XSF Discussion - 2015-02-23

g'day

Added two IoT things from Joachim to the GSoC page.

+1 for self-aware water coolers

Tobias: "self-aware water coolers"?

Flow, just a reference to the IoT proposals to GSoC

ahh :)

Well the openHAB project sounds interesting (and not just because Smack is involved :))

I'm not comfortable that for the Sleek ond openHAB projects no-one from those projects is involved, but hopefully Joachim can sort that out by the time it matters (if it ever matters).

Kev: yeah I was a bit suprised about the openHAB project too

If Joachim can get them to agree to have a project lead co-mentor, it's fine. Else we'll probably have to remove those ideas.

Sounds reasonable

No idea if we'll be accepted this year, though. We'll see.

Flow, Are you having trouble sleeping?

dwd: sleep is for the weak :)

Flow, Or those who've been reading the IoT specs...

hmm, I wasn't expecting those to be entertaining, but are they so "lengthy/boring"?

i keep saying that about the rayo specs

hmm some high level view on those iot xeps sure would be helpful

Prepping for the Board meeting - as a reminder, this meeting has only 1 agenda item - Board Goals and the results of the recent survey

hello

"This meeting has only 1 agenda item; X and Y"

howdy

Kev: :-)

:)

Ha ha Kev, they are the same thing :)

And hi folks, who do we have today?

o/

hello

Our minute taker is back, hurrah!

Any board members?

ralphm Simon Will ?

I'm here.

I was already here

Ok, hopefully Will isn't too far behind (as he did all this great work)

*bangs gavel* Let’s start the meeting!

I'm here sorry!

Oh good :)

As we said last week, this meeting would be dedicated solely to the Board Goals.

Hopefully  the Board have had time to review the document.

 I have just updated the access rights so this document is now open and can be viewed by anyone attending this meeting (link here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1k0ISvtI38cZS7yg16X9bORHZSW0ruZRHepLJi0lNAls/edit?usp=sharing)

Last week I said: What I would like to suggest is that I share the results of that vote with the Board, and we each spend 5 minutes thinking about what activity / measure we need to commit to, to make that happen. I would like to propose that the Board meeting next week focuses solely on this - agreeing what we are going to do etc. I will then write a blog post about it - outlining what the vote results were and what the Board agrees to do.

*gives people a minute to read, open link etc)

Are the Board folks with me and ready?

yep

yup

yes

OK. Let's work through this one page at a time

% based goals

Do we have metrics from the website yet?

What are people's thoughts here - do we pick one, and backlog the others? Then as we achieve one, move down the list in order of what scored highest?

on the % based, pick one I say

Board - what do each of you suggest (using the votes to help us understand what the community want)?

and i'd go for website traffic (as membership engagement will fall out of other activities)

+1

Agree with will. Membership engagement is too inwardly focused. If the website is effective, that will help membership.

I think membership re-applications are a function of the perceived utility of the XSF

happy to note that, as an engineering focused org, money came last ;-)

doesn't seem like a goal in itself

ralphm: it can be a goal, but isn't one that can be achieved directly.

adam: I'm mostly talking about the prose at that item, but sure

I'm presuming there's an overarching goal of attracting new members implicit in what we do. Since looking at this one could assume there is no drive to attract new members.

ralphm: agree

agree

That is a wider achievement for the Board, I think

Simon: I don't think there is. There's an overarching goal to grow the community, but that's independent of membership.

Simon: I think if we do the rest well, more members will result

Kev: exactly this

"member" ≠ "community member"

ralphm - which goal would get your vote? Hearing what you are saying also

FWIW, I'd think that getting the membership motivated (which is effectively what "membership engagement" is) would make the other tasks somewhat easier.

So I personally think we need to focus on providing information better, both on the website, and by having useful summits that bring in people not yet in our community

Also it's not wholly clear why you need to pick just one of each.

I would additionally say that before we were to aim to increase membership or member engagement, it would be good for the board to identify what the goals of "membership" are in 2015, which may not be the same goals of membership were at the creation of the XSF.

dwd - we needed measurable goals. This was never going to be definitive (nor easy)

dwd: I think there's a two-way relationship

ralphm - so you vote for website traffic and registration for summit?

But in particular, given the website and membership engagement goals seem to have the same level of interest, why not pick both?

Because we agreed to pick one dwd - we have 2 more sections yet

Some might happen as well, but we committed to picking one from each

My vote is for membership engagement - imho website traffic flows out of that and is part of measuring it.

Thank you Simon, ralphm?

Simon, I think membership engagement will increase if we execute properly on the item in the next slide

We need one vote each

Simon: membership engagement is about XSF members, the website is going to be mostly informing the community. I don't see your point.

Ralphm: members can help create the website and maintain their parts of it.

I don't personally care much about membership v.s. being part of the community, and I don't believe that having a 25% increase in membership (for example) will suddenly make more people want to work on the website.

ralphm - we have been over this before. We had to set measurable objectives for this excercise

Laura: I understand how it works

I am extremely hesitant to say "membership engagement" because that seems a very inwardly focused goal. I think the board unanimously agrees we need an outward focus. My hope is that we are able to engage and involve members in that focus. Putting the website in the crosshairs will drive us all to focus outward rather than inward.

Laura: I want to make clear again what options there are, because apparently we don't believe they mean the same thing.

adam : well said

IMHO the ultimate measure is "how many developers are using XMPP to build applications?" - anything else is a proxy for that (which might be hard to measure)

stpeter: indeed

that makes me torn between website and summits

stpeter - not sure that is a goal for the Board, more the whole community

summits are hard to make for a lot of us

These are Board goals - so we can measure our success as a Board

stpeter: could not agree more. I just see the website as our best chance of being able to measure that, given that xmpp.org is always going to be the first thing that people find when they search for "xmpp"

bjc: the registrations don't have to be for physical attendence, remote is a possibility

Can I propose a new goal to consider? A binary one: Board manages to agree on goals to select. :D

Laura: I think it should be, if you believe the XSF is a guide in the community

that's news to me. maybe i should look at the website more *ducks*

Kev - we did!

what if we had a set of developer-focused guides on the website and measured that traffic?

Laura: No, I think you've not managed to agree yet ;)

I am amazed that this discussion is happening now

We asked the members to vote on the goals we have been working on since November, with the intention of doing this very exercise. It is not acceptable to then faff around ourselves after asking for votes from them.

laura: +1

We agreed to come up with goals, vote on 1 goal per "section" and commit to achieving that.

stpeter: indeed. there's an entire "learn" section focused on this in the new website.

I'd put my emphasis on website traffic

that will drive us to create information that's truly helpful

stpeter: so presumably that's what you voted for?

(which, incidentally, we'll need to engage membership in order to create those resources ;)

I am picking 'website' because that will ultimately drive people to summits, too

So far, I have me, Will and adam voting for website traffic. Now we have ralphm too

Can I jump to website too :) ?

Of course!

Result: 5 votes for website

+1 website.

I'm not trying to stifle conversation btw, but want to make sure we follow through on this activity

Laura: you're doing great

Ok, next section *breathes*

Laura: I think it is good to do the discussion bit along with it though. Context is important

Laura: part of follow through could be a metrics report as part of the board meeting.

ralphm: +1 just enough discussion :)

:)

Binary goals

There is a clear "winner" from our community votes!

adam: good thing we haven't defined 'enough' :-D

What do we think?

IoT +1 easy

Bearing in mind we have already achieved one, and in progress with another (pats everyone on the back)

+1 iot

(easy to decide, not to do)

+1 IOT

+1 and, yes, this not going to be easy

worthwhile things rarely are

Just need adam's vote, then this one does need discussion. How?!

Sorry, adam has voted

Laura: that's another meeting, right?

dwd - do we have 5 for IOT?

ralphm - definately.

+1 to another meeting on this topic

I see no Simon vote?

iot

P=[]\'=P

-O0R5 42Q1 m;.'/

lol

Fabulous. I have an AOB about a date for this meeting noted

excuse me

NO CARRIER

just about spilled my glass of water on my keys

splendid

ha ha!

adam, Gesundheit

Ok, final one…

Soft goals

I think the leading two options should be bundled together.

adam - agree. How could we phrase this?

benefits of federation is one of the points of xmpp as leading realtime messaging protocol.

just call federation a subpoint of positioning

I would support this - what do others think?

the other two as well, arguably

indeed

FWIW, I'd have thought federation was a USP of sorts for positioning XMPP.

so, I am going to go with positioning XMPP, keeping the others as important aspects of that goal

+1 to that read on this

agree with ralphm

But I took the item to be referring to espousing the benefits of federation over walled-garden XMPP services.

dwd: ok, interesting

(That is, trying to push the benefits of federation to the HipCHats and Slacks of this world)

That's how I read it.

I'm all for federation but too often I see this turned into an evangelical point rather than a listening to what a developer really needs for *their* project. For that reason I'm voting on the overall positioning of XMPP.

Simon, And also, I'm interested in what the user wants as well as the developer.

My vote - positioning - as per ralphm comment

dwd, Kev: I do agree that is an important thing to advocate

dwd - vote count for soft goals?

Laura, I've no idea. :-) Want to ask for clear votes on positioning?

all for positioning

positioning from me

+1 positioning.

+1

as I read the history here

+1

+!

+1, too

ha ha - votes are cast - we have results!

I will turn this into a blog post, which I will share with the Board first

If that's ok?

Thanks for running this Laura!

Yes, thank you, Laura.

Sorry for pushing for votes, but I didn't want us to get too side tracked

sounds good Laura, now all we have to do is figure out how to do these things. easy right?

ha ha - i need wine.

Laura wins the Internet

Does anyone have any AOB's?

wine was a vote option? How did I miss that.

dwd - so impatient

Just noting that the GSoC application is in (thanks to Laura for proofreading).

The communications mail - I think Kurt had a really valid point about how Officers fit in.

Now we wait to see if we get accepted.

dwd - that is for next week - we gave everyone 2 weeks to comment

huh I thought I had an AOB but now I don't remember what it was

But his comment has been noted for discussion

As written, Alex can't announce the voting stuff without running it past the Board first.

Noted dwd

I have 2 AOB's.

1) Do we need a whole meeting (like this one) to discuss the IOt strategy?

I have another AOB: anyone the XSF owes money to (for Summits 15 and 17), please send invoices to stpeter

Laura, Yeah, but worth joining that thread to get a conversation going.

ralphm: thanks, yes

ralphm just answered my second AOB - has Will got his money back

It might be good to get input from the council and membership on IoT before having a board discussion about that.

adam - agree

stpeter will collect all the receipts and stuff, look at the incoming money for sponsorship and work out the best money flows

Maybe we can discuss next week, about how to start? as part of the agenda

Perhaps we create a questionnaire or something.

Sounds good to me, Laura.

Awesome. Back to agenda items next week - same time same same place?

wfm

Kev: is there a Council meeting this week?

No-one has followed up on me saying I can't make it and for a volunteer to chair it, so no.

ok

Kev, Oh, I'll chair if you want. Been away so hadn't replied yet.

Can someone update the XSF calendar with proper Board meeting entries?

ralphm: sure - every Monday at this time?

yes, until EU timezone changeover

damn timezones

ralphm, The EU TZ change lag might well make Adam really uncomfortable. I forget which way it runs.

stpeter: DST starts on 29 March

Right, calling it a day there. same time same place.

Next week

*bangs gavel*

big thanks to Laura!

dwd: I'm good with the early side of this meeting :)

dwd: Ah, I just sent a mail calling it off.

dwd: In fact the US goes on March 8

Kev, Replied. Sorry.

when does EU?

dwd: at which point the diff is one hour less

adam: March 29

have a good week, everyone. :)

stpeter: awesome work on those IETF thingies

ralphm: yeah, I'm pushing to finish all of these documents in the new few months: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/search/?name=&activedrafts=on&sort=&by=author&author=Saint-Andre

and I have learned to say no to IETF people :)

:-D

"Why is this message in Spam? It's similar to messages that were detected by our spam filters. Learn more"

There we go, Google has spoken on the subject of whether Laura or Dave's minutes are better :D

:-D

I suppose it is no accident I am coloured orange.

the diff between adam, stpeter and bjc is a bit too subtle

i am nothing like them!

ralphm: Too much fake tan.

TBH, I didn't particularly like the colours, but generally highlighting the names was interesting.

ralphm, Laura said she picked Orange for you carefully, as well as Pink for herself. I didn't really take notice of the other colours she used.

dwd: right, but three greens, just different by bold, italic, and normal...

Yeah. I was sort of experimenting with distinguishing between floor and Board, and then worried over ex-officio, and...

Also nobody's noticed that I used a different colour for myself each time. :-)

stpeter, Out of curiosity, how many redirects is sensible in POSH? I'm struggling to think of any useful case involving more than 3, and I'm somewhat pulling even that figure out of thin air.

actually I think the original HTTP spec provided good advice by saying 5

"no one should ever need more than 5 redirects"

i'll be sure to tell the people who use bit.ly on twitter =P

stupid t.co

hell, stupid url shorteners

nod

strangely, even RFC 2616 changed that bit about 5 redirects to "watch out for infinite redirection loops" - so the hard limit is old stuff

until you're on a crappy mobile connection and each redirect takes a few seconds or breaks at some point in the middle

Purty minutes!

In fairness, we're no longer considering URL shortners in POSH, so I'd imagine - hope - most of the redirects would go away.

where are they? i only see up to 2014-11-17 in http://xmpp.org/about-xmpp/xsf/meeting-minutes/

bjc, Board minutes go to the Members list.

http://mail.jabber.org/pipermail/members/

ah

bjc, The archives of that list are public if you want to go see your name in lights.

They are purtier when rendered in HTML.

i'm good, thanks =)

I only copied Laura's self-assigned pink and Ralph's orange.

I don't think I'll do colours again, they're really too much faff.

It looks like the minutes should be hosted on GeoCities

<blink>Yes</blink>

I did actually consider looking at putting an animated GIF in or something, before deciding that was taking things way too far.

<blink>there's no such thing as too far</blink>

bjc, <marquee>I think you'll find there is</marquee>

Wow. Apparently that element is still supported by all major browsers.

I have heard complaints that you can't send GIFs in most XMPP clients

Oh noes! What a tragedy, no animated GIFs!

Lance: That reminds me, weren't you working on specs around file sharing (as opposed to file sending), or was that someone else?

Maranda: http://i.imgur.com/51mbxT9.gif

Yes. ran into some weird issues though

Oh?

but i think with mam-style stuff they might be fixable

its large results for file shares

eg, large nested directories

would either require an initial sharing of a directory listing file, or lots and lots of disco queries

Awww waqas

and also ended up wanting to implement file shares as pubsub, but that would require client-side pubsub servces

💜

Lance: Typically fire-sharing is tied to upload-file-to-server in most non-XMPP clients that support such a thing

I wonder if that's something we should have a spec for

But regardless of where the files exist, we are roughly talking about webdav over XMPP or what? :P

padoom tish

ralphm: Indeed ;)

Given there's specs about for non-walled-garden cloud storage, should we be just working with that instead?

Padoom...

oh, for that case, sure. upload to somewhere via existing standards. send the url like you would any other cat gif. and the receiving client can use oembed to grab a preview & insert into the chat. i would use mep to store references to files associated with a muc if you wanted something slack-ish

that seems incompatible with crypto

Lance: oembed is kinda nice

Lance: I use it in ikdisplay

It would be useful to have some specs covering this area, and even if we are reusing non-XSF standards, something documenting that, so we get interop.