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Jolla Sailors - How are you doing? [answered]

asked 2014-12-09 12:25:36 +0300

simo gravatar image

This question popped into my mind a while ago... When I've been employed, I've sometimes experienced "pressure" from above me, deadlines etc...

Now Jolla is a PeoplePowered company. It's something quite new - community has a very strong role in developing, marketing, and... adding "pressure" from below as well?

In this model, some employees might find themselves in between, getting pressure from both the leadership and the customers, maybe feeling like they are working for two "directions". In a more traditional business model the customer care is addressing the pressure from below, via the leadership, to the employees who eventually work for it. So, I'm pretty interested how this new model is taken among the employees at Jolla, and has anyone else thought about this among us in the community?. Sailors at Jolla, how are you really doing? Has it been new/difficult/easy/what?

<3

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The question has been closed for the following reason "the question is answered, an answer was accepted" by simo
close date 2015-08-09 04:23:10.881587

Comments

5

Interesting question! And i like that more positve questions seem to pop up these days following some overemphesized rants regarding tablet "details" <3

mosen ( 2014-12-09 12:42:43 +0300 )edit

This would be better as a blog post, I don't think TJC is the right place for this stuff and even if it were I doubt you'd get any answer.

nthn ( 2014-12-09 13:49:15 +0300 )edit
3

i think this is the exact right spot for this kind of question - since jolla is oh-so people powered! - they should be able the answer here at their interface to the community. you doubt that they will answer? me too! but what does this tell us about this glorified openess of jolla? true?

misc11 ( 2014-12-09 14:00:26 +0300 )edit
1

I don't see why they wouldn't. Either a real process isn't yet in place (they're still pretty small company), or there is one (i.e. the desisions are made "from above/with the leadership", including deciding how a community request should to be handled). It's probably soemthing in-between, and far from being a shocking information for the community.

Tofe ( 2014-12-09 14:36:58 +0300 )edit
5

@misc11 How about putting that native Finnish negativity a side for a while and think positive. Christmas is coming and a few days of holidays for many of us. I am sure sailors will answer if they have time available.

Jolla095 ( 2014-12-09 14:45:36 +0300 )edit

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answered 2014-12-11 09:24:42 +0300

Philippe De Swert gravatar image

Looking forward on doing new things on the tablet myself. New stuff to do, new experience to acquire etc ... is always great. It is also fantastic that almost all my work is out there in the open available for all. I know parts of our stack are still closed and many of us in Jolla hope to be able to open those things up. But that all takes time, energy, talking, legal stuff etc for which we sometimes just don't have time. But well that is the struggle and walking the fine line that comes with having the need to be commercially viable, especially in this highly competitive market.

Pressure wise I think we all try to balance what the community asks us and what we need to do to succeed commercially. And also choose what we can and cannot do. A good recent example of how difficult things can be is the 128GB SD thing. First reaction is that everybody wants it as 32GB is small, the moment we open the door and it is realized this might mean exFAT we get all the "I do not want Jolla to pay Microsoft money!". It is often tricky to please you all, but we still love you ;) And to be honest some improvements and ideas would not have been possible without the community.

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3

Thanks!!! We love you, too ;-)

kt ( 2014-12-11 10:22:37 +0300 )edit
3

Thanks, <3 the level of openness from you :) IMO, the decision made on SD was right in the end, and the difference to the other companies is that Jolla TOLD their customers it means paying to M$. Some others would have just implemented it sharing no more - so don't take any pressure on that, instead let's be just happy about how information is shared between a company and their customers, and let's keep the Sails open for the best winds in the future as well! Looking forward for your work with the tablet, thanks!

simo ( 2014-12-11 10:41:52 +0300 )edit
58

answered 2014-12-10 16:04:16 +0300

lbt gravatar image

Feeling good :)

Speaking only for myself most of the pressure I feel is self-imposed. Our leadership feels more like guidance and rationale to me. Mutual trust and all that. Also, as one of the Mer guys I'm lucky in that I barely touch anything that's closed (FYI not policy, just works out that way) and usually do so to open it up.

The community side is typically more frustration than pressure - I've been an OSS community person longer than I've been a sailor and I know we're doing the right/best things for OSS that we can in the many-but-finite hours in a day. Eg Right now that means less of the high-level UI stuff is open than I personally would like and that's a source of frustration and 'pressure' for many - but I personally won't ask Jolla to change that just yet. Why? Despite being an FSF member I think we need organisations like Jolla and I respect that they simply can't operate 100% within the FSF philosophy and remain commercially vibrant. This kind of dichotomy is hard to explain - and not many want to hear it.

The (rare) assumption of malice stuff is kinda irritating too but you get used to it; takes all sorts :)

Also, why don't you get many answers here? Dunno - I have shitloads to do: Mer infra (SSL certs for git just got renewed); making the community hardware adaptations approach they use for android devices works internally for our devices (yes, reread that); tablet work; ensuring the public OBS will build stuff for QA; updating the config stuff for HADK; autodoc (still!); checking the Mer SDK tarballs are auto-generating; planning how to assign maintainer rights to anyone who earns them for mer-core projects in gitlab and obs.

Despite that workload I thought it would be a nice break to spend a few mins sharing :)

Back to it now (after a bite to eat)

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5

thanks !!!

peter-berlin ( 2014-12-10 16:37:30 +0300 )edit
1

Yeah! Thanks! Hope your share effort starts a boom of more, nice read!

simo ( 2014-12-10 22:56:16 +0300 )edit

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Asked: 2014-12-09 12:25:36 +0300

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Last updated: Dec 11 '14