Difference between revisions of "Oversight Board/2008/Log-2008-09-05"
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Revision as of 19:52, 24 February 2010
- <walter> Is everyone together right now?
- <walter> Who is here? Shall we get started?
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- <gregdek> Presto!
- <marcopg> hello
- <walter> Is Marco around? And Chris Ball?
- <marcopg> walter: hello
- <walter> Hello everyone.
- <marcopg> pinged cjb in #sugar
- <walter> I put together an agenda in the wiki: http://sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/Oversight Board/Minutes#Friday_5_September_2008_-_14.00_.28UTC.29
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- <walter> I'd like to discuss some bureaucratic issues first, as this is the first meeting of the elected Oversight Board
- <tomeu> ok
- <walter> We've been pretty good about things like minutes, but let's appoint someone at each meeting to be responsible for them.
- <gregdek> ok :)
- <walter> I'm happy to do it this time.
- <walter> A couple of other things that are at loose ends, at least in my mind:
- <walter> Presumably this is an open meeting.
- <gregdek> I hope so.
- <walter> I didn't announce it other than in the Sugar DIgest though.
- <walter> Should we announce it to sugar and iaep?
- <gregdek> I have no objection.
- <marcopg> sounds good
- <gregdek> How do we handle visitors?
- <gregdek> Do we allow people to participate, or watch, or what?
- <walter> Good question.
- <walter> I think we let people participate, but if we need to vote on something, the board would do that.
- <gregdek> Fine for me.
- <walter> The more minds the better, at least at this scale.
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- <walter> Which brings me to another issue: I'd like to propose we explicitly invite some folks to these meetings.
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- <walter> The board is a great group, but very tech-centric. We are underrepresented in the deployments and learning.
- <gregdek> As recurrent guests, or from time to time depending on the topic, or what?
- <_bernieXO> true
- <walter> I think as permanent -- non-voting until/if we change the by-laws -- members
- <walter> I'd like to ask a designer (Eben or Christian perhaps) to be here.
- <walter> I'd like Hernan or Paulo from deployments to be here.
- <marcopg> yeah I'm actually sad that Christian was not elected :)
- <walter> I'd like some educators to be here.
- <marcopg> and no one from the deployments
- <marcopg> absolutely +1 from me
- <gregdek> No objection here.
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- <tomeu> yeah, makes sense
- <gregdek> I especially favor deployment representatives.
- <walter> Could we resolve to make a formal outreach from the OB to each of these constituencies?
- <gregdek> i.e. "users". :)
- <walter> Perhaps in the form of committee heads?
- <walter> We do have the task of appointing committees...
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- <walter> The only one we agreed to in advance was membership
- <tomeu> sounds interesting, which would be those committees?
- <gregdek> Perhaps we should enumerate the committees and their purposes before we agree to head them. ;)
- <tomeu> deployment committee would make sense?
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- <walter> We have a first pass in the wiki: http://sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/Governance/Committees
- <walter> We never had a deployment committee on the list. If we create one and appoint some folks from Peru and Uruguay to kick-start it...
- <walter> We can ask that they report back at each OB meeting...
- <walter> Same with Learning...
- <gregdek> +1 to a deployment committee.
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- <bernieXO> 3
- <gregdek> So I understand. The goal of the deployment committee would be to serve as ombudsman for deployments?
- <walter> We had 3-4 very strong candidates who'
- <walter> d make a great kernel of a deployment committee: Paulo, Rabi, Hernan, etc.
- <walter> More than just ombudsman, which is my mind is a more reactive role
- <bernieXO> I'd like to get rabi or bryan involved if they want to
- <gregdek> Actively bringing issues to the board?
- <walter> I'd like to see them actively pursuing issues... and bring the important ones to our attention.
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- <walter> Not just waiting for complaints...
- <gregdek> Right.
- <gregdek> So. Are we waiting on volunteers to chair committees? :)
- <walter> We should not wait, but solicit. I'm happy to solicit members to the Deployment committee and ask them to help write up a mission statement.
- <walter> We need to appoint a OB member to each committee as well...
- <walter> Anyone want to tackle Membership?
- <tomeu> arjun may be able to bring some experience to the deployment committee
- <walter> Yeah. And maybe Carla?
- <tomeu> would be nice to have someone from africa, perhaps julaino knows someone?
- <tomeu> julaino
- <tomeu> juliano, sorry
- <walter> I know the folks involved in several of those trails as well. We need not settle on the details now, but I think we agree in spirit on what to do re Deployment?
- <cjl> Distinctions between Deployment, Learning and Community might be made clearer. Deployment sounds like "user community" and "learning workers in the field". Community (as currently framed) seems more like "Participation".
- <gregdek> The most actionable mission statements make the best committees. :)
- <gregdek> Deployment is clear: "to solicit feedback and prioritize improvements for Sugar deployments in the field" or something like that.
- <gregdek> Others, to me, are less clear.
- <gregdek> Learning in particular.
- <walter> I think the idea behind community committee was not so much the constituency as much as the task: they'd be all about organizing Sugar meetings
- <walter> e.g., BOF and tjhe like around the world
- <gregdek> Then let's call it the Events committee?
- <walter> Is there the need for a separate Learning committee? Perhaps not yet.
- <walter> Events works for me.
- gregdek would be happy to work the Events committee.
- <gregdek> Having had some experience there.
- <tomeu> this actionable mission statement thing sounds good to me
- <walter> Quick: everyone else take one step back. Greg, it is yours!!
- <marcopg_> :)
- <dfarning> Sorry I'm late, I will work on membership
- <gregdek> I WILL NOT FAIL YOU, SIR.
- <walter> Another glutton for punishment has spoken... great!
- <gregdek> It means I escape the harder committees. ;)
- <bernieXO> I shall take infrastructure then
- <walter> So, as specific action items, could Greg, Dave, Bernie, (and whomever -- me?) come up with a short list of committee members and work with them on mission statements for our next meeting?
- <gregdek> I will.
- <dfarning> yes
- <walter> Shall we leave the learning committee aside for the time being?
- <walter> See what the other ones turn into?
- <gregdek> Until we can more explicitly describe its goals, I would say.
- <walter> What about driving the technical/design goals? Is that a committee?
- <tomeu> all committees are learning committees ;)
- <gregdek> An aside: it's "Sugar Labs", not "sugarlabs", right?
- <walter> Yes.
- <walter> But when we get to the logo discussion, we may consider sugarlabs
- <walter> back to committees, maybe Simon has an opinion about the need for a tech committee
- <marcopg_> what's the actionable mission for tech?
- <erikos> walter, you mean me?
- <walter> I'd like to propose that the OB formally sing Simon's praises for doing a great job as release manager.
- <dfarning> walter, would you consider leading the teaching committee, none of the rest of us are very qualified?
- <marcopg_> walter: +1!
- <tomeu> yeah, let's sing!
- <bernieXO> watch out your teeth!
- <walter> The setting of technical goals is something that needs coordinating, but maybe that is something that the Release Manager does...
- <walter> Or do we want to have a committee? That is what I was asking Simon.
- <walter> What would make it easier, more productive for you?
- <bernieXO> we're largely understaffed in the tech team... this is maybe a topic to be discussed later
- <tomeu> I'm not sure if committees work on this one
- <erikos> so the release manager is not setting the goals as i understand it
- <erikos> he does make sure the goals that has been set get into the release
- <tomeu> developers interested in implementing a feature are in charge of driving the design discussion
- <marcopg_> yeah I'm not sure we should a tech committee
- <gregdek> Or stay out for good reasons. :)
- <walter> Not setting... I misspoke... but making sure they are clearly articulated, so he/she can do his/her job
- <tomeu> in a more informal way, I think
- <bernieXO> tomeu: i'd follow the old mantra of not touching what is not broken
- <walter> +1
- <erikos> walter, ok
- <tomeu> yeah, perhaps that's what I had in my mind
- <walter> Let's leave it for now.
- <bernieXO> the sugar hackers have been coordinating themselves impressively so far
- <walter> Very well coordinated... a pleasure to watch
- <tomeu> we are just too tired to fight for long...
- <tomeu> ;)
- <erikos> i can keep on doing what i did during this release if people were worried about that
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- <walter> If you are willing...
- <erikos> sure
- <walter> I just want to make sure you have the tools you need.
- <erikos> one critical thing we need is a bug squad
- <erikos> that would really help in order to make the release process successful
- <gregdek> +1 to organizing a Test Committee.
- <gregdek> (Which is a really hard job, by the way.)
- <walter> Let's recruit Mikus
- <tomeu> mchua wanted to work on that?
- <marcopg_> what about hoboprimate and garycmartin?
- <erikos> i was thinking about hoboprimate and garycmatrtin
- <marcopg_> they are both *very* good I think
- <erikos> +2
- <tomeu> yeah
- <walter> We have some very good people.
- <walter> We need to give them a mandate and a means to be successful
- <tomeu> benzea and mtd may just keep sending patches as they feel better
- <tomeu> I missed bemasc, may be busy with other stuff
- <marcopg_> yeah he is busy I think
- <marcopg_> getting graduated or something
- <erikos> ok so what action item does need to be fulfilled to get the bugsqad going
- <tomeu> and Charles Merriam?
- <erikos> what do they need
- <walter> We need one of us to act as liaison/coordinator
- <erikos> ok i can do that
- <erikos> it does fit well with the release efforts ;p
- <walter> So we have membership, deployment, events, test set to take action on
- <cjl> Distinctions between Deployment, Learning and Community might be made clearer. Deployment sounds like "user community" and "learning workers in the field". Community (as currently framed) seems more like "Participation".
- <cjl> sorry
- <gregdek> cjl: Replacing "community" in that list with "events".
- <walter> I think the blending of deployment/participation/learning is hard to tease apart at this stage
- <walter> Are we putting "learning" as a separate committee on hold for the moment?
- <gregdek> :<business_hat>Deployment == customer satisfaction:</business_hat>
- <cjl> sorry, I repeated an earlier line by accident, what I meant to say was I assume Walter handles Finance for now?
- <walter> Let's talk about finance...
- <bernieXO> oh yeah
- <walter> The bottom line is I think that the main focus for me in the next few months is $$$
- <bernieXO> $$$
- <tomeu> what are we going to spend the money on?
- <walter> I am getting a number of proposals from folks, e.g., an interesting proposal to set up a development team in Pakistan.
- <tomeu> travel, what else?
- <gregdek> EVENTS.
- <gregdek> Over half of Fedora's discretionary spend goes to event funding.
- <bernieXO> walter: that' _INTERESTING_
- <tomeu> walter: sounds interesting
- <walter> And helping get more developers going.
- <tomeu> as always, I'd like to talk about growing our devleopment resources
- <walter> Not Sugar Lab employees, but affilated groups that want to advance our mssion
- <bernieXO> badly needed
- <walter> If we can raise money (or help others to raise money) to subsidize development, I think we should.
- <tomeu> walter: I know we are not fans of payed developers in sugarlabs, but I think that it could have a big strategic impact to contract someone for the next 6 months
- <tomeu> so we have a much better 0.84 release
- <tomeu> if 0.84 really rocks, we'll have an easier road next year
- <walter> I know this is a controversial issue, but we need the horses and the long-term interest of some of our partners, e.g., OLPC, is not development.
- <dfarning> Yes, I agree will walters last statement. In fact his main focus should be engaging statkeholders
- <walter> I think there are any number of groups that would be willing to help us help them.
- <tomeu> yes, I see countries and other organizations as the future of development resourcing
- <bernieXO> yes, we should make sure Sugar Labs doesn't become the main source of developers, but sponsoring one or two for 6 months would be fine
- <tomeu> yeah, I'm advocating for something like a "strategic exception"
- <walter> I was looking into a plan, for example, for the WB to fund the development of SME tools based on Sugar that would advance their mission of fostering local entrepreneurship
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- <tomeu> supporting past releases is draining lots of development resources
- <bernieXO> the Linux Foundation also sponsor a few "random" kernel hackers
- <walter> They have offered to help with Events...
- <walter> (Greg: we should talk about this offline)
- <gregdek> walter: Happy to.
- <walter> But we need more help in development sooner than later and unfortunately, outside of our control, some people are being pulled off the project...
- <bernieXO> walter: who are the developers in this packistani team?
- <tomeu> or redirected to non-sugar stuff
- <walter> We'll need to have the resources to guarantee some level of stability
- <walter> in some cases, redirected, in some cases, contracts not renewed.
- <walter> But we could, for example, channel some of these resources to help build up some of the fledgling teams in places like Pakistan
- <tomeu> I wouldn't mind to spend some times on those places
- <tomeu> helping build the team
- <tomeu> but the recruiting job may be a hard one
- <bernieXO> walter: you know I'd love to do it, don't you?
- <tomeu> we have two people in the travel committee ;)
- <walter> I think we an count on locals to find talent--we'll have to help bring them up to speed.
- <bernieXO> walter: although I'm afraid I didn't have much luck hiring new sugar hackers in kathmandu...
- <walter> And I can work with these groups to find money to support them and the help.
- <bernieXO> I think this is exactly what we'd need at this time
- <walter> As Bernie points out, there is not guaranteed to be critical mass of talent everywhere, but we need to start somewhere.
- <walter> I think Pakistan and India are good places to try.
- <walter> So I have been working on some joint proposals.
- <walter> What should be the process of vetting a proposal that commits Sugar Labs to something or asks for a Sugar Labs endorsement?
- <bernieXO> but if we succed in creating a team outside USA/Europe, it would be doubly as worthwile
- <gregdek> walter: Discuss it in a board meeting and vote if need be?
- <bernieXO> walter: good question...
- gregdek is wary of creating process before it proves to be necessary...
- <walter> The other thing I have been working on is corporate money. I am meeting with Chuck next week to spend a day on a fundrasing roadmap/strategy
- <walter> I will have a few different proposals pulled together over the next few weeks. I'll circulate them to the OB, I suppose.
- <marcopg_> approval by the board sounds good to me for endorsement
- <tomeu> after some discussion in the mailing lists, I guess
- <walter> There is an issue with public discussion of some proposals...
- <walter> Maybe I can generalize them--remove the names--for the mailing list discussion?
- <tomeu> I think the broad community can give input on broad strategy and policy
- <bernieXO> sure
- <walter> I think the ideas can and should be public. But the details of whom and where are perhaps more sensitive?
- <tomeu> concrete proposals may be a different thing
- <walter> OK. will do.
- <tomeu> sure, that everybody can understand
- <walter> So, plan on a report from the finance committee at the next meeting.
- <walter> One more detail re committees and the like. OK to reappoint Bert as Ombudsman?
- <dfarning> yes
- <tomeu> if he's interested, yeah
- <walter> I think he is... but I'll confirm.
- <walter> I don't think it has been a burden to date, but I think it is good to have someone in that role.
- <tomeu> agreed
- <walter> Another bit of admisnitrivia: SFC
- <bernieXO> have we been officially endorsed yet?
- <walter> Karen has been out much of the summer due to a medical issue so things have gone very very slowly.
- <walter> I am trying to get the final draft of the agreement for the board to sign.
- <walter> It is not in any significant way different from what we discussed in Milan, but...
- <walter> As soon as I get their sign off, we'll circulate it for your signatures.
- <tomeu> walter: do you anticipate any problem?
- <walter> (Originally, the acting board was going to sign it.)
- <walter> I don't there is a problem... just that Karen has been out.
- <walter> I spoke with them briefly yesterday and they seem to still be enthusiastic about out joining.
- <tomeu> ok, hope this goes forward
- <bernieXO> cool
- <walter> Yes. I have been in limbo re fundraising because of it, for one.
- <walter> (and I thought the pope got rid of limbo at Vatican II)
- <dfarning> I'm willing to be point of contact to SFC so walter can move on to other issues
- <tomeu> sounds good, like OLPC has been doing with laptop.org
- <erikos> sugarlabs.org ;p
- gregdek wanders afk.
- <bernieXO> how about the second server?
- <dfarning> I can tie the email address as a part of membership
- <marcopg_> dfarning: +1
- <bernieXO> or would we want to let people go and discuss it only with interested parties?
- <dfarning> will report next meeting
- <erikos> and a t-shirt ;p
- <tomeu> would be now a good time (before we get seriously into 0.84) to migrate more stuff to sugarlabs machines?
- <bernieXO> dfarning: ok thanks
- <bernieXO> tomeu: the lists, at least
- <erikos> well we need the machine up as far as i know to host git as well
- <bernieXO> erikos: the second machine was going to host user shell accounts, secondary services, backups, and such
- <bernieXO> for now, develer is still providing these things
- <erikos> bernieXO, yup - we should make it a solid solution before announcing it
- <erikos> bernieXO, but i am confident we will have the second machine soon ;p
- <dfarning> could someone update http://sugarlabs.org/go/InfrastructureTeam I have lost track
- <marcopg_> dfarning: I don't think it's out of sync
- <bernieXO> dfarning: can't do it quickly, my laptop just dropped dead
- <marcopg_> dfarning: we just don't have all the services setup yet
- <marcopg_> dfarning: and we are looking for a second box
- <walter> I just posed Christian's sketches: http://sugarlabs.org/go/DesignTeam/Logo-ideas#Christian.27s_take_on_this_theme
- <walter> BTW, AMD has offered us a box; just taking time to materialize
- <marcopg_> I don't like the colors :)
- <tomeu> yeah, don't like the colors neither
- <walter> The colors can change... just like XO colors
- <walter> I like the orange we saw in Milan
- <walter> He is going to give me an SVG so we can play with the colors.
- <marcopg_> +1 for the orange :)
- <gregdek> Logotype, eh?
- <gregdek> -1 to Christian!
- <walter> But what I like about it is that it is thematically related, but not another abstract icon
- <gregdek> I like the sucker.
- <bernieXO> haha
- <bernieXO> with the light bulb superimposed :)
- <tomeu> hmm, don't know if I didn't liked more the italian logos
- <tomeu> but the colors are important and can be changed, yeah
- <walter> I liked the logos Luca did for us, but I was never comfortable introducing yet another icon...
- <walter> there was still too much of a distance to associate it with Sugar Labs.
- <gregdek> I'm kidding. I really don't care.
- <walter> We need to be a bit more blatant with getting our name out there.
- <gregdek> The mark doesn't matter. It's the experience that the mark provides.
- <cjb`> Hi all, sorry I'm so late. Catching up now.
- <walter> If we were as famous as Prince (or the artist formerly know as Prince) we could use an icon.
- <cjl> It needs to look cool on schwag. There is an art to that.
- <walter> Or random Unicode codepoint...
- <gregdek> Maybe we could get some treatments of the logotype in common usage?
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- <cjb> walter: Very happy to hear about reaching out to educators/deployments -- my first thought on seeing the board was "wow, this is a lot of programmers" :)
- <walter> I really like: U0E5B ๛
- <bernieXO> a key?
- <gregdek> Is our agenda mostly done, btw?
- <walter> It is a Thai character for end of chapter... but Sugar Labs is a beginning, not an end...
- <walter> I'd like to raise one more topic
- <bernieXO> walter: so reverse it!
- <walter> I had a long conversation with a group in Toronto yesterday about accessibility
- <walter> They'd like Sugar Labs to participate in a proposal and it has far reach... into Linux/Gnome/and various deployments.
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- <walter> Not really much to discuss here, except to raise it as an issue to ask how we might recruit someone who could liaison between Sugar and the accessibility community
- <walter> They have some nice ideas and we have a great platform
- <walter> they are interested in our embedded efforts too, as they are interested in mobile accessibility
- <gregdek> Are they adding resources?
- <walter> In theory, yes.
- <cjb> walter: might that be David Bolter's group?
- <gregdek> Then I'm all for it. :)
- <walter> This is Jutta's group at UT. I think David Bolter is involved.
- <cjb> (He runs gok, which is GNOME's on-screen keyboard, and does a lot of behind the scenes accessibility stuff.)
- <cjb> Cool.
- <walter> I am meeting their Brasilian partners next week...
- <walter> I think this is something we should follow/participate in.
- <walter> Apparently, accessibility is going to be part of the Brasil olpc bid.
- <gregdek> I've got a Fedora ambassador who is doing grad studies on OLPC and leads Fedora ambassadors in South America. Very motivated. Should we throw him into that mix?
- <walter> Sure. I meet them next Thursday morning in Cambridge.
- <walter> Any one want to take the lead on this theme? Or should I develop it a bit further first?
- <gregdek> I'd kind of like to know more.
- <walter> No takers? OK.
- <walter> One final topic: next meeting date
- <walter> How about in two weeks?
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- <gregdek> Two weeks works for me.
- <walter> Same time, same channel?
- <dfarning> sounds good
- <walter> I'll post today's log/minutes in the wiki...
- <tomeu> yeah, good for me
- <cjb> works great. I'll be on time for that one, sorry again. Pesky developer's sleep schedule.
- <erikos> thanks!
- <walter> OK. Thanks for participating today...
- <marcopg_> thanks!
- <tomeu> one more small thing:
- <walter> sure
- <tomeu> how is the OB going to communicate between them outside the irc meetings?
- <walter> Bernie, can you make a list?
- <BernieXO> cjb: hay man!
- <BernieXO> walter: sure
- <BernieXO> walter: overseers@lists.sugarlabs.org?
- <walter> but I think the private comm. will be minimal. Sugar and iaep seem to be the right forums for most things.
- <cjl> walter on accessibility, there are some local folks possibly worth talking to http://ncam.wgbh.org/bp/index.html
- <walter> how about simply ob@
- <walter> clj: I'll check it out.
- BernieXO likes c.scott's policy of forwarding all email he receives in private to the lists (unless REALLY confidential)
- <BernieXO> walter: ok... or board@
- <cjl> walter, mchua is also someone to drag into that issue.
- <BernieXO> no, ob@ is better, we might have multiple boards
- <davidb> walter: please see if you can get someone to 'wear the sugar accessibility hat'
- <BernieXO> cjl: sure... she also vounteered to be a bug master some time ago...
- <BernieXO> cjl: we should enroll her if she's still willing and available, once we have the bug tracker set up
- <walter> davidb: I'll find someone to be the champion...
- <davidb> awesome
- <cjl> She didn't really get to do the accessibility stuff she had planned for ILXO (as far as I know), it's an impt issue to her.
- <dfarning> I'll look into accessibility this week, might need to pass it off next meeting
- <walter> So, meeting adjourned?