[maemo-community] Election announcement article (formatting & questions)

[From: Graham Cobb]

On Friday 19 August 2011 20:04:08 Craig Woodward wrote:
> I would agree to a limited degree.  While I'm not a fan of the "name
> calling", I think it's an important topic to address.  There has been (and
> continues to be) a strong presence in the forum of pro-MeeGo, anti-Maemo
> people.  The main goal of which seems to be a desire to siphon off
> developers and mind-share from this project to their own.  Their goals are
> served better if Maemo has this final nail driven into the existing
> coffin.  That's a reality that needs to be clearly on the table when
> discussing who, how, and when these issues get decided.  Those not
> participating as much in the forums may have missed that, so informing
> them of that reality here is important.

Is it?  Why?  I will admit I have given up reading the forum but my 
involvement, or lack of it, in the maemo community is nothing to do with what 
anyone else thinks of the relevant merits of Maemo and MeeGo (or even 
Android).

If we were talking about attracting **new** developers then I would agree: 
attracting developers is about getting critical mass -- developers start 
developing for a platform if they think it has a great future.  But Maemo is 
in terminal decline: it runs on three hardware platforms, none of which are 
being made any more, and the core code is not open source so it can't be 
ported to a new platform.  So, no new developers are going to be attracted.  
Those of us who have been developers will remain as long as we are interested 
to remain and will develop if we have a personal desire to develop.  If my 
N900 broke tomorrow and couldn't be replaced I would probably leave the 
community.  Not to go to MeeGo (which also seems to be dead, at least for 
phones) but to go to whatever device I decided to replace it with.

In my view, this whole question of "siphoning off" developers is complete 
rubbish.  So, several active developers have halted development of their Maemo 
apps and are developing MeeGo apps instead?  Well, so what?  Their existing 
apps haven't gone away.  They are open source and someone else can take them 
over if they want to (or backport the MeeGo versions).  And they won't stop 
working.  I have stopped actively developing my Maemo apps and am now 
developing software for a completely different project (nothing to do with 
phones).  So what?  My priorities have changed.  It happens.

I am certainly not going to vote for anyone for the council who thinks there 
is a conflict between Maemo and MeeGo (or any other project). Or who thinks we 
should somehow "do something" to stop developers moving from Maemo to any 
other project.  The Maemo community should be about maintaing a home for those 
people who want to be part of a Maemo community -- it is not about advocacy or 
worrying about other people's advocacy.

Graham