Oversight Board/2008/Log-2008-10-31: Difference between revisions

<walter> 'morning greg

<_bernie> morning

<walter> ciao Bernardo

<tomeu> hi all!

<jkridner|work> hi _bernie

<walter> hi. Marco won't be joining us, but I think David is going to be here.

<walter> Any word from Chris?

<_bernie> cjb: ping

<dfarning_> Good morning all

<walter> I think we have a quorum. Let's get started, as I have a hard 15UTC deadline today.

<walter> I posted a few items on the wiki...

<walter> I think everyone saw the email from Karen re SFC?

<walter> We still are not listed on their site, but we are officially official now.

<tomeu> yup, was nice to read

<dfarning_> Yes! that is good news

<gregdek> Sorry for the delay getting us there.  :/

<walter> I set up a stub for donation on the wiki... We have a few other odds and ends to take care of...

<walter> @gregdek: NP

<walter> Bernie, how do we set up new aliases on sugarlabs?

<walter> We need to set up an alias for our correspondence with the SFC.

<dfarning_> walter, you have admin rights for setting up email at start.sugarlabs.org

<erikos> walter: for people like me - it would be good to send a reminder to the list - i would have forgotten :)

<walter> @erikos: did you subscribe to the calendar...

<_bernie> walter: go to mail.sugarlabs.org, you should have an account

<erikos> walter: oh i don't use gmail :/

<walter> there is an ical version too

<walter> shall the sfc email go to slobs?

<_bernie> erikos: I think you don't need gmail... it's a caldav thing that works with any calendar app

<erikos> walter: ok i guess i will just add it to my old-school calendar then - don't worry

<dfarning_> That sounds reasonable

<tomeu> yeah, sending to slobs sounds good

<erikos> _bernie: i don't use any digital one :)

<erikos> tomeu: me not on slobs

<walter> david, have you heard back from karen re your list?

<dfarning_> walter no not yet.

<tomeu> erikos: no, we are talking about an address to where SFC will send email when need anything from sugarlabs

<erikos> tomeu: oh sorry :p

<_bernie> erikos: (me neither)

<walter> I think there is no harm in everyone on the oversight board getting that email.

<tomeu> as long as it's not totally public, I think we are good

<walter> David: maybe we should plan to call Karen next week?

<walter> Let me know what works for you.

<dfarning_> That sounds good.  Any time you set up should be good for me

<walter> Bernie, Seth and I were discussing membership.

<walter> I think the threshold for membership should be to ask a question...

<walter> even "how do I become a member?"

<walter> I don't think this would be an issue.

<_bernie> walter: I agree to a low barrier membership policy

<tomeu> me too

<dfarning_> At this point I was waiting for feedback from SFC about the ICA before raising the issue

<_bernie> some FOSS projects require the applicants to go on "trial" and show their past contribution as evidence

<walter> Yeah. But we should go into the conversation with the SFC with a position we are targeting.

<_bernie> to become a fedora sponsor, I had to say what packages and reviews I made

<dfarning_> Ok

<walter> There was an interesting PHD thesis I read about the other types of contributions, e.g., documentation, testing, support, that are vital parts of the community in FLOSS

<dfarning_> I restart working on guidelines this week

<walter> OK.

<dfarning_> Yes the non-traditional nature of Sugar Labs will be interesting

<walter> Anything else re SFC? I am waiting to hear back re Google Checkout and Paypal.

<dfarning_> just the pending trademark discussion

<walter> Yeah. Now that we have a logo.

<dfarning_> also we need to start looking into partner organization and local support organizations

<dfarning_> a discussion with SFC on these issues would be helpful

<walter> Yes. Colombia is not the only instance.

<walter> Peru is interested. Pakistan is interested.

<dfarning_> very nice

<tomeu> in establishing local partners of sugarlabs?

<walter> yes.

<_bernie> seth seems to be willing to fill the gap for the learning^2 foundation

<dfarning_> we are interested in formally partnering with organization like solutions grove and resara

<_bernie> he wants to develop content

<walter> I am working on this with USMP in Peru and with a team in Pakistan

<tomeu> walter: sounds good, those local organizations would also take care of local deployments?

<walter> @dfarning_: yes... a different sort of partnership.

<walter> @tomeu: exactly the point

<tomeu> walter: have you already prospected linux user groups, etc?

<walter> and developing new features driven by local needs.

<walter> I met with the Ubuntu group in Lima. There will be lots of Ubuntu folks in Boston in the coming weeks... we should plan to connect with them during SugarCamp

<walter> I don't know the Pakistan community very well yet.

<walter> But Rafael is driving the Colombia effort...

<dfarning_> Structurally,  the local support will be likely be organized as 'Sugar Labs - Region'

<erikos> walter: which SugarCamp - in Paris ?

<walter> erikos: SugarCamp in Boston__what was to have been XOCamp.

<dfarning_> this will allow them to leverage the Sugar Labs name and avoid the headaches of setting up their own foundations

<walter> Yes

<tomeu> erikos: scott proposed this: http://sugarlabs.org/go/Sugarcamp_proposal

<erikos> walter: ok so you guys will meet with tomeu and marco basically

<tomeu> erikos: well, sugarcamp is a set of technical talks

<walter> I think people like Michael and Scott and others will be there too.

<tomeu> yeah, dirakx++

<erikos> tomeu: ok i see now

<tomeu> I personally think we'll have enough non-technical stuff to do at boston, but well...

<walter> I will be in Europe from the 12th to the 19th, so I'll only partial overlap.

<walter> And I will probably be back in Europe again around the 1st of December.

<erikos> walter: right i remembered that - we should coordinate maybe i can join at some place

<walter> I have interest from Telecom Italia, BT, and a new Nokia lead all to follow up on as well.

<walter> @erikos: I'll be in Dusseldorf, Balzano, and Tampere.

<tomeu> walter: oh, so you are going to paris on the 15th?

<walter> I cannot get to Paris on the 15th. I will try to get there on the 1st

<tomeu> I see

<walter> Maybe Simon can go?

<tomeu> was interesting to hear about mandriva in the codecamp

<erikos> i will check a bit dates and see what makes sense

<walter> There has been great movement in all the distros... Fedora leading the way for Ubuntu, Gentoo, Debian, etc.

<_bernie> tomeu, erikos: someone should make proposals of simple tasks for the upcoming codecamp in Paris

<dfarning_> There is also a netbook conference in paris that mandriva has invited us to

<_bernie> tomeu, erikos: anything that a team of novices could complete in one day

<walter> Yes. That is on the 1st, I believe.

<_bernie> janitorial tasks are ok if not too boring

<erikos> _bernie: yup - on my list of tasks

<walter> Maybe we should segway to events?

<tomeu> yeah, the sugar fedora spin rocks

<_bernie> Bastien expects to have 5 developers willing and capable to contribute to sugar.

<tomeu> segway?

<tomeu> _bernie: a pity 0.83 is unstable, we added some new hooks to sugar that makes easier to write extensions

<dfarning_> tomeu, smart person talk for 'goto'

<tomeu> aha ;)

<walter> I though it was a two-wheel electronic scooter...

<walter> http://www.segway.com/

<tomeu> would be very good to establish some presence between paris and belgium, there's a lot of FOSS movement there

<tomeu> yeah, the prague center is full of tourists killing pidgeons on that

<_bernie> tomeu: one important point when we approach new FOSS groups is to have a TODO list of tasks we'd like to get done

<tomeu> what's about trac?

<erikos> _bernie: me the same :)

<_bernie> tomeu: and a simple procedure to get started

<walter> Anything we need to discuss re SugarCamp? Does everyone have a place to stay who is coming?

<tomeu> _bernie: agreed, we have done some, but didn't had much luck

<_bernie> tomeu: mentoring is very important I think

<tomeu> _bernie: but we should keep trying

<erikos> tomeu: jumped over ?

<_bernie> tomeu: yeah even if only 1 out of 10 becomes a regular contributor, it might be worth the effort.

<walter> Bernie and I pledged to deal with the outstanding infrastructure issues  by the end of next week.

<dfarning_> I do not yet have a place to stay

<tomeu> walter: marco and me are still undecided where to stay, would be good if a local said which of the available options makes more sense

<erikos> about trac - i heard from marco that there are efforts for the trac and git hosting - what is the status here?

<tomeu> _bernie: totally, 1 of 10 would be very good

<dfarning_> OSL has our vm up and running

<walter> @dfarning: You can stay at my place for the later have of the week...

<dfarning_> git should come online today or monday

<erikos> dfarning_: yeah!!!

<tomeu> nice ;)

<erikos> dfarning_: thanks so much for these efforts - this will be a huge step!

<_bernie> dfarning_: cool! I've been falling behind on my email yesterday but I've seen there was some activity

<walter> @tomeu: my house is a bit of a hike: about an hour by public transportation... 45 minutes by bicycle...

<walter> Did you guys see the GCompris email today from Bruno?

<dfarning_> trac a few day later - there are some version issues between cenos5.2 and recent trac packages

<walter> We need to host activities...

<tomeu> walter: yeah, what can SL do about it? do we have enough bw?

<_bernie> as for our second server, olpc might have hardware to offer, according to hhardy.

<walter> We have the same b'width as OLPC--we are on the MIT network.

<_bernie> dfarning_: do you think we can reach the SFC admins on irc or jabber?

<tomeu> walter: so would be easier to host the gcompris activities?

<_bernie> communication between me and them has been a bit sloppy

<_bernie> dfarning_: they keep replying only to you! ;-)

<dfarning_> walter: what would be involved in hosting activities

<walter> I don't see why we don't offer to host activities, once we have the server set up.

<dfarning_> _bernie: you are now on the osl RT

<walter> It is really just the git tree and a web page...

<_bernie> walter: no, what gcompris email?

<tomeu> ok, so if 3TB is not too much, let's do it

<tomeu> _bernie: bruno had to pull down the activities because too many kids were downloading them

<walter> Bruno turned off downloads from Gcompris because he couldn't handle the load. He had requested OLPC hosting and never heard back.

<_bernie> we need to host them

<tomeu> yup

<erikos> i think hosting activities would be very important

<walter> +1.

<_bernie> erikos: me too

<tomeu> so if we all agree, can someone create an user for bruno and make some place for him to upload the activities?

<dfarning_> Could we host them from downloads.sugarlabs.org I think that is on the sun machine ivan has access to

<_bernie> being an activity author is a natural first step to becoming a sugar contributor

<_bernie> dfarning_: yes

<tomeu> and activities are what users really care about

<_bernie> dfarning_: only problem is that we don't have much space

<walter> I suppose we can host the downloads without hosting the source (until we get git)

<_bernie> but it's ok for activities

<dfarning_> ok good, I promised OSL we would self host our resource hogs for now

<dfarning_> walter: git is coming very soon

<dfarning_> _bernie: do we need more hard drives for the sun machine?

<_bernie> dfarning_: not unless we want to host big downloads (such as isos)

<walter> I think we want to the distros to host the ISOs.

<_bernie> ivan proposed to buy a usb disk enclosure and hook it to solarsail. crude, but cheap.

<walter> @bernie: we have to go shopping next week...

<_bernie> gregdek: do you think we could get an account on people.redhat.com or similar to host large downloads?

<dfarning_> who would like to like handle the move to our own get server?

<_bernie> walter: lol

<dfarning_> s/get/git/

<_bernie> dfarning_: me... should be rather easy

<gregdek> people.rh.c is already complaining about hosting the Fedora Sugar ISO.  :/

<_bernie> dfarning_: but for now, let's just _add_ not move

<walter> yes.

<tomeu> dfarning_: think as _bernie

<tomeu> dfarning_: we have some new stuff to host there

<tomeu> moving will be very easy technically, as it's git

<dfarning_> tomeu: I will try to become one with bernie:)

<_bernie> and even when we move a project, git makes it easy to maintain two independent trees synchronized

<tomeu> dfarning_: sorry, I meant I thought the same as _bernie ;)

<_bernie> "easy" is a relative term of course

<_bernie> nothing is easy in git ;-)

<tomeu> _bernie: I think it's the only thing that git makes easy ;)

<walter> I need to take off soon...

<walter> Can I give a quick update re fundrasing?

<dfarning_> yes!

<_bernie> "git, designed to make forking easy -- and nothing else"

<walter> We still have no money :)

<erikos> if our own git is up - i write a new activity only to have something new to host :)

<tomeu> no money, no problems

<_bernie> I will move xaos

<tomeu> erikos: write an activity day ;)

<walter> But we have a modest travel budget from Pininfarina beginning next year.

<_bernie> we are poor but honest

<walter> And I have submitted three more grant proposal yesterday (to the Knight Foundation)

<tomeu> walter: nice, in what else are we partnering with pininfarina?

<erikos> walter: what company/org is this ?

<walter> and one more going in today.

<_bernie> walter: wow

<_bernie> walter: do we get ferraris?

<_bernie> walter: Make sure I get a Testarossa

<erikos> _bernie: yeah saw the page and was wondering as well ;p

<walter> Pininfarina designs jets too. And speed boats, so our travel woes are over!!

<dfarning_> I have also advocated the position that it is hard to make spending mistakes when one has no money

<walter> but they also design toothbrushes...

<walter> And maybe Sugar-enabled devices...

<_bernie> "meanwhile, the SLOBs are riding on their invisible jet to a their secret headquarters..."

<walter> We just use our "transporter". Beam me up, Bernie.

<_bernie> "oops, I had the wrong version of libcompress.so... you're screwed"

<tomeu> ok, we are going to be rich and famous soon, what else?

<walter> Anyway, I'll be talking to several more funding agencies in the coming weeks. And I am starting to push on industry--for in kind support, i.e., engineers. Some interest from BT just yesterday.

<tomeu> oh, nice

<walter> I didn't write up much of a trip report yet from Peru--but lots of great stuff happening there.

<walter> I'll try to get something written up this weekend: I have some data on how children are learning with Sugar

<walter> dramatic numbers!

<_bernie> nice

<dfarning_> walter: in kind support will be very helpful - dependable engineering support - without us allowing ourselves to close ranks

<erikos> walter: looking forward to that

<gregdek> In kind as important or more important than cash, in many cases.

<gregdek> imho.

<walter> Yeah. Bernie and I go to Resara on Monday...

<_bernie> When we have a moment, I'd like to introduce jkridner and aleph.  They have been lurking on the channel for a while.

<walter> @gregdek: the RH example being one :)

<tomeu> wonder if we could get some of the .uy teachers in translating, aggreggating lesson plans, etc

<walter> Where would we be without RH?

<tomeu> sure, for manning, in kind is best

<gregdek> :)

<_bernie> Jason Kridner is the FOSS lead at Texsas Instruments.  They hosted our talk at ESC Boston

<erikos> _bernie: did you make new friends in the embedded world ? ;p

<walter> The Peru team is doing great material too.

<walter> And there is a translation project at IBM I am tapping into.

<walter> Engish/Arabic only to start...

<_bernie> Stefano "aleph" Fedrigo has been helping out with the Sugar -> BB port, and before that he helped me with my X11 work at 1cc

<tomeu> walter: any progress in getting more teachers from peru in olpc-sur?

<walter> Well. I need to go. Can someone transcribe the notes after this point in the wiki?

<walter> @tomeu: yes. More Peru engagement for one...

<tomeu> hi jkridner|work, aleph_6510

<walter> Sugar_Labs/OversightBoard/Minutes/Log-2008-10-31

<erikos> welcome jkridner|work, aleph_6510