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

[From: Craig Woodward]

Graham,

First, let me preface this by saying, I think you need to read the forum thread I linked in an earlier e-mail.  Most of the things you're "doubting" or are calling "rubbish" are happening *in*that*thread*.

My whole point in even commenting on this topic was to alert people, LIKE YOU, who haven't been in the forums recently that this IS going on.  Again, this is a matter of fact, not opinion.  There are people in the forum *openly advocating* for Maemo to go away, in the belief that it will cause developers to move to MeeGo.  Weather *you* believe that will cause a migration or not is irrelevant.  They believe it, and are taking actions based on that belief.  My goal is to alert people that that faction exists, because it became clear to me that several people here, like yourself, did not know of their existence.

You admit you haven't read the forums in a while, but then go on to doubt the veracity of what I'm saying, which is about things happening in said forum.  Before becoming crass, and criticizing others, I think you need to educate yourself as to what's actively happening in the forums right now.







---- Graham Cobb <g+770 at cobb.uk.net> wrote: 
>Is it?  Why?  

Because, weather *you* agree with the premise or not, it's how *they* are operating. There is a small but vocal group that have already expressed they feel they can get more developers OUT of the Maemo community and INTO the MeeGo community.  They believe that if Maemo has a large, loud death knell, it will cause a stampede of developers.  They're broadcasting the "fact" that the repository and forum are "going away" in 2012.  Their motivation is to "poison the well", in hopes that *some* of the developers that were still "clinging" to Maemo will run to MeeGo.

And yes, there is *some* incentive.  They're also in noting that there's a port of MeeGo for the N900 (aka CE or Community Edition).  They are therefore hoping to gain "new" developers for MeeGo by attracting them to use MeeGo "CE" on the N900, since Maemo is "going away soon".

>But Maemo is in terminal decline: it runs on three hardware platforms

Actually, four if you include N9.  Which, last I looked that's still several more than MeeGo is actively running on.  So are you advocating that because Maemo "only runs on 3 platforms" we should just shut it all down and not bother any more?  That's the debate happening here (and in the forums).
  
>If my N900 broke tomorrow 

Again, you misunderstand the nature of what's happening, because you didn't bother to read the forum.  This isn't about losing developers to hardware breaking.  That's going to happen eventually.  This is about people coming from the MeeGo "camp", saying MeeGo is the only viable path for the N900, and developers should drop Maemo and work on MeeGo instead.

>In my view, this whole question of "siphoning off" developers is complete rubbish.

If you think that, so be it.  I'm seeing it happen.  And I, unlike you, have not given up on reading the forum.  I've seen developers leaving and posting goodbye threads.

> 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

Said like a true layman.  Are you really a developer?  

So developers can just take over projects willy-nilly these days?  I can just log-in to the garage, hit the BarrioSquare source archive, and take it over with the click of a mouse?  And it's nothing to just jump right into that 15,000+ lines of code to update the 4Square interface from V1 to V2 so it will work again, right?  Trivial!  Because all coders can just randomly pick up complex programs, in their spare time, fix them overnight, and push a new release out, without the garage owners permission.  What was I thinking?

Wait... Didn't you JUST argue that Maemo isn't going to see "new" developers for lack of new hardware?  So where are these super-coding "someones" coming from?  Who's talking rubbish now?

>And they won't stop working.

This really makes me doubt that you're a developer.

Yes... Sometimes they do.  There are several apps that have "stopped working" already (one being the aforementioned BarrioSquare).  Just because it worked once doesn't mean it works forever.  Things change.  Protocols evolve. Libraries update. Sometimes the underlying system changes in ways that break existing code.  Most common people know that, yet alone a competent developer.

>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.

I think you're misreading what I'm saying.  I have no issue with people who want to move to MeeGo, or cross-develop their apps for both.  I take issue with people who are actively talking down Maemo on the Maemo forum, and urging developers to *drop* Maemo and go to Meego.  Some of those same people are repeatedly saying things like "Good, shut the site down, better to kill it off now so people don't waste more time on Maemo."

I'm not advocating we try to keep people out of MeeGo, or sign non-compete agreements or anything stupid like that.  I'm advocating that we not let people *force the shutdown* of Maemo in an effort to get people to move to their camp.  And weather you believe it or not, that's actually happening right now.

Even if you're right, and closing Maemo doesn't net a single developer for MeeGo, that doesn't change things.  There's a set of people that *believe* shutting it down *will* net them more developers.  That belief is motivating them to take action, and entourage others to shut things down.

>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.

I agree with the first part.  That's exactly what we're trying to do.  Maintain a home for people who want to continue developing for and using Maemo.

But when others, from another community, are *actively* coming to the Maemo forum and inciting fear that the whole operation is going away "soon", and that N900 is a "dead platform", when their own platform has even less to offer.... I worry about that "advocacy".

-Woody