[maemo-developers] How to destroy your community

[From: Ryan Abel]

On Jan 20, 2010, at 5:26 PM, Jeff Moe wrote:

> On Wednesday 20 January 2010 19:21:18 Ryan Abel wrote:
> 
>> On Jan 20, 2010, at 1:04 PM, Jeff Moe wrote:
>> 
>>> I've seen frequent mentions of how distinct maemo.org is from Nokia. But the reality seems that nothing at Maemo can really happen without Nokia's tacit approval. Is there anyone that has server access that isn't paid (directly or indirectly) by Nokia? Can we start getting the servers admin'd by community admins instead of depending upon Nokia? A first step would be to document (on the *outside/public*) wiki the current server arrangement. Another good step would be to get DNS off their servers. Until that happens, the whole "maemo is distinct from Nokia" is just a façade.
>> 
>> Maemo is a trademark owned by Nokia and used for their software platform and their products. You're confusing Maemo and maemo.org (maemo.org being the community-owned website). In doing so, you're confusing the discussion and making it much more difficult to participate and arrive at a useful conclusion. "Maemo" and "maemo.org" are not equivalent interchangeable terms.
> 
> Yep! Definitely confusing them. They do seem much one and the same to me though. It seems we've come to some useful conclusions, regardless
> 
> Though how does the community "own" maemo.org? I mean, can we really just walk off with it and leave Nokia behind? I doubt it. Can we see the finances of this website, please?

Yes, we could walk off with it and move it elsewhere if we had consensus to do so. $$$ is always a sensitive topic and not one that is widely advertised even in the most Free of Free Software projects. Especially not when corporate sponsors are involved.