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| Mar Dillon Co-founder, Head of Software at Jolla |
What is important to Jolla.
Everyone matters.
The last year has been the most difficult yet rewarding in our lives. Ooh my, what a journey in getting a product created, funded, planned, ultimately launched and sold. Everyone, from the original Maemo/Meego community of serious open source developers, to those who have found in Jolla a promise of an open and independent future, gave us the strength in ourselves to perform miracles and do the impossible. Which we did, together. We could not have done it without you.
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Two and a half years ago in our little boat we had a values workshop with a dozen eager sailors. Nearly a year ago, with four dozen more, we renewed our values. There was always a question: are the values what we aspire to, or what we think we are? The answer was clear: our values are what is important to us.
We have come to realize these four words more deeply, how they apply to our lives, our company, our culture, our community, everyone.
A year ago, we lost our chipset provider, killing the product we had almost ready for market. The Jolla boat was rocked, but the nearly sixty souls aboard were ready to do whatever it takes to sail the tall seas amongst some of the biggest ships in the world. We built the boat again in the middle of the water. Talk about a committed crew...
We called some of our fans, supporters and friends to Jolla Love Day in May 2013, showed our prototype and promised we would deliver the same year. Why? Because without coming out of the harbor already, we would not even get a chance to sail. The love we received that very day was unlike anything. What is love? Love is accepting others for who they are, without expectations. If everyone you meet comes to you as they are, you accept them and they accept you. Without the love we received that day, there would be no Jolla.
Our first job is to make sure those sailors have all they need to follow their passion: creating revolution for mobile users. Wow, what a gargantuan task to realize our collective vision! We organized ourselves and worked hard on two things: building a product and making sure we could afford to build it. We did it!
It is not every day that the first new device from a new manufacturer with a new operating system is sold to an excited group of people. We would have wanted to invite everyone, but instead had to invite only the first 400 ones. The very next day, we started working on the first software update. We knew that we could do better to serve all people that had shown their support to us. This is our passion.
We have received a lot of feedback. We take it. We plan it. We code it. As fast as time allows, we consistently deliver through each update. Our mission is to keep improving our OS to make it yours. This is transparency.
We started with a promise: to be open, independent, unlike the others for a reason: to provide choice for you, the consumers, an inclusive community, a movement that will change the world. We always work to communicate what is going on, we could do better. Opening up the roadmap of features takes a while: when making monthly releases it is a huge push to get the right stuff planned, staffed, developed, documented, tested, debugged, tested again, and released. Invariably some features get pushed into the next release, re-planning is a part of software development. We don't want to promise what we cannot deliver.
The biggest thing I learned about transparency, respect, passion and love are that they go both ways. We have received a lot, we need to give back a lot. We need to keep delivering for those who believed in us and supported us by buying a Jolla phone, we need to keep communicating. We have a deep respect for our community worldwide, we feel the love and passion from you every day.
We are listening. We do care. We are doing everything we can to continue to deliver, tell our plans, and give you back the passion and love that you continue to give us, to deliver on the promise of an unlike future. Without your support, we would not be here. Respect.
Transparency, respect, passion, peace and of course, love <3
Marc, your humble cruise director
Source: Together portal