[maemo-community] Maemo Elections - Extended

[From: Tim Samoff]

Hi,

>>> Many of us are still around as users, even if we are no longer doing
>>> active development on Maemo.  But we are grateful to those who are
>>> still doing development!
>> <snip>
>>
>>     Hear hear!! 1+
> +1

This is exactly my issue with continuing the Maemo Community... While my
impetus always dwelt more in the philosophical, I was always also a
doer. (Thanks for putting it that way, Graham.) Sure, much of my
community-oriented communiqué was about how our community worked and
survived, but it was said with the idea that it would get others to be
doers as well.

This being said, most of the people who take part on this list are (or
were) doers within the community. But, having watched the community from
the outside for quite sometime now (the extent of my participation has
been in "liking" or "not liking" posts on the pmo feed), I have
witnessed the "we love you guys for continuing to do stuff, but we just
want you to do it for us" mentality all too much.

At the height of the maemo project, maemo.org had roughly 25,000
registered users. Of that, maybe 1% or 2% were the doers. I'd imagine,
at this point, the people who are actively doing number around ~50
people (not counting those who are still being paid to run the maemo.org
infrastructure). And, you can't even take http://maemo.org/profile/list/
seriously because I'm still in the top 15 after not having participated
in much for a very long time.

Having served three terms of Community Council, it was easy to see,
first-hand, the decline of participation within the community. I think
I, more than anyone, made a point to put Council and community
communication in the forefront, yet the response was always lackluster.
It was disheartening, but my love for the project and the community was
great enough to keep me going.

Now, we're faced with a handful of people who really desire to see maemo
continue. It's very commendable. But, it's also, imho, based largely in
nostalgia. If maemo were, in fact, really something that the community
wanted to succeed, we'd see many more doers and not so many "thank you
for doing for me" sentiments.

There might still be a lot of action on tmo. That's great. But, how many
of those people are asking for help as opposed to giving it? How many
are requesting applications rather than developing them? How many
actually know about this election or the Council in general? How many
are still wondering when the next maemo device will be released because
they don't even take time to read more than the smattering of "I need
another startup video" posts that interest them?

Yes, I'm being a little harsh. But, as someone who remembers when the
community _really_ was active, this just doesn't cut it.

In my eyes, "maemo is dead, long live maemo" is a fun idea, but it isn't
really logical. I know a lot was put into maemo. Hours, emotions,
education, money, etc., by Nokia (and other) employees, by companies who
staked their livelihoods on the technology, and by community members.
Don't get me wrong -- I really appreciate all of that and it saddens me
that maemo wasn't something that could be further developed and nurtured.

No, maemo is dead. Period. Something might arise from the ashes. A
community might evolve in order to absorbs the repos and keep the
software and some development available. But, this can never happen if
maemo is not allowed to die gracefully. Having the community and the
idea strung along by 50 passionate community members is not my idea of a
vibrant (or fun) open source community.

With all respect,
Tim

-- 
http://samoff.com