Tim Samoff resigns from Hildon Foundation

Via: @jaffa2

Editor: GeneralAntilles

The Hildon Foundation has had a rather bumpy start to its stewardship of maemo.org (which should become official this month with the final infrastructure migrations and the end of negotiations with Nokia): resignation of a string of board members, friction with the council and members of the community, and drawn-out negotiations with Nokia over the transfer of ownership of maemo.org.

Despite these issues, the primary short-term goal of ensuring that the lights remain on for maemo.org looks to be accomplished. Fundraising efforts have collected more than $4000 in donations, the new server hardware from Nokia has been installed at a colocation in IPHH (essentially for free!), volunteer sysadmins have been found, and the DNS change to point to the new infrastructure—which some very dedicated people have been hard at work for months getting set up. All of which involved a great deal of time and energy (particularly from the community council)—should be completed this week.

Unfortunately, the bumps continue. Citing a change in vision of the role of the Hildon Foundation and the Maemo Community, timsamoff announced his resignation from the Hildon Foundation last week: But all of these successes aside, I have come to a new, personal understanding of the viability of a Board of Directors acting in conjunction with a Community Council at this time. While I whole-heartedly feel like an organization like the Hildon Foundation would be a positive force in the open source world, I think that the relationship between the Board of Directors and the Community Council has been counter-productive. As a nonprofit entity that must operate according to bylaws and legal formalities (as well it should in order to comply with certain governing laws), the processes have been less than efficient. Likewise, as a former Community Council member myself (two terms as a member and one term as the Chair), I have realized that a Council more than adequately prepared to run an ecosystem such as the Maemo Community. Similarly, operation of the Hildon Foundation—again, for me personally—has been less than the rewarding experience that I was hoping it would be.

This leaves—the unelected—sd69 as the only member of the Hildon Foundation Board. Replacement appointments for both Tim and ivgalvez (who resigned from the board in February due to an international relocation and the related time commitments) have been found (see the next story), but, according to the by-laws, an election sholud be triggered if fewer than 3 board positions are occupied for more than 7 days (Ivan resigned on February 17th).

On a personal note, I'm sad to see Tim leaving the board (though I completely sympathize with his reasons). I've know Tim for most of the existence of the Maemo community and served a number of terms with him on the Maemo Community Council. He was always a pleasure to work with and his optimistic, forward-thinking approach and clear-headed competence is an asset the Hildon Foundation Board will be a lesser thing without.

New Hildon Foundation Board of Directors appointees

Via: @timsamoff

Editor: GeneralAntilles

With the resignation of timsamoff from the Hildon Foundation Board last week, and ivgalvez's resignation in February, there are two vacant spots to fill on the board. sd69 announced two appointments in Tim's resignation thread on Talk: As the sole remaining Board director (and as the loser in an apparent game of "not it"), it falls on me to continue on and appoint a replacement for Ivan if possible, and now for Tim if possible. I wish the time period to do so was longer so there could be more consideration and input. I appoint Craig Woodard and Jim Jagielski. Craig should be known to most here as a former maemo council member and a co-founder of Hildon Foundation. He has done invaluable work for maemo in the past and I believe will work diligently to do so in the future. Jim is a co-founder of the Apache Software Foundation and is also on the Board of the Open Source Initiative (OSI). He is new to maemo, but he should be able to provide valuable organizational insight and assistance as the Foundation struggles to get on its feet. Please join me in welcoming them both to our Board. Both have indicated a willingness to serve, but if either one should decline their appointment, then the other one will fill Ivan's seat and another appointment will be made for Tim's seat.

Having fewer than 3 board members for a period longer than 7 days should trigger a new election cycle (a normal board term being one year). The period between Ivan's resignation (February 17th) and woody14619's appointment—which is, as of yet, not official—exceeds 7 days. As the council will be having a new election for the next term in April coordinating a new board election to coincide with the upcoming council election seems wise. Especially, as joerg_rw points out, considering the bruises the board's reputation has taken during the infrastructure migration.