XSF Discussion - 2012-11-20

I'm getting strange messages from gajim informing me that I failed to create this room.. :-/

odd

i really need to spend some time getting my netbook back into a stable state, but google code-in has been eating most my time

http://gci.copyleftgames.org/

yikes, that is one busy project

it hasn't even started yet and the army of eager highschool students have already started marching on us lol

so the board meeting is here, correct?

yes

Arc: Note that I've not even suggested the XSF would want to participate in GCI.

GSoC is plenty of work - I think anyone doing GCI must be supremely massochistic.

Kev, clearly we haven't met :-)

I was Python Software Foundation's sole org admin for 5 years, with 30-40 students a year, plus have done GHOP/GCI.

that said if any mentors under the XSF would want to pitch a task or two into our pool I'm totally fine with that. We have a few xmpp tasks in our pool already, the more the merrier

each task actually takes very little work. its in their vast numbers that mentoring them gets tiring.

Right. It's at least not like GSoC.

But equally, it's not like GSoC :)

exactly, if you get a bad student, you only need to deal with them for a day or two, not all summer.

i should note that we've gotten more long term contributors from GHOP/GCI than GSoC I think. PSF even picked up a guy who's now one of perhaps the top 3 python-dev core developers through GHOP and has served as release manager now for several versions of Python

I find that surprising.

But maybe I shouldn't.

Benjamin Peterson, he was 14 participating in GHOP, and he's now been a GSoC mentor 3 times in addition to all his work with python-dev

for every gci/gsoc horror story there's a story like that. i've had terrible, soul-sucking students just like anyone else, and felt like I never wanted to do the program again, but then there's the gems that make me glad I do

Swift, in particular, had an exceptionally good GSoC this year from a code produced point of view.

We shall see, longer term.

I don't worry as much about the code produced during the program, I'm more interested to see if the students stick around. As a general rule students tend to use more mentor energy than it'd take them to write the same thing, but they're an investment in the community's future

Yes.

But it's a step thing.

A student who can't produce code is unlikely to be useful longer term writing code for the project (not impossible, but unlikely)

Students producing great work over the summer with minimal supervision is a good sign that you want those students to stay on (but not necessarily that they will).

I don't know, we've had some mediocre students that stayed involved and got better.

Its like in rugby - we get guys all the time who show up in incredible shape and natural talent, but never put the work in. And then we get guys who show up completely out of shape, never played any sport before, but dedicate themselves to the club and improving as a player. Most coaches will tell you they'll trade 20 of the prior for one of the latter anyday. I feel the same way with students.

we had a GHOP student, who we actually gave PSF's grand prize to, who was frankly amazing - in a few days he completed more than half a failed GSoC students project from the previous summer, he optimized our rendering code, etc etc - but we never saw him again.

then we had another student who, first thing, asked what application he should use to edit code, needed help with almost everything, and two years later he was still involved and became a gsoc mentor. He wasn't the best coder in the world but he did a ton of work.

People commited to free software will stay and make good contributions regardless of their technicall experience

but sometimes life happens and people get busy with other stuff

that process of struggle and learning, I think, is actually kinda important for building up that commitment to the project

the important thing is letting people who want to work, work.

"hen we had another student who, first thing, asked what application he should use to edit code, needed help with almost everything, and two years later he was still involved and became a gsoc mentor. He wasn't the best coder in the world but he did a ton of work."

But he made progress?

yep

I'm not suggesting people never learn - but that students who enter GSoC and leave GSoC without having made any significant improvement or achievement are unlikely to be long-term contributors.

i can agree with that

oh hey what ever happened with the xmpp browserid initiative i see in the xsf blog

im actually friends with the engineering lead on mozilla browserid, ive debated this with him several times

I think that fizzled out, it wasn't something I was remotely involved in.

I think Dave and Bear? were leading that.

it isn't like OpenID?

dave has worked on it and &yet is also working on some tools to help with that

oh :P sounds nice

bear: It's ongoing? In that case maybe a blog post or mail about progress might be in order. I'd thought it dead.

hmm, good point - it has been a while

Jef, except supported by the browser, and doesnt require telling the identity server who you're authenticating with

But I didn't get to go to the summit, so I grant the cool kids could all know everything.

:)

thats their big issue with xmpp - they dont want central identity providers like google to track where you're logging in to. they're using cert signing to be able to do that

bear: No, definitely :( - I really wanted to go.

T-15m?

yea

coolbeans

I know you wanted to be there - I was glad that we took good notes and even streamed a good portion of it

Yeah, I wasn't even able to view the streams. Irritating.

I have a question....

I keep thinking we need to get an internal dogfood project going - should be no reason why the XSF can't write XMPP tools that do video conferencing

i love that gci for us has become a great opprotunity to teach game devs about xslt. we're using xml to store task data and xslt to convert to xhtml5 or google's csv bulk upload format

This is something in which I have some interest (being a remote worker).

The problem is that I lack any relevant knowledge about streaming, so I'm not in a particularly good position to do much about it.

(same reason here)

bear, +1 to dogfood projects, that's been the driving motivation for us to finally get jingle/opus voice chat going in our engine, so we can voice chat while remote pair programming on the engine

If I knew how to do it I'd be inclined to write a muxing component in Swiften and put support into Swift.

we need to get a faq/howto for jingle stuff so us "normal" devs can use it

I /really/ want to get VV into Swift.

I finally made the switch to Swift - now that message archiving is in place

Excellent - self-built presumably?

not yet - working on that - using the osx install right now

So you don't have message history then, do you?

my $dayjob has me very busy with ops related stuff

Or did I run off a package for you?

I was typing that question :P - as I did not see any mention of it in the UI

I'm happy to run off a package for you, hang on.

\o/

I just need to do some git tagging to persuade it not to call it something confusing.

I'll do a build off the 3.0 branch. I'm sure you want emoticons and nicer status setting.

ta

question: do any of you think it is plausible to substitude git for wikis, when tracking xeps in the xsf?

Jef: I don't.

why

git has a big learning curve compared to wikis

git is made for code, not documents, wikis are for documents

Git is made for source code - it works just as well for source code for documents as it does source code for applications.

(It also works just as well on plenty of things that aren't source, but anyway...)

we use mercurial with a xsltproc server-side hook quite nicely, its worked fine so far

But the learning curve isn't much of an argument against Git, I think - no-one (apart from Peter) really needs to use Git.

then again back to "eating your own dogfood", use pubsub

arcriley: I'm not convincd on that one.

XEPs aren't really pubsub data.

how so

And we don't have a XEP for doing long-term data storage with diffs between versions.

its been a few weeks since i looked but doesnt the core pubsub xep (0060 iirc) cover versions?

pubsub would be for change notification IMO - the XEP should be in long term store and outside of the scope of XMPP IMO

That build's uploading for you now, I'll send you a URL in a moment.

thanks

bear: yea software implementation doesnt need an xep

so, are we missing anyone? it's close to start time

the question would be whether pubsub itself provides the ability to look back over a node's earlier versions, and I'm pretty sure it does

is Ashley and Jason here?

hmm, for some reason my contact list is suspiciously empty

k, we can wait a bit before starting to give them a chance - can someone ping them

I don't /think/ I have either in my roster.

me either

I thought I did - but they are showing up as offline

I thought I had Ashley, but if I do he's not online. I don't have Jason.

oh poo - I bet my prosody ssl cert is expired

so s2s is failing

asroach@gmail.com is ashley

That shouldn't cause s2s to fail.

actually i have them both via G+ but neither are online

even your contact entry is showing as offline

No-one actually does cert validation.

Tried sending them a mail?

i'll try pinging them both on G+, if they are online they'll see an alert pop up on a search :-/

same

Unless they're like me, and do all searching from a browser that never logs into anything :)

I think you're a unique case tho Kev :-)

Possibly. It's protection against a) browser vulnerabilities and b) Facebook/Twitter 'virus' type things

I tend to do my searches on a non-logged in browser also

because I have to have 3 browsers open for various gmail/gapp stuff

(not that it's obvious why I'm connecting those to facts :)

FF for everything that needs me to log in, Chrome for a few things that don't, but that I like to keep open, and an incognito window in Chrome for day-to-day usage that's transient.

we should really have each other's phone numbers for cases like this

I note that you do have quorum :)

yea, I was going to wait to 15 after before starting

we can at least get basics out of the way - and then post to the board list if we have to decide on board chair (if there is anyone else who wants to have a crack at it besides me)

bad way to start a new board tho, with 2/5ths absent

:)

bear I haven't seen a sign that anyone else is interested in the role

FWIW, I think it'd be reasonably bad form to vote on a chair with 2/5 not absent.

sorry -did not mean to imply voting - just announcing to the list if any want the job

and make it the first agenda item for next meeting

But you need a Chair, and if 3/5 of you is all that's around, you pretty much have to.

Heh.

Two-part message with two long between the parts, sorry.

ok, it's 15 after - shall we start this?

2/5 not absent? 2/5 not present. Idiot fingers.

lol

to be serious and not at all in the spirit of judgement or blame, but if either of them were interested in the role, they would be here.

the first couple of meetings are always tough - they have to get used to the fact there is a meeting

ok, as it has been pointed out - we do have a quorum to start the meeting - shall we start?

yes.

florian?

oh, completely missed this :)

I'm here :)

ok, so yes - we do have a quorum - let's start

there is probably a more formal way to do this... but... Welcome to the 2013 XSF Board

we have present Florian, Arc and Mike and missing is Ashley and Jason

the only required things we have to do is elect a chair and decide on meeting dates

indeed

I would like to suggest that we find out who wants to run for Chair and put that to the list and vote on it next meeting

any reason to not do that?

depends on frequency of meetings

normally the meetings are weekly

my personal approach is to have weekly or bi-weekly meetings that are short and simple

weekly makes it easier to remember :)

the council meets weekly - but the board topics are much less frequent

cool, then i think that's a reasonable proposal

what day does the tech council meet?

Wednesday 1600 UK time, generally.

any reason to not meet just before or after the tech council - to aid with those who like to participate in both?

do tech meetings run overtime?

Council? Not when I'm chair. Don't know who will be this year.

yea, kev runs a very tight ship

:)

(FWIW, realising I have no say, I like the idea of regular Board meetings at predictable times, given that us plebs can't read the mailing list to know what you arrange)

1500 UTC is 1000 east coast time - how does that work for you Arc if we have it at 1030

florian you wrote to the list that anything after 7pm your time would work well for you?

:) - yes, having a weekly habit is good

well, I can do earlier :)

daytime my schedule is extremely open, that's fine with me

just between 6-7 is bad :)

it's much more likely I will be awake at 1030 my time than 0930 ;)

:)

ok, so first item is that I'll mail to the board list that the next meeting (and after) will be at 1530 UTC Wednesdays

and if someone objects, then they can come to the meeting to object

Can you also please copy embers@?

sure can

Heh. members.

Thanks.

ok, any further conversation on meeting date/time?

I don't think so

k, on to next item: board chair

is anyone wanting to put their name into the virtual hat for consideration

I would like to be considered

i second the nomination for bear

hmm, tempted :)

but I second bear :)

:D

florian don't do it, its a trap, a bear trap.

haha

like I said, I second bear :)

i do believe that's not just quorum but a majority of the board right there

ok, I'll post to the list that my name is on the list for chair - do we want to vote now or be more polite than required and give the missing folk a chane to suggest?

s/chane/chance/

Will it change anything

nope. i say we vote now.

probably not

+1

If Florian, Arc and Bear are intending backing Bear...

then let's vote - if something is amiss Peter will let us know and we can cover it next week

sounds good

vote for bear as Chair please

+1

+1

+1

ok, done - thanks

I'll add that to the minutes

all hail bear

\o/

the poor fool...

bow before Zod!

:D

congrats to our volunteer cat herder!

k, that covers all that I know we are required to do - anything else that we want to cover?

hmm ... maybe FOSDEM?

(if not then I'm all for calling the meeting done at 30 minutes to get started on a good habit)

but I'd say let's put it on the agenda for next week

florian - can you put a list of items together for fosdem and send that to the list

so we can add it to the agenda

will do

I'd like to bring up my annual grip that the Board mailing list actions should be public, but there's always next meeting to tell me I'm wrong.

bear as our new chair can you send an email to the board list 24 hours before the next meeting to remind everyone?

arc - I will be posting the call for agenda changes the day before - so yea

Annual *gripe*. Good grief fingers, get it in gear.

ok, I don't see any action items to continue the meeting - (not ignoring kev's point, just know we will cover it next week)

sounds good :)

ok, motion to end - second?

+1

seconded.

done - and thanks for attending everyone

I'll work up the meeting minutes and post to the blog, members@ and board@ lists

So far I have a higher attendance at Board meetings than is average for Board members. Hoorah :)

:)

I'll also send an email to peter so he can add it to the calendar

Kev, careful you'll get yourself nominated for the board next year

:)

:D

arcriley: I *believe* my attendance has been higher than the average for Board for the last few years :)

it has been for the 3 (or 4?) years I've been on the board

thanks all

thanks guys :)

WAH-WAH

Ashley, you have perfect timing

i noticed that :)

drat

did the ical ever get updated?

idk i dont use ical

http://xmpp.org/calendar/

well, it's just a subscription. no biggie, but would be helpful for next time. i can bug stpeter on it

Thanks for the minutes Bear.

and the everytimezone, that's helpful!

I do love that site

Out of interest, why's the marker for 1500Z on there?

Ah.

bear: That's 30minutes /before/ Council, not 30mins after :)

doh!

1600UK for Council.

(1600UTC in winter, 1500UTC in summer)

so the council meets at 1600UTC?

In winter, yes.

It generally meets at 1600 whatever the UK local time is.

k, then I had the right time, just not the right relativeness

as long as the time peter adds to the calendar is correct :)