorship of people for the MeeGo
> Conference from a "handset" background.
>
> * The Council sponsored the Maemo 5 Community SSU; providing support &
> advice to MohammadAG; dealing with the thread on bugs.maemo.org and
> helping triage the bugs (j.mp/communityssu-bugs).
>
> * Passed on a refresh license change request queue request from
> DocScrutinizer & jonwil to Quim.
>
> * Asked Tero (tekojo) about maemo.org funding, given the concern voiced
> from the community after Feb 11th.
>
> * Held a brainstorm redux meeting with the maemo.org team to work out
> how the Maemo Brainstorm items were progressing.
>
> * More work on community bug reporting process, liaising with Qt
> maintainers around Qt versions in Extras-devel, and liaising with Forum
> Nokia folks who are doing Qt hotfixes.
>
> * Ramped up efforts to keep Council visible via Council blog on m.o.
>
> 3. What was not done during last term
>
> * Getting a handle on the maemo.org staff & Nemein. Despite committing
> to come up with a community involvement process (to help lighten their
> workload), it's often a black hole. Problems need to be chased sometimes
> to support@nemein.com email address to raise a ticket in their internal
> system.
>
> * Andre is still doing lots of work in Bugzilla triaging bugs both for
> the CSSU and Extras projects.
>
> * Niels is still helping to set up the Community OBS which can be used
> for MeeGo, Fremantle and Harmattan; but there's no clearly communicated
> plan for transitioning to it from the autobuilder, but the committed-to
> donations system for maemo.org/downloads hasn't been worked on at all;
> nor is there any documentation about the structure (AFAICT) of maemo.org.
>
> * Council/Community should have a root access process concerning admin
> and maintenance of maemo.org, but the details are still up in the air.
>
> * Council isn't involved in MeeGo Conf sponsorship decisions for SF in May.
>
> * Justify the Council (the new Council needs to figure out of they are
> the last Council or not; how the Q2 Council may differ from preceding ones).
>
> 4. Past Council reflections/comments
>
> * There's increasing pressure from the MeeGo community, and some
> Intelians, that Nokia *don't* get an exception to call Harmattan MeeGo.
> This might put a big spanner in the works for the Harmattan community.
>
> * Development and marketing of the CSSU needs to ramp up and become much
> more organized.
>
> * Thoughts about the Maemo Community shrinking over the next year or
> so... So, the Council will have to be quite vocal in organizing
> community efforts (site maintenance, app dev, etc.).
>
>
> 5. New Council comments/questions
>
> * Many questions about Council Chair, m.o root access, funded employees
> of m.o, CSSU, etc. Most of these questions are, as yet, unanswered.
>
> * Questions about "friendliness" and cooperation between Maemo and
> MeeGo, of which the outgoing Council answered "yes."
>
> * Talk of the Community OBS. X-Fade and lbt are the folks involved, and
> there've been some comms about it on meego-* mailing lists.
>
> * Comments about the Council taking on a bridging role between
> forum.meego.com and talk.maemo.org.
>
> * Has there been discussion about open source activities around next
> Nokia device? Not yet. There are two schools of thought - it's a
> dead-end, don't bother OR we can make it such a success that Nokia's
> board reconsiders their medium-term plans...
>
> * It will be tricky getting a centralized forum for the Harmattan
> community. It was hard enough with t.m.o. and the mailing lists, and no
> one has a clear vision about a "Harmattan Community." Should maemo.org
> just assume to be the place for the Harmattan community forum? Meego.com
> forums are a no-go, at least that was dawn/quim's stance a while back.
> The question is why exactly do we need another forum? Just because of
> the name? It might also become obvious once it's clear if harmattan will
> be "marketed" as Maemo 6, meego or something completely new.
>
> * Do we have any "hard figures" on how the community has changed since
> the beginning of Mmeego?
>
> * More questions about the maemo.org infrastructure and how it will
> continue. Neiman will play an important role in this.
>
> [1]
> http://mg.pov.lt/maemo-meeting-irclog/%23maemo-meeting.2011-03-26.log.html

On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 11:24:26AM +0200, Jeremiah C. Foster wrote:
> I'd like to say to the Maemo Council, old and new, that there is an
> excellent way to move Maemo forward. Not just as a legacy operating
> system for Nokia devices, but even for newer devices. That way
> forward is through Debian.

AOL! Thanks Jeremiah for this introduction mail.

> I'm on that mailing list as is the current Debian Project Leader who
> has worked very hard with other Debian Developers to create a vibrant
> resource for derivatives to contribute to Debian and for Debian to
> contribute to derivatives. This cooperation is very important and
> works to enocurage the health of the overall Debian community.

Absolutely yes. I'm a N900 owner and user myself although I confess I've
never took the time to look under the hood at the packaging level to
check how much it's close to Debian or not. Nonetheless, if Maemo folks
are interested in giving back some of their changes to Debian, be it for
making their maintenance activities easier or for benefiting other users
of Debian-based distro, please talk to us. The debian-derivatives
mailing list is the right place where you can find advice on who to
contact to better integrate your changes into Debian proper.

Thanks for your interest in Debian,
Cheers.

--
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
zack@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -<>- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Quando anche i santi ti voltano le spalle, | . |. I've fans everywhere
ti resta John Fante -- V. Capossela .......| ..: |.......... -- C. Adams

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On 03/28/2011 11:24 AM, Jeremiah C. Foster wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 02:55:13PM -0700, Tim Samoff wrote:
>
> Hello!
>
> I'd like to say to the Maemo Council, old and new, that there is an
> excellent way to move Maemo forward. Not just as a legacy operating
> system for Nokia devices, but even for newer devices. That way
> forward is through Debian.

This sounds all great to me.

We have the GSoC project preparations now. If there is an idea
for a Debian+Maemo-associated project looming in the back of
your minds somewhere, please consider formulating it on
http://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2011/Applying
if you can also mentor it :)

Best,

Steffen

On Mar 28, 2011, at 13:06, Steffen Möller wrote:

> On 03/28/2011 11:24 AM, Jeremiah C. Foster wrote:
>> On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 02:55:13PM -0700, Tim Samoff wrote:
>>
>> Hello!
>>
>> I'd like to say to the Maemo Council, old and new, that there is an
>> excellent way to move Maemo forward. Not just as a legacy operating
>> system for Nokia devices, but even for newer devices. That way
>> forward is through Debian.
>
> This sounds all great to me.
>
> We have the GSoC project preparations now. If there is an idea
> for a Debian+Maemo-associated project looming in the back of
> your minds somewhere, please consider formulating it on
> http://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2011/Applying
> if you can also mentor it :)

Yeah, that's a great idea Steffen. I'll see if I can brainstorm with others and come up with something that has a big slice of its Venn diagram Maemo-Debian. :-)

Jeremiah

> I'd like to say to the Maemo Council, old and new, that there is an
> excellent way to move Maemo forward. Not just as a legacy operating
> system for Nokia devices, but even for newer devices. That way
> forward is through Debian.
Whilst I applaud your proposal, unless key parts of the operating system
are either open-sourced by Nokia or replaced with open alternatives, I dont
see a future for Maemo beyond the N900.

On Mar 29, 2011, at 10:43, Jonathan Wilson wrote:

>> I'd like to say to the Maemo Council, old and new, that there is an
>> excellent way to move Maemo forward. Not just as a legacy operating
>> system for Nokia devices, but even for newer devices. That way
>> forward is through Debian.
> Whilst I applaud your proposal, unless key parts of the operating system are either open-sourced by Nokia or replaced with open alternatives, I dont see a future for Maemo beyond the N900.

Which "key parts" are you referring to?

Jeremiah

> Which "key parts" are you referring to?
The telephony stack for one.

Hi,

On 27 March 2011 23:55, Tim Samoff <tim@samoff.com> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> Sorry for the delay in meeting minutes. I want to tank everyone who
> attended. As you'll see, the attendance list only includes those who
> are/were members of the Maemo Community Council. But, I really
> appreciate the others who graced us with their presence.

I'm really sorry, but I completely forgot about the meeting :(

--
Andrea Grandi - Nokia Qt Ambassador
website: http://www.andreagrandi.it

Hi,

Jonathan Wilson wrote:
>> Which "key parts" are you referring to?
> The telephony stack for one.

Why would this stop someone usefully using Maemo on something which
wasn't a phone, for example? All the world is not a smartphone.

Cheers,
Dave.

--
Email: dneary@maemo.org
Jabber: bolsh@jabber.org