XSF Discussion - 2018-01-18

jonasw: "ERROR: entry 'UWPX': should be placed behind 'Zom' (all entries must be ordered alphabetically by case-folded name)"

U > Z ?

https://github.com/xsf/xmpp.org/pull/396

fascinating

You write Zom, but it's probably pronounced as Aaahhh.

and Jonas' parser picks up on that? Impressive.

Do you have a better explanation?

I for sure don’t

Leprechauns.

no unicode magic going on here

I think it's just the error message being wrong

as in the commit, UWPX was placed after Zom

yeah, but why

I don’t understand that

ah

wait

I thnk you just mistyped the error message?

yeah

that makes sense

yeah

thanks

that would’ve taken a while to figure out

made a PR, waiting to see if CI passes on it

tx

Guus, "feature complete" is a can of worms.

Is dino feature complete?

"not alpha"

I've reworded it as "non-complete"

board meeting time

who's here?

I’m here

(Though I’m on a train, so may lose coverage randomly, apologies in advance)

Here

ralphm sends apologies.

nyco?

with Ralph missing, who wants to act as chair?

shall I give it a try?

I’d offer, but I really don’t trust this connection, sorry

Please do Guus

wfm, thanks Guus

the agenda, as usual, is in https://trello.com/b/Dn6IQOu0/board-meetings

does anyone want to add something last-minute?

Nothing from me

Nor me

Would someone be so kind and take minutes?

I can

I'll be vanishing in a couple of minutes, so I can't offer, sorry.

I think we're also missing minutes from the last meeting - I can go back through the logs and write some up

thanks MattJ, Kev

MattJ, if you'd do that, that would be great, thanks!

I don't recall what actions came out of the last meeting

nor do I - hopefully you'll find them in the log?

I suggest that we work down the trello list, see what we come up with.

3. Topics for decisions

first item there is Summit / FOSDEM

Unless anything involves me, in which case pop it to the top please. I ran out of the meeting last week just as I was being spoken to.

let's first do GSoC then

as you're more likely to have something to say on that, I think.

Stranger things have happened.

GSoC: the deadline for registration (as an organisation) is upon us (Jan 23rd)

Do we want to participate as an umbrella org again, like previous years?

I think it's nice when we do. Although there is plenty of precedent for us taking years off when we've not had the personpower.

I can't put the time in to more-or-less solo-admin, this year.

If there's one, or ideally two, other people who're willing to admin (and likely not mentor), I'm happy to assist them as long as they're willing to do the legwork.

Flow offered to act as an org admin, provided that he can also be a mentor.

here, sorry

That seems like a Bad Idea for a first-time admin.

yes for GSoC

Even as a not-first-time-admin, I've taken to not doing both because the time involved gets silly.

Kev, how much time is involved?

MattJ: Assume it's about the same as mentoring, so allow an hour a day or so, but on a good year it'll be much less.

It's much more front-loaded than mentoring, though, with preparing the wiki page and the application and stuff.

Day-to-day, it's mostly just keeping on top of the students and the mentors, making sure everyone turns up to the meetings, running the meetings, etc.

And with no disrepsect to Flo, he was usually too busy (I assume) to turn up to the meetings last year. So if he couldn't manage to turn up as a mentor, assuming he'd be able to manage it as an admin seems over-optimistic.

Flow would be good, can be a mentor as well, depending on his capacity to invest time

I think we should put out a more explicit request for volunteers

sure, but that would be sad to miss this

I think just getting volunteers might lead to a case of people volunteering, and not being suitable for it, which is a danger.

I think it would be good to participate in GSoC if we can, and I think we need Kev to assist if possible

whatever we do, we must do so in a matter of days.

That is true

It would be better to miss a year, than to do a year badly and damage our (good!) reputation with google.

do we have interest from orgs to be in gsoc under the XSF umbrella?

Have we had any explicit interest from projects?

I know that Ignite wants to do GSoC, but also considers running as its own Org (that's what Flow suggested initially - as I'm in both orgs .... )

None of which I'm aware.

At this point, I think I would suggest just skipping a year, as we've done in the past, based on this. Some other org gets slots instead.

But if Board does find suitable admins I'll work with them.

let's try before abandoning

I have to run now, feel free to pull me in at another time.

I think it's unlikely at this point

Thanks Kev

Thanks Kev

nyco, we pretty much have to deside today

thanks Kev

I'll be back here in 90 or so.

MattJ, what is unlikely?

Getting volunteer admins and them performing the required actions in advance of the deadline

and iirc at least some initial project ideas are required in advance of the deadline also

right.

I think it's doable, but if it's unclear if there's interest in joining under our umbrella, we might not want to bother this year.

From an IgniteRealtime perspective, I'm also fine with doing this using IgniteRealtime as a GSoC org.

I'm personally primarily trying to avoid doing both...

Sensible :)

(Just ran back to say - even if we did decide today to do it, the odds of getting the ideas page in shape before the deadline are very limited. And I think we should not put in a half-arsed application)

I motion that we do _not_ apply as a GSoC umbrella organisation this year.

I'm sad, but I have to admit it

I agree with Kev, and the motion

Guus, seconded

3.2 - Summit/FOSDEM

although listed under 'decisions' I don't think that there's any descions for board to make?

Not that I'm aware of

let's archive the card then

GSoC as well

As SCAM, I can report that preparations are under way. There now have been 20 people that signed up to attend the summit. Cisco has agreed to act as the venue again. We have the realtime lounge again at FOSDEM.

the only thing that we're missing is sponsoring. So far, we have one sponsor (for transportation of items to/from fosdem)

Nyco, before we do - I'd like to discuss a bit on the finances.

although XSF can cover the expenses, I'd really like to be able to raise money too - otherwise, our bank account will drain rapidly.

Agreed

How did we do this before?

asked each company involved

We didn't do it before (very well)

Last year I agreed to seek sponsorship, but to the best of my knowledge we still haven't collected any money from most of them

and of those I spoke to, that has been true in previous years also (to the extent that they questioned why they were even being asked)

As in, they agreed to sponsor, but we never billed them?

Correct

which is why I declined to volunteer for this role again, until we can solve this problem

meeting time is over - can we take this to a mail discussion, perhaps involve Peter?

and it's a problem we really need to solve, or there is going to be a problem with the XSF funding anything

Sure

I agree - it's silly to put in effort to find sponsors, but not actually obtain resources from them.

right - we're out of time for today

So... I'll write up minutes for this week + last week + I'll start an email thread about fundraising

ok, thx

Any Other Business?

nope

Date time of next, +1w ?

yes

+1w is fine with me

wfm too

thank you, gentlemen.

Thanks Guus

thx all

> Last year I agreed to seek sponsorship, but to the best of my knowledge we still haven't collected any money from most of them That's true for us, I think, but we (Isode) also covered the expenses for our people who paid for things that the XSF should have covered (taxis etc.), so I think we've inadvertently paid our sponsorship more or less.

Thanks, Kev / Isode.

I didn't participate in the weekly GSOC XSF meetings because I found it unecessary and counterproductive FWIW. And from the backlogs I read of those meetings I can't tell why everyone should meet every week. It just drained time resources from mentors and students, who will meet regulary anyways.

Mhh