[maemo-developers] How to destroy your community

[From: Ryan Abel]

On Jan 20, 2010, at 5:29 PM, Aldon Hynes wrote:

> Yet perhaps this is some of the problem.  It seems like the community of
> people working with devices running Maemo might be better served if it was
> more distinct.  As is noted on the maemo.org Terms of Use page, the site is
> hosted as a 'public service' by Nokia Corporation.

The legal pages on maemo.org are rather unclear, as most of them haven't been updated since the branding redesign in 2008.

> IMHO, what would make much more sense would be if
> 1) An independent open source community gets established, as a seperate not
> for profit legal entity.

You mean maemo.org is established as a separate legal entity. This one's been discussed a couple of times in the past. I'm all in favor.

> 2) Nokia contributes a few things to that community, including the Maemo
> trademark, so that the community could call itself Maemo, and the amount of
> money that Nokia spends on hosting the site and other community related
> activities.

The Maemo trademark is a Nokia trademark that's used in the branding of their Linux software platform and the devices that run it. We already have a community trademark that has a logo and everything (not something Maemo can claim): maemo.org.

> 3) The community, itself, could then run Maemo, including the websites, etc.

ERROR: undefined "Maemo"