XSF Discussion - 2021-04-01


  1. flow

    moparisthebest, you mean, not for *you*, no? ;)

  2. flow

    should xep441 have a disco#info feature flag or are we fine with "perform IQ and see what it returns"?

  3. flow

    CC MattJ, Kev ↑

  4. MattJ

    I guess a feature may make sense

  5. flow

    I guess how that it has been factored out into a new xep without an extra feature flag is an argument to not add one now. But I wonder if we shouldn't have introduced one when we factored this into it's own XEP

  6. MattJ

    I'm not keen on progressing that XEP though

  7. flow

    cause the absence of a feature flag does not tell you much now

  8. Kev

    I guess a feature may make sense.

  9. Kev

    I have fairly little interest in 441 though :)

  10. flow

    is xep441 ex3 correct? shouldn't it be service-unavailble?

  11. flow

    is xep441 ex3 correct? shouldn't it be service-unavailable?

  12. MattJ

    Not if the server supports MAM

  13. MattJ

    Supported namespace, unsupported feature within that namespace: feature-not-implemented

  14. MattJ

    Unsupported/unrecognised namespace: service-unavailable

  15. flow

    hmm fair point if you only consider the namespace

  16. flow

    I was looking at the qname of the IQ

  17. flow

    and would have said unknown IQ (by qname) results in service-unavailable

  18. flow

    is this specified somewhere?

  19. MattJ

    https://xmpp.org/rfcs/rfc6120.html#stanzas-error-conditions-feature-not-implemented

  20. flow

    so all servers check for the IQs child element namespace and decide what to return if they can't handle this?

  21. flow

    ahh ok, at least this is cleary specified

  22. MattJ

    I think it's rarely used in practice, but this is a case where it's clearly correct - since the feature is an optional part of MAM

  23. MattJ

    Typically I think most features within a namespace are not (meant to be) optional

  24. flow

    pubsub would disagree I think

  25. MattJ

    Pubsub is, as always, a special case :)

  26. Kev

    I think the reverse.

  27. Kev

    Pubsub is the general case, and everything else is a special case :D

  28. flow

    I was about to write the same

  29. Holger

    It _should_ be that way.

  30. Sam

    Ge0rG: 💥 𝐛𝐥𝐚𝐦𝐨, implemented: https://play.golang.org/p/kfodrx-7xXM

  31. jonas’

    as a compat layer to '393?

  32. Sam

    Yup, 0393 is basically just a way for users to trigger styling. The output is up to you!

  33. jonas’

    finally!

  34. Sam

    oops, left out strike through. Fixed. Unsure why it's not combining here: https://play.golang.org/p/Bx35jHvdp2P

  35. Sam

    (works if I paste it elsewhere, must be a web thing)

  36. jonas’

    it always is a web thing

  37. Sam

    True story

  38. jonas’

    love it

  39. jonas’

    I can haz poezio plugin

  40. Sam

    (I know this was a joke, but honestly I'd probably implement it this way in certain environments where doing simple formatting is a pain otherwise)

  41. Kev

    Is this like where I did a JSON encoding of XMPP as an April 1st, and then someone else submitted one later that worked less well than mine? :)

  42. Sam

    Nope, this is a compliant implementation!

  43. Sam

    Definitely legit.

  44. Kev

    I mean where you said “I’d probably implement it this way”.

  45. Zash

    You mean Matrix?

  46. Sam

    Oh yah; I mean, jokes aside, it would probably work pretty well if you're using a GTK widget that doesn't support styling or something.

  47. Zash

    MUST return item-not-found, for unknown ids in the 'ids' field ... That seems painful to do with SQL without extra roundtrips, especially in case you request enough to involve paging

  48. MattJ

    Client developers want it this way, server developers don't, who should we favour? :)

  49. theTedd

    𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒌𝒔, Ge0rG, 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒊𝒔 𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒇𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒚!

  50. MattJ

    https://matthewwild.co.uk/uploads/screenshot-20210401-1617286138-1563.png

  51. theTedd

    font rendering is fUn

  52. Ge0rG

    theTedd: 😁👍

  53. edhelas

    works for me ™

  54. Half-Shot

    genuinely impressed it rendered for me :p

  55. jonas’

    see, it even works in Matrix!

  56. edhelas

    it always works in Matrix ™

  57. edhelas

    XMPP is a subset of Matrix

  58. Ge0rG

    It's standard Unicode.

  59. theTedd

    you still need the relevant font faces though

  60. Half-Shot considers making that the big reveal today

  61. Sam

    Ge0rG: I look forward to your Office Hours talk on this.

  62. Sam

    Very important work we're doing here.

  63. mathieui

    FWIW this use of unicode is the worst thing ever for screen readers and accessibility tools

  64. Sam

    I was just wondering about that :)

  65. Kev

    Oh, it isn’t. There are worse things, it’s just pretty terrible :D

  66. mathieui

    Kev, true, it could be an image of the text :p

  67. moparisthebest

    mathieui: it addresses that: > As a visually impaired user, I want my screen reader to emit long sequences of technical names of Unicode special characters to really convey the point of the intended emphasis, character by character!

  68. mathieui

    moparisthebest, is this a scenario from https://twitter.com/shituserstory ?

  69. Kev

    🤷🏻‍♂️

  70. moparisthebest

    Hey we don't always get to pick the requirements

  71. theTedd

    I'd like to think the screen reader would normalise the text into ascii and read that, with expressed emphasis if deemed relevant, but maybe I'm dreaming

  72. Zash

    Technical solutions doing the sensible thing? What universe do you live in?

  73. theTedd

    the one with pixies, fairies, genies, and trolls

  74. wurstsalat

    mathieui, nice collection

  75. emus

    Hi MattJ, ralphm, dwd & arc - I hope I got everyone from board. Sam plans to create a youtube account to place the XMPP Office Hours Videos. Can we create one under the name of XSF? I also plan to create a general email for commteam on my own responsibility, to connect the other social accounts to this in a central manner. So its not on anyones privat mail anymore. Thats what I would also use in that case. (where I would prefer Vimeo or anything else, at least to have a second option)

  76. ralphm

    emus: I don't see a problem with that. Can you please coordinate with iteam, to ensure continued access to the XSF?

  77. arc

    I'm fine with it so long as we have multiple people able to manage the channel, vs the channel being under a single person's personal account

  78. emus

    ralphm, arc: yes, that was my intention

  79. emus

    That I am not the only one accessing

  80. emus

    Of course we should also coordinate what to post in the end

  81. emus

    arc, ralphm: Because that is a bit an issue with most accounts

  82. Sam

    Sounds good, I'll make it. It will be a brand account, so anyone who wants to be an admin just send me your email and I'll add you

  83. Sam

    (email must be a Google account, of course)

  84. Sam

    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf3Kq2ElJDFQhYDdjn18RuA

  85. emus

    we cannot register a different email? Because I did not plan to create a Google account for hosting

  86. emus

    XSF information*

  87. Sam

    We can try, I assumed it had to be a Google account, but I don't know

  88. emus

    hmm

  89. Zash

    Google service? Google account will be required.

  90. emus

    😢

  91. Sam

    It requires verification with a phone number to upload videos more than 15 minutes apparently. Thank goodness for jmp.chat.

  92. arc

    Is that how they do it now with a brand account? We used to use Google Plus but obviously that's not going to work anymore

  93. emus

    Maybe we should rather host a download repository than joining youtube^^ Sam: I can offer my spam number

  94. Sam

    emus: no need, I just used a number from jmp.chat. It's already verified :) thank you though

  95. Zash

    Or find a friendly PeerTube instance

  96. emus

    Zash: Even better

  97. Sam

    Zash: on a personal note I'd like to experiment with peertube but all the places that seemed okay either didn't have open registration or had a bunch severe restrictions that meant I couldn't use them. If you have suggestions though, I'd love to experiment with one.

  98. Sam

    I really wish there was a co-op that just offered peertube. We've been thinking about adding an instance at social.coop, but I don't know if/when that will happen and kind of like the idea of a group that *only* does that.

  99. ralphm bangs gavel

  100. ralphm

    0. Welcome

  101. ralphm

    Hi! Who do we have, and are you bringing agenda items?

  102. Sam

    I would like to bring an agenda item when the time comes.

  103. ralphm

    This is a great time to suggest the item.

  104. Sam

    I'd like the XSF to consider whether it makes sense for it to act as a fiscal host for XMPP related projects that don't have an organization of their own, but operate in a non-profit manner.

  105. ralphm

    dwd, arc, MattJ

  106. MattJ

    Here

  107. ralphm

    Sam: thanks

  108. arc

    Here

  109. dwd

    Here!

  110. ralphm

    Full house!

  111. arc

    Sorry I am with the fiber installer getting him sorted but you have my full attention

  112. ralphm

    Noted

  113. ralphm

    I'll briefly mention last week's dicussion, too.

  114. ralphm

    1. Minute taker

  115. ralphm

    I think I'm up?

  116. ralphm

    2. Last week's discussion

  117. arc

    That sounds about right

  118. ralphm

    What started out with moderation, grew into a discussion on codes of conduct and privacy and such.

  119. ralphm

    dwd shared a short note on the board mailing list, but I assume he's not done with his research. If so, I'd postpone this item for next week?

  120. dwd

    I am not done, though I've found a few positive examples (as in, CoC which promote good behaviour rather than block bad behaviour). I'll post an update early next week.

  121. ralphm

    Thanks!

  122. arc

    I think the conversation less drifted, than an acknowledgment that moderation without a code of conduct in place will get a lot of flack

  123. ralphm

    Sure

  124. ralphm

    3. XSF as fiscal host for projects

  125. ralphm

    Sam brought up this item (earlier, too, I think). Do you want to expand on it a bit?

  126. Sam

    Sure

  127. emus

    > dwd escribió: > I am not done, though I've found a few positive examples (as in, CoC which promote good behaviour rather than block bad behaviour). I'll post an update early next week. I think I support this too

  128. dwd

    emus, Suggested by, I think, arc. I'm just following that steer.

  129. emus

    Ah okay, fine 😊

  130. Sam

    The general idea is that since the XSF is a U.S. based 501c3 non-profit organization, we're in a position where we could accept donations that are earmarked for specific projects we support. That way the donation is tax-deductible for the person making it (because it's to the XSF), and we just have to follow rules around how we distribute it to projects.

  131. Sam

    There are other projects such as Open Collective that make this easy so the XSF wouldn't have to do any of the hard accounting work or verification or what not.

  132. arc

    So similar to the software freedom conservancy?

  133. Sam

    I don't know how they operate, but I suspect so.

  134. ralphm

    arc: does that mean you know how this works in practice?

  135. dwd

    I'm in favour of doing this in principle, but I'd like to understand the effort involved, and be assured that the Treasurer in particular was happy.

  136. ralphm

    ++

  137. Sam

    I recommend Open Collective (https://opencollective.com/) in particular because they handle all the fancy accounting for you which would probably make the treasurer happy and I believe they would be free for us to use (unless we charged fees to the projects, but I assume we wouldn't do that)

  138. MattJ

    This is something I've long wanted to see the XSF do (it's one reason I was originally motivated to become a board member), so I support it in principle

  139. MattJ

    But I'm going to play devil's advocate here: now we're in a world where Open Collective exists, maybe they are better suited? Since that is their sole purpose

  140. arc

    So the conservancy has member projects, each of which have applied and been accepted. The conservancy manages the bank accounts, takes cut of each donation to pay for a professional accountant, and sometimes manages copyrights

  141. Sam

    I should say that I don't know how or if this works outside of U.S. projects accepting donations in US Dollars. I know Open Collective can handle it, but I don't know if the XSF needs whatever the EU or UK equivalent of a 501c3 is, for example.

  142. arc

    Open collective is a different organization yes

  143. MattJ

    I worry that the XSF as an organization is simply not in a place to take on the responsibility of this role

  144. ralphm

    Because it requires effort that we collectively haven't shown to have cycles for?

  145. MattJ

    Correct

  146. dwd

    Sam, The equivalent in the UK to a 501c3 is a registered charity, and is a complex thing involving the same levels of public accounts as a public listed company.

  147. arc

    For a few projects it's not really a big deal. But if we start offering this as a service to projects, it could require having to hire a CPA

  148. Sam

    I believe this is true if we were to handle all the accounting and money ourselves. However, if we had all the money in open collective they are effectively handling the accounts for us, so all we'd have to do is approve projects.

  149. MattJ

    We only just manage to reimburse people after events, and we routinely failed to collect funds from sponsors for years (if we're doing that reliably now, it's the first year I think)

  150. arc

    Of course by that point we would have the cash flow to do that

  151. dwd

    Sam, I mean, if you want the tax deduction, which works a different way (the charity gets the tax, not the person giving, sort of)

  152. dwd

    So to flip this around, could the XSF use the Open Collective or similar to handle donations to it?

  153. arc

    That kind of depends on the level of donation and who's giving it. Larger corporations lake Cisco absolutely want to see the magic 503c3 seal.

  154. Sam

    Yes, they also handle reimbursements, so it might be worth evaluating if it would be useful for all XSF money. However, I haven't used it very much for that, so I don't know how good it is.

  155. dwd

    arc, We can certainly use both of course.

  156. arc

    What kind of cut does the open collective take?

  157. Sam

    For us it would be nothing

  158. Sam

    They make money from fiscal hosts who charge their projects

  159. Sam

    In which case it's 15% of the fee the fiscal host charges. I assume we wouldn't do that, so it wouldn't cost us except in transaction fees when we make reimbursements and things.

  160. Sam

    Or transfer money to/from a bank account.

  161. arc

    Gotcha that is pretty much the industry standard

  162. Sam

    Those fees are set by banks and governments, so that probably depends a lot.

  163. Sam

    Of course, we could also charge host fees if the XSF wanted another stream of revenue to fund something, that's up to the board or treasurer I assume.

  164. dwd

    Sam, So in that case - us using Open Collective to "host" projects - we're effectively whitelabelling Open Collective?

  165. ralphm

    To be clear, that'd be up to the board or the ED.

  166. Sam

    dwd: yes, for example, here's my (unused) page for a business I was working on for a while that acts as its own fiscal host: https://opencollective.com/cornergarage

  167. Sam

    Actually, bad example, let me find something that's active

  168. Sam

    Here is social.coop, the Mastodon and BBB service I use: https://opencollective.com/socialcoop

  169. Kev

    As a question - I think it’s being assumed that the XSF wouldn’t charge for the facility. Should we consider that assumption?

  170. dwd

    Sam, And what's the difference between the XSF doing this and projects just going direct to the Open Collective?

  171. Sam

    They don't handle their own money, a platform co-op is their fiscal host: so this is their host: https://opencollective.com/platform6-coop

  172. Sam

    dwd: Open Collective itself wont' act as a fiscal host, you have to have one with 501c3 status.

  173. dwd

    Sam, Ah, understood.

  174. Sam

    They do have a couple of subsidiaries that can act as fiscal hosts if you meet certain requirements. Eg. I believe one of them requires 100 stars on GitHube or a bunch of verification about how active the project is.

  175. Sam

    But XMPP related projects often can't meet those requirements because it's such a small community.

  176. dwd

    Sam, So in effect, we're using Open Collective like a bank account?

  177. Sam

    dwd: yes, more or less. It's a bank account that lets you earmark money for specific projects.

  178. Sam

    And lets those projects take advantage of the XSF's tax status.

  179. dwd

    OK, this makes more sense to me now.

  180. Sam

    It also provides convenient ways for individuals to donate and what not, so it's sort of combining a bank, accounting and reimbursements, and Patreon.

  181. dwd

    Sam, So for our own, smaller, donations we'd just have a "bucket" for the XSF, under the XSF's name and 501c3 status, but hosted by Open Collective.

  182. dwd

    Sam, And for, say, Melium, people would be paying into a Mellium bucket which is a Collective bank details thing, but they're paying the XSF under the XSF's 501c3.

  183. Sam

    Right

  184. Kev

    Are there other orgs that offer what the XSF is proposing to do, but not backed by open collective?

  185. ralphm

    So now we have a bit more insight, what do we still need (to know) to make a decision?

  186. Sam

    Kev: yes, this is quite common and lots of places do it out of their own bank account. It just requires knowing accounting things.

  187. Kev

    Basically asking: Does the XSF need to offer this in order for it to be accessible for XMPP projects, or could they easily already go elsewhere?

  188. Sam

    I only propose Open Collective because I've used them and their financial tools are very nice to use.

  189. Sam

    There may be other platforms that help make this easy too, I don't know.

  190. ralphm

    Kev: so you're not asking if we can take this on ourselves?

  191. dwd

    Kev, My understanding is that they'd need to go to another 501c3, and this would be difficult to arrange for small projects, which is (broadly) any of the XMPP ones.

  192. Kev

    Ralphm: I’m asking if us taking it on would add any value over existing offerings.

  193. Sam

    Oh I'm sorry, I misunderstood.

  194. dwd

    Kev, My answer was to that question.

  195. Kev

    I understand from the above that Open Collective wouldn’t make this easy for a small project, so I’m asking if there are alternatives.

  196. Kev

    dwd: So you’re saying you believe there’s no-one already doing what the XSF would be proposing to do here (either backed by OC or otherwise)?

  197. Kev

    I’m in favour of this being available to XMPP projects, I’m just wondering if it needs to be the XSF that does it.

  198. dwd

    Kev, Not quite. I'm saying that you need both a donations-processor (OC) and a 501c3 to "front" for you.

  199. Sam

    I believe the value in having the XSF do this is that we'd have a fiscal host that's *only* for XMPP related projects that doesn't need to care how big the community is because they're not overloaded with requests from every project on the web, the criteria is "must be XMPP related" so it's a bit more specialized.

  200. Sam

    Whereas the Software Conservancy or whatever is more general in terms of the software they accept, so they get tons more applications and have to set some limits on how big/small the projects are.

  201. dwd

    Kev, As Sam says, the difficulty for the project is finding the 501c3 org to front them.

  202. Sam

    However, there may be others that would be perfect for XMPP projects that I have not found.

  203. Sam

    Most of them are either general software ones that have strict requirements, or have their own strict requirements (that aren't about XMPP).

  204. ralphm

    Since I have to go in a few minutes, what next?

  205. Sam

    Anyways, thanks for your consideration. I'm happy to answer questions or give a demo after the meeting (or whenever).

  206. Kev

    I suggest a) Is the XSF happy to do this if ‘needed’ and if so b) have someone check it’s needed.

  207. dwd

    So I'd like to know: * More details (always!) * Treasurer's opinion * How this would play in EU/UK * What other options exist in other regions.

  208. Kev

    I think it would be quite unfortunate for the XSF to only be able to support US projects, FWIW.

  209. ralphm

    Sam: would you be able to / like to look into answering some of those questions?

  210. Sam

    I tend to agree. Perhapse the XSF could partner with Snikket to have that act as a UK/EU charity.

  211. Kev

    And I’d take everything dwd says as c)

  212. Sam

    I can try to look into the EU/UK requirements. As far as checking if it's needed I'll reach out to the mailing list and ask I guess.

  213. Sam

    Is Peter still the treasurer? I can also reach out and ask him.

  214. arc

    Yes he is

  215. dwd

    Sam, Snikket is a, erm, kind of Limited Company. Not tax exempt.

  216. Sam

    oh okay, nevermind then. I'll dig deeper into the EU/UK question then and see what the best way for the XSF to do that would be.

  217. Sam

    Anyways, "yes", I'll try to answer those questions.

  218. Kev

    Sam: By ‘needed’ I meant “there’s no sensible alternatives” rather than “people need the facility”, but the latter is probably also good to work out.

  219. Sam

    Gotcha

  220. arc

    Most larger sponsors have US offices anyway

  221. Sam

    I have tried to look into sensible alternatives and wasn't able to find any

  222. Kev

    Fair enough.

  223. ralphm

    Ok. Thanks Sam.

  224. Sam

    Thank you!

  225. ralphm

    Let's pick this up again when there's more info.

  226. ralphm

    5. AOB

  227. ralphm

    ?

  228. arc

    Not from me

  229. ralphm

    6. Date of Next

  230. ralphm

    +1W

  231. ralphm

    7. Close

  232. ralphm

    Thanks all!

  233. ralphm bangs gavel

  234. dwd

    Thanks!

  235. arc

    Thanks

  236. Kev

    Nice to see an active Board meeting :)

  237. emus

    In terms of ressources: Assume we get this done for US (one step after another before expanding to EU). Once we would hit the spot of "need of hiring" - cant we found this from that status aswell?

  238. dwd

    emus, Not sure I follow.

  239. emus

    Maybe in other words: Sam requested this for US. I think its worth to reach this - we can expand to EU/UK another time and should not overkill the approach with complexity (from scratch). I think its a good idea

  240. dwd

    Right. My question over the EU/UK (and, who knows, elsewhere) is that there may be places that would give us a global reach from the start.

  241. Sam

    Yah, I don't know how many U.S. based projects we actually have. Entirely anecdotally: most XMPP related projects are in the UK/EU.

  242. Sam

    So it seems worth looking into so that we don't have a collective page with 1 or 2 projects on it forever.

  243. Kev

    If we wanted to go where it would provide most value soonest, probably the US isn’t the optimal start, but I could be wrong.

  244. Kev

    We keep talking about setting up an EU presence for the XSF because so much of everything happens this side of the pond.

  245. emus

    Yes, I see that, just saying that we shouldn't drown the idea, because we cannot get everything from the start because it turned out to be to complex. Of course having this in EU would be great!