XSF Discussion - 2022-12-14

Any news about the summit or the lack of? MattJ, will you *be* the summit? :-)

> Any news about the summit or the lack of? > MattJ, will you *be* the summit? :-) Didn't know MattJ was that tall.

Nice one

debacle: the FOSDEM room was approved. Ralph said he will be there, I will be there. The summit will happen, but I don't think venue has been arranged yet. There is a board meeting later today.

Great 🙌

Thanks so much, MattJ! I can wait another day buying my train tickets.

MattJ: Board Meeting in 2h right?

Correct

did the meeting take place? are those not public anymore? was/is the time off?

It's a video call, link at https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/Board-Meeting-2022-12-14

pro-tip/TIL: don't close the browser you're joining a video conference with ^^'

proTIL

re editor tooling, I just did this: https://floss.social/@jssfr/109513032749707395

XMPP clients should probably do similar things to browsers when displaying unicode domains, do any currently? https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2022/12/14/idn-is-crazy/

What do they do?

I don't see anything on modernxmpp about it, but it's not purely UX it can also have security issues, annoying

moparisthebest, FWIW, I learnt the other day that mailman3 can do ARC signing, we probably want that to get the mailing list to work properly with gmail & co.

migration to mailman3 without data loss is possible (did that for my private MLs), just™ needs someone to do it

Zash: apparently browsers show the punycode representation if characters from different languages are mixed

that's pretty smart

jonas’: nice re: mailman

Conversations has a little bit of Unicode 'protection'

Displaying the odd character in the jid as red

https://share.gultsch.de/daniel/MNeebJOMdiFdLFzW/Screenshot_20221214-175801.png

For example

Yea we have the extra problem of local part, how do you currently determine the character is odd?

It checks what's the most commonly used script in that part of the jid is and displays all other scripts in red

So pure Cyrillic @ pure Latin domain would be fine

But Latin with one Cyrillic @ domain would not be

That sounds like a good recommendation to me... Want to write up a XEP ? :)

Meanwhile brb registering google.com to host a public XMPP server on

Just joking I'm sure all the good google homoglyphs have been registered long ago

Seems Google registered it

https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr39/ related?

> Meanwhile brb registering google.com to host a public XMPP server on This just looks like ascii to me?

that's the joke?

I tried to paste the lookalike l but I can't tell if I did it right from here haha

> Screenshot_20221214-175801.png that is quite nice! a hidden gem

The general term for all this is Homograph Attacks and there's been a bunch of work on trying to normalize identifiers to prevent this. stpeter did a few presentations on this at previous Summits and he also also authored several IETF speficifications around PRECIS. I cannot point to a single best starting place, but asking Peter is probably a good idea.

PRECIS is the thing the federated network can never upgrade to right?

Not practically, unless the XSF starts specifying Unicode versions

Why is there even stuff that relly looks the same? Shouldn't Fonds made that one can see the difference?

Ask humans :)

Menel, sometimes letters just look alike in different scripts unfortunately

Non-ascii was a mistake

but they're still different letters and need to be distinguished

moparisthebest, says the US-american :P

font designers are just inherently lazy, and copy-paste glyphs across scripts on any opportunity /s

font design is arcane wizardry, I don't blame them for anything

true, that

except this, someone deserves blame for that: https://www.sansbullshitsans.com/

ᎻᎬᏞᏞᎤ

This is my favorite unicode thing so far https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/5penft/parallelizing_enjarify_in_go_and_rust/dcsgk7n/

I've added meeting notes to https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/Board-Meeting-2022-12-14 - corrections welcome

(they might be somewhat rough)

Nice: > Ralph is working on the location for the Summit

Thank you for the notes!

> when people stop doing stuff, then someone will eventually step up I just want to admit that this is not a good practice in my view. I assumes we just wait until one is soo frustrated that they leave (as it happenes). We want people active and motivate of course. This passive setup is the highway to depress engaged folks.

Ralph immediately followed that with a clarification that he wasn't saying we should sit back and wait. But two people volunteered during the meeting, so there is an example 🙂

MattJ: Ok, did got that, but yes

I think my problem still is the seemngly inherent passiveness. I would like to turn thinks into a more active behaviour. I think we still haven't even written based reached out to the organisation that we need support here (well I agree that might not be clear by now I see)

"to the organisation"?

which organisation?

jonas’: XSF

members*

wasn't my members@ mail enough?

(and the thread that followed)

jonas’: Yes, and thats fine. But my point is on Board actively adressing (way earlier) and calling for support with some official guidance

Agreed

It shouldnt have come to this

(I dont want to blame at anyone, just making my point what does not go so well from my limited perspective)

ah, fair

Volunteering is hard. Story time. At my daughter's sports club, I am responsible for creating a schema of people to man the clubhouse bar. This should be done by either players (once per season) or _real_ volunteers, usually parents. Sometimes it is really hard to get the schedule filled in. Players have away games, are coaching another team, and so on. So one day I didn't have anyone. You don't want the bar to be closed. Visiting teams and their supporters want something to drink. What to do? I personally reached out to people, parents, etc. Tried to switch shifts. Couldn't find anyone. So ultimately I announced that the bar _will_ be closed. Put it on the club's Facebook. And sure enough, people realized something needed to be done and I got the schedule filled with people stepping up. Volunteering is hard. People are busy. Have work, family, already do other stuff or have volunteering work for other organizations. Asking people to commit for a role that is more than the 2 hours pouring coffee is a challenge. So yes, we as Board could have done more to address the issues that Jonas raised. But ultimately it is not just Board's responsibility, but the Membership's. I am really happy that we found people to step up again, even though they already have other roles. Because they feel they can't let it slip. And they started stepping up despite Board not picking it up soon enough. Thank you people!

Even your example might be right, I don't follow it. And running a bar in a club is not the main business of the club. And I still see Boards responsibility to do their best to keep up with the "clubs" main business, at least mobilizing members and creating awareness (actively). Besides, it wouldn't have taken a lot efforts from board too

so... are there two types of volunteers? :)) those who step up because they want to, and those who do that because nobody else did

Yeah, that too

but lets not get into philosophy here. I ask the relevant folks in the editor chat to organise a separate meeting on the topic, so we can further dicuss what should be done in what way

> so... are there two types of volunteers? :)) those who step up because they want to, and those who do that because nobody else did Certainly. I don't have the energy to do what I once did in the XSF, but I'll try to fill in holes temporarily when things need doing.

but such attitude/structure/organisation in general leads to actions at the very low end of possibilities and motivation

(I believe/feel)

Thanks, I'm sure.

How you mean? I didn't wanted to get you mad

I think, to some extent, in volunteering you get what you can get. I'm not suggesting no-one should aim for better, and trying to grease cogs to make it easy for people to do things is absolutely worthwhile, but it's still just whatever people can find the time/energy/motivation to do.

yes, but I am trying organise and improve exactly that. And we got a sitation where that engery lead into resignation frustration (and likely before too). To me thats alarming.

This. Maybe this is a flaw in the way I perceive the world, but you can't will organizations into being more active. Particularly if they are volunteer run. Of course one could eventually hire a person to do this work, as we discussed in the meeting, but then the problem becomes figuring out how we can legally best approach that and this _also_ costs a bunch of (volunteer) time. Probably unreasonably so, compared to the actual task. And then finding a person that has affinity and knowledge about our goals and processes. Look, I really _want_ stuff to just happen. But in the end it is about people willing and able to do the work, as Kev nicely put. ✏

I think we got to the spot of "is the glass half full or half empty" mndset discussion 😄 is fine, I hopr my point was made comprehensible

Ok, another comment: We never really tried this right? I think this would have been a great chance to tender for a very active approach to the problem

In the board's meeting notes it says that "Ralph is working on the location for the Summit". Are we talking about the same dates as usual (2 days before fosdem, that is Feb 2-3) or something else here?

I admire your optimism and enthusiasm. I generally try to be, and mostly succeed. But I have a bunch of experience in this area. In many organizations, and particularly at the XSF. And the way it generally works is that some people step up and you want to avoid putting a whole management process around it. If possible Board should *not* be involved in how the Editor role functions. Just that it functions. And if we had had our meeting months before, the outcome would be similar: try and find people that want to step up. As we did today. We don't need a gazillion meetings. Just getting some stuff done. Probably with Jonas' tickets as good strarting point. That's it.

larma: yes

(yes, the Thursday and Friday ahead of FOSDEM, and yes the same location, hopefully)

Just wanted to reconfirm before booking a hotel room 😉

Good thinking

emus, just a reminder that a couple of years ago we identified a gap in the XSF's communications/social/community management and tried to fill it as a paid position (because the community failed to adequately fill it for a long time), and you were one of the most vocal opponents :)

So yeah, we've tried something like this in the past, and it didn't go great

Mixing money and volunteer work is (and always will be) tricky

I think that, a couple of years later, we made the right choice to not contract that person

If you're happy with the role that you stepped into (with the newsletter, social media, etc.), I know we're happy with the work you've been doing

and all the other people support it of course (all volunteers)

I think having the community pull together like that for something is more healthy than paying someone "external" who has no interest in the XSF or it's mission

yes

I do think small charities with staff are a thing, and *maybe* it is worth the XSF having staff (even if it's just one person) but contracting out any core operation like the newsletter as a piece kind of thing would probably not go well I agree. Building a single piece of software tooling is a bit of a different case, I think, but also I wasn't in the meeting so don't listen to me too much ;)

I might try and catch up on the rest of this conversation in the morning. GN folks.

My main point in the meeting was that we have community members with the appropriate knowledge and skills, and I've not heard that money is what's holding them back from assisting us with editor tooling

Good night :)

Indeed.

And to the point that we weren't proactive enough, I don't know... maybe we could have been clearer, but I feel like Jonas's post to members@ was pretty clear. I'd like to think everyone on members@ already has a grasp of the situation without someone from Board having to send an email repeating it. And indeed, several people (including myself) have been working on stuff during this time.

ralphm: I dont now... I just very up to try different. especially if the fiscal hosting is easy to apply. Its an opportunity to guide things and get things done over the hurdle that some tasks are unloved or difficult or time consuming MattJ: yes, but we are damn low on resources, and I dont know how long I can keep this up and no, I am not calling randomly for meetings, I just see it as the only way to cope with it by arranging at all

For the record, the fiscal hosting is largely unrelated to any of this

That's for non-XSF entities (projects, etc.) to be able to have their funds "hosted" by the XSF

> MattJ: > 2022-12-14 11:06 (GMT+01:00) > I think having the community pull together like that for something is more healthy than paying someone "external" who has no interest in the XSF or it's mission no, i mean pay xsf member to do very certain core task to ensure we run our "business" (same with the infrastructure)

As I said in PM, *money* is not the issue. Having a contracting agreement or even employment brings *legal* responsibilities. Also I don't think we should have our Fiscal Hosting apply to ourselves.

emus, which member would we pay?

> MattJ: > 2022-12-14 11:16 (GMT+01:00) > That's for non-XSF entities (projects, etc.) to be able to have their funds "hosted" by the XSF but we cannot use it for our own projects?

> but we cannot use it for our own projects? We don't need to, because we already manage our own finances :)

> MattJ: > 2022-12-14 11:17 (GMT+01:00) > emus, which member would we pay? lets call for it and see if ee find a candidate

emus, even though multiple people already said they would work on what's needed *without* payment? (including myself)

emus: you cannot do all the things. That's why we have more people in the XSF. If we want to be really procedural: it is the Board to set up the framework within which the organization can function. Like work teams and such. And then we have an Executive Director (our "CEO", currently MattJ), who's responsibility it is to keep it running, day to day. But we don't have to be strictly procedural.

> MattJ: > 2022-12-14 11:10 (GMT+01:00) > My main point in the meeting was that we have community members with the appropriate knowledge and skills, and I've not heard that money is what's holding them back from assisting us with editor tooling > Good night :) I think offering compensation is also a good way of telling dedication and also a general statement of importance Good night

But for sure we don't have to do everything through Board. As MattJ says: stuff is already being done. By people who've been involved in one way or the other for quite a while. What problem are we trying to solve now?

emus, I think I disagree with that. Once you start paying some people, you're alienating others. Especially (as was raised in the meeting) if we limit who we might consider paying to certain groups, e.g. our current members.

Open-source doesn't generally use money as a way ot rewarding dedication, it's just not a thing that's commonly done

- I want to get away from always only hoping/waiting passively for volunteers - I want to test as an opportunity - I would offer compensation even if they would do it without 🙂 - Prevent people randomly starting on their own solution, which ends up being refused or double work - Reduce frustration All of that because its an incident at our core business. I think its also a symptom for some general problems. btw, I hope no one takes this in a personal bad tone. I am just trying advocating things.

yeah, maybe we dont need the board but back then we should have right away find someone being named to try to resolve the situation

*resolve = engage in trying to find a solution

> MattJ: > 2022-12-14 11:24 (GMT+01:00) > Open-source doesn't generally use money as a way ot rewarding dedication, it's just not a thing that's commonly done Look at LibreOffice (TDF) or KDE e.V.

they do

and I think also sucessfully.

I think the main issue is that a person with no time doesn't get more time when you give them money

and yes, spending money in a mixed setup is not common and we have our restrictions with it. But I believe everyone in the xsf would agree on especiall this topic. So it could be an exception where we all could agree to and see if that works for us

So unless the member is already a not fully allocated consultant of some kind, the money doesn't help

So basically what happened is that we got people involved (by themselves) that are respectively on the Infrastructure Team (the guys involved with tooling and our machines) and people already on the Editor Team. That didn't sound very random to me.

> singpolyma: > 2022-12-14 11:32 (GMT+01:00) > I think the main issue is that a person with no time doesn't get more time when you give them money I really would like to see and test it before being so sure with this.

Ok I leave it for today. I think my point was clear. Lets again sleep.over it :-)

emus: let me be clear: I am not going to try and find out how to get people hired or contracted if we don't need to. This is a lot of additional work. Yak shaving, maybe even. ✏

Yeah, I see that. But if we dont have an Editor in one month nor any automation project in sight I would like to comeback to the topic

Good night

Good night :)

Sleep well all

Or if not enough automation gets done the board could decide it doesn't need done, and we can just, auto publish the latest from GitHub or whatever (no more attic, dig through git history yourself etc)