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Symbian and Nokia wrestling about voting rights?

tote_b5 | 22 July, 2008 23:07

It's obvious that it's not in everybody's interest to let Nokia gain more control over Symbian - not the OS, but Foundation this time. It's a fact that Symbian was (or still is?) owned ~48% by Nokia. As part of the announcement of making Symbian OS open-source it also came to light that voting rights will be according to the number of Symbian Foundation-based mobile phones shipped. And since Nokia has shipped more than 70% of Symbian-powered devices so far, it puts them into a more powerful position than they've been before.

As I said it's obvious that not everybody likes it from those companies who are on the same ship with Nokia. The surprising bit is that even somebody at a power position at Symbian thinks this way AND make comments on this in public. John Forsyth said that he's "worried this asymmetry will mean the community doesn't grow in the appropriate way." His suggestions include "clean-room culture" and a one company-one vote system. Naturally Nokia won't accept latter after spending lots of money on Symbian - they made Symbian successful, they invested the most in it and now at the turning point of Symbian's life they'd like to take the opportunity to increase their influence on it, too.

Wonder what John thought about this when sharing his opinion in public. Perhaps we can read something about it in his blog in the future...

Tote
mobile-thoughts.blogspot.com

Symbian, Nokia, Symbian Foundation | Next | Previous | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0)

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Misunderstanding

Sorcery-ltd | 23/07/2008, 10:53

Sorcery-ltd

You've got to be careful with the commentary on this as there are a lot of misunderstandings and mis-quotes out there.

To quote directly from John Forsyth's blog that you link:

"First of all, the seats on the Board simply give each Board Member one vote. This could have come across more clearly in the original comms we did, since it was misheard in a number of places. To be clear, it’s one seat and one vote whether you are the world’s largest phone vendor or a Board Member in a different part of the value-chain altogether. So this looks encouraging."

Also, the board is only about governance of the foundation and there are various councils and working groups that decide the actual operational direction. To quote directly from the Symbian Foundation announcement:

"The members of the foundation’s Board of Directors will also have seats in each council, with additional seats in the councils available for other foundation members. The foundation will operate as a meritocracy. Device manufacturers will be eligible for seats based on the number of Symbian Foundation platform-based devices shipped, with the other board members selected by election and contribution. An independent committee will oversee the election process for the board of directors and for the councils. Only one seat will be available per organization on the board of directors and on each of the councils."

So although who gets a seat is determined by the people who make the most phones there is a limit of one seat per manufacturer and one vote per seat. Nokia will not have control of the foundation in a political sense. That creates an interesting situation when they are paying the salaries of almost everyone working on the code (although I guess the plan is for that to shift over time).

Mark

I know that I could count on you :)

tote.a8 | 23/07/2008, 11:13

Thanks for your valuable input, Mark! I concluded at least the following things from this:
- I should be more careful with what other people say and interpret from words said in public,
- Symbian should communicate better.

Thanks again!

Good conclusions

Sorcery-ltd | 23/07/2008, 16:47

Sorcery-ltd

In the world of the internet I think who is providing the information is actually more important than what they are saying now in many cases. Where everyone can have a voice the signal to noise ratio is crazy. Always go to the original source if you can, or find writers you trust and filter out the rest.

John Forsyth also admitted in the same blog entry that it was Symbian's fault that this had not been communicated more clearly so that people were misunderstanding it.

Glad to help clear it up!
Mark

P.S. Are you going to MDD08 in Berlin? Looks like I will be.

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