[maemo-community] My council election standing

[From: Robin Burchell]

Hi Andrew,

On 9/18/10, Andrew Flegg <andrew at bleb.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 18, 2010 at 19:03, Robin Burchell <viroteck at viroteck.net> wrote:
>>
>> In particular, I neglected to read
>> http://wiki.maemo.org/Community_Council/Election_process - point #6 to
>> be exact.
>>
>> You see, as some of you will probably know, I am employed by Collabora
>> Ltd. Amongst Collabora's clients is Nokia.
>>
>> It was pointed out by a close friend of mine that I hadn't declared
>> this when I stood, so I consulted Dave this afternoon about this
>> issue, and as a result, my candidacy has been removed from
>> consideration - I am no longer in the running as a candidate, and any
>> votes I recieve will automatically be transferred to the next. (I
>> don't know the full details of how this works. Dave?)
>
> Let me quote the full wording of point #6, since I helped word it:
>
>     "Nominees with a professional interest in Maemo, such as working
>      for Nokia - or any other company involved in Maemo-related
>      software development - must declare their interest when
>      advertising their nomination. Failure to do so may result in
>      the Nokia Community Manager, or the outgoing Council, declaring
>      their nomination invalid and so bar them from standing in the
>      current election."
>
> Dave is neither the "Nokia Community Manager" nor on the "outgoing
> Council", so *technically* (since we're talking about the rules) he
> isn't empowered to make that decision.

At the end of the day, rules exist to provide guidelines for
behaviour, and I feel that more important than the letter of the law,
is the spirit of it - and that *spirit* is the one I violated: while I
have listed Collabora on my maemo.org profile since pretty much when I
started there, I didn't announce it publically. I may be following
them to the letter (hey, it's announced, right?) but not the spirit: I
didn't announce it on my nomination.

In the same spirit, while Dave may not technically be the right person
to make that decision, I *do* personally feel that he has made the
correct call - though of course if you (and the rest of the
council/Quim, or something) decide that I should stay in, I will
respect that decision.

Either way, I'd like to emphasise that I agree with Dave, and that I
don't think he deserves blame for his actions.

> --
> Andrew Flegg -- mailto:andrew at bleb.org  |  http://www.bleb.org/
> Maemo Community Council chair


--
Robin Burchell
http://rburchell.com