<font size="4">Hi,<br><br>This month's Community Council Update has been posted and there is already a bit of discussion going on in the forum. The Update is repeated here for those that do not follow the forum. You may discuss it here in the mailing list or in the forum.<br>
<br>Rob<br></font><br><div class="content">
<div class="im">On July 1, 2011, Maemo stands at an
interesting crossroads. In June, Nokia formally announced the N9
Harmattan mobile phone mentioned in Council's previous posting.
Although the stage for the announcement of the device was somewhat
awkward, being amongst other marginally related news at the Nokia
Connections event in Singapore, the device itself was well presented and
showed off the design attributes of the N9 admirably. A wealth of
product information was promptly available online. Reaction from the
general press was positive as well and led to an upswing of anticipation
for the phone, which is expected to be released in the next few months.<br><br>The
device was described at the announcement as the result of Nokia's MeeGo
project and is described in specifications as "MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan".
As widely expected, it has a Maemo base ("Harmattan") with a MeeGo API.
From the perspective of application developers and end users alike, the
phone appears as a MeeGo handset although that technically may not be
correct. Nevertheless, notwithstanding the lack of technical
compliance, the device is widely described as a MeeGo device and hoped
to lift the profile of the MeeGo project. Nokia also initiated much
activity surrounding the device at <a href="http://www.meego.com/" target="_blank">www.meego.com</a>,
including threads in the MeeGo forum, to describe aspects of the
device. As first reported in the previous Council posting, the N9 has
both a closed mode and an open (developer) mode. Root access and
terminal are available as well. Nokia also announced the availability
of a limited number of N950 developer devices in an attempt to increase
the number of apps available for the N9 at launch. <br><br>Nokia made no outreach to <a href="http://maemo.org/" target="_blank">maemo.org</a>
during the N9 launch. Although not formally reported as such, Nokia
received an "exception" from the Linux Foundation for the N9 and is
freely using the <a href="http://meego.com/" target="_blank">meego.com</a>
infrastructure to provide community support for the N9. In addition,
it was announced that OBS would include Harmattan as a target and that
the community apps repository for MeeGo would include Harmattan apps.
While there is reason for increased optimisim for the future of MeeGo,
the relationship between Maemo, Nokia and MeeGo is left somewhat out on a
limb. In an IRC meeting with <a href="http://maemo.org/" target="_blank">maemo.org</a>
council, new Nokia liaison Matti Arias confirmed that all of Nokia's
Maemo/MeeGo related ifs focused on promoting the N9. Such promotion
will not involve <a href="http://maemo.org/" target="_blank">maemo.org</a>.<br><br></div>
<p>The future of <a href="http://maemo.org/" target="_blank">maemo.org</a> is uncertain. While there may be a new sub-forum for the N9/N950 devices, it is mainly for organizational purposes as <a href="http://maemo.org/" target="_blank">maemo.org</a>
is unlikely to be the "home base" for the devices. There are numerous
directions in which the community may move. For example, the Swipe
UI/UX layer of the N9 is closed source and so there will be interest in
developing an open source community alternative. Alternatively, the
community can simply continue on with support for previous versions of
Maemo. The staying power of <a href="http://maemo.org/" target="_blank">maemo.org</a>
in the two year interim between the N900 and the N9 has been recognized
even by Nokia. There are approximately 1 million downloads per week. A
minimal level of support will continue to be provided by Nokia for at
least a year. In keeping with its history of open governance, the
community itself must decide the best direction forward. <br></p> </div><br><br><br><br>