Re: Desktop Summit Planning
Dave: The GNOME and KDE boards are currently having some final discussions before we announce our plans moving forward. Please be a bit more patient, and we will announce our plans shortly. Also note that Ryan Lortie is working most closely on this, so he would be the most direct person to ping about this. Thanks for your helping and pushing us on this. Brian On 12/14/2011 04:42 AM, Brian Cameron wrote: The board would like for the Foundation membership to help discuss and decide whether it makes sense to move forward with having a Desktop Summit. Although the Desktop Summit survey results indicated a strong majority were supportive of the current format, we want to want to understand what plans would engage GNOME Foundation members and volunteers the most. If we choose to have a Desktop Summit, we need to consider how the event needs to evolve to be more effectively collaborative and whether we think it should keep to the current 2-year schedule. It's been a few months since this thread - and (as I've indicated off-list) it's making it hard to figure out whether we're going to put in a Lyon bid this year without knowing what the GNOME conference will look like in 2013. Do you have an ETA on when we might have a decision on this, Brian? Thanks, Dave. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Desktop Summit Planning
Hi Brian, On 12/14/2011 04:42 AM, Brian Cameron wrote: The board would like for the Foundation membership to help discuss and decide whether it makes sense to move forward with having a Desktop Summit. Although the Desktop Summit survey results indicated a strong majority were supportive of the current format, we want to want to understand what plans would engage GNOME Foundation members and volunteers the most. If we choose to have a Desktop Summit, we need to consider how the event needs to evolve to be more effectively collaborative and whether we think it should keep to the current 2-year schedule. It's been a few months since this thread - and (as I've indicated off-list) it's making it hard to figure out whether we're going to put in a Lyon bid this year without knowing what the GNOME conference will look like in 2013. Do you have an ETA on when we might have a decision on this, Brian? Thanks, Dave. -- Dave Neary GNOME Foundation member dne...@gnome.org Jabber: nea...@gmail.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Desktop Summit Planning
On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 08:49, Andrew Cowie wrote: > On Wed, 2011-12-14 at 20:25 +0100, Olav Vitters wrote: > > I likely going to GUADEC as I can meet *only* GNOME > > focused people. With not having a GUADEC each year, I only meet GNOME > > people every other year > > I must admit this sentiment resonated. I have nothing at all against KDE > people — I've met plenty of them over the years at other conferences — > but my enthusiasm is for GNOME and the idea of going to a "GNOME > conference" that is not mostly people concerned (at whatever level of > the stack) with making GTK and GNOME awesome does not hold much appeal. > > Being able to make the assumption that everyone in the hallways is, one > way or another, involved with GNOME has led to meeting all sorts of > people that I had something in common with. Which is why I've enjoyed > GUADECs and why some other F/OSS conferences have fallen short in this > respect [nothing against those events, just that it's much harder to > meet people who turn out to be relevant]. > +1 Would it be beneficial to have (yearly) GUADEC with a collaboration & freedesktop track? Where various external people would be invited to show their technology, their perspectives and their current challenges. For example KDE people, but also freedesktop, unity, android, whatever. Why not also proprietary solutions - and give them an opportunity to discover the potential benefits of Free Software and public collaborative projects. The focus shall be on discovery - for the audience, that is GNOME people. The discussions shall be targeted on possible collaborations and convergence : "this is what we have, this is how with solved that, this is our plans, this is our challenges. Are there any benefits in future collaboration?" It could of course already include GNOME matters that are reused elsewhere. Did last year (I was not here) ubuntu presented their own view on some matters and it was positively received (yes?). In practice, it might be at first limited, but if only one collaboration emerges, or even if we just get good inspiration, it's already a win. And it may grow in the future. I see that a yearly track, focused on collaboration & freedesktop, would stimulate collaboration and constructive competition. What do you think? Luc ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Boston Summit logistics (was Re: Desktop Summit Planning)
Hi Richard, Henry Holtzman at the Media Lab and Walter Bender has helped us in the past. They have work with the registrar's office at http://web.mit.edu/registrar/www/schedules/ though that link seems outdated. This one seems to be the correct one - http://web.mit.edu/registrar/classrooms/reserve/index.html -- John (J5) Palmieri ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Desktop Summit Planning
On 12/14/2011 09:34 AM, Richard Hughes wrote: > First things first, I'll be happy if we have a GUADEC or a desktop > summit, both events rocked hard. My preference would be for the > former, just on the personal belief that I end up doing so much extra > work for the KDE desktop and get virtually nothing back. It seems to > me that low level gnome hackers end up doing all the infrastructure > grunt work in the name of cross-desktop compatibility and then KDE > either does something different or abstracts it one layer higher. I > can't think of one system service we use in the GNOME stack that's > maintained by a KDE person. I can name a dozen GNOME maintainers doing > the opposite. Yeah. That's the sad reality. To add my perspective on the text rendering side, I finally got Jiang Jiang's attention to start porting Qt to HarfBuzz-ng, but in general there's really no attention from the Qt side on Linux. Not anymore. behdad ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Desktop Summit Planning
On Wed, 2011-12-14 at 20:25 +0100, Olav Vitters wrote: > I likely going to GUADEC as I can meet *only* GNOME > focused people. With not having a GUADEC each year, I only meet GNOME > people every other year I must admit this sentiment resonated. I have nothing at all against KDE people — I've met plenty of them over the years at other conferences — but my enthusiasm is for GNOME and the idea of going to a "GNOME conference" that is not mostly people concerned (at whatever level of the stack) with making GTK and GNOME awesome does not hold much appeal. Being able to make the assumption that everyone in the hallways is, one way or another, involved with GNOME has led to meeting all sorts of people that I had something in common with. Which is why I've enjoyed GUADECs and why some other F/OSS conferences have fallen short in this respect [nothing against those events, just that it's much harder to meet people who turn out to be relevant]. AfC Sydney ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Boston Summit logistics (was Re: Desktop Summit Planning)
Is there any chance you can reach the previous MIT contact to ask him who he spoke with about rooms in the Tang Center? That way I won't have to hunt for the right person. -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation 51 Franklin St Boston MA 02110 USA www.fsf.org www.gnu.org Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software. Use free telephony http://directory.fsf.org/category/tel/ ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Boston Summit logistics (was Re: Desktop Summit Planning)
Thanks. Now I know enough to raise the issue on Monday. If room booking only starts in March, maybe I can at least find out if it will be allowed. -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation 51 Franklin St Boston MA 02110 USA www.fsf.org www.gnu.org Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software. Use free telephony http://directory.fsf.org/category/tel/ ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Desktop Summit Planning
Sriram Ramkrishna a écrit: > For instance, having Plumbers conference with a desktop conference would be > quite interesting I think considering the direction we are moving towards. > A vertical platform, this might be more interesting. I couldn't agree more, Sri. Thank you for raising this. I'd personally find the idea more interesting and potentially fruitful in terms of synergies we could build and leverage on than a Desktop Summit with our KDE friends. Heck I'd think we'd even get more bang for the bucks if we could co-locate these two events with something like the GNU Tools Cauldron[1]. But that would be food for future thoughts at this point. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that hosting an event like GUADEC (co-located with, e.g, the Plumbers conference) in the U.S. might cause quite some frictions for some non-U.S. citizens willing to join the event because of the difficulty of dealing with the visa system. [1]: http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/cauldron2012 -- Dodji ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Boston Summit logistics (was Re: Desktop Summit Planning)
Can we have next one in Toronto please? :D I can run. On 12/16/2011 12:45 PM, john palmieri wrote: > 2011/12/16 Máirín Duffy : >> On Fri, 2011-12-16 at 10:39 -0500, Richard Stallman wrote: >>> Thanks so much for offering to look into this, Richard! I hear that the >>> Stata Center was a better location in the past than the Economics >>> Building >>> if we have the choice... >>> >>> When it was in the Stata Center, which rooms were they? If I get the >>> room numbers, I will know exactly what to ask for. >> >> From what I can tell from the wiki, we were in the Stata center most >> recently in 2005 and haven't been since. >> >> Stata Center rooms: >> - Kirsch Auditorium >> - Room 124 >> - Room 144 >> - Room 154 >> - Hallway between those rooms for a registration + food table >> >> (more details https://live.gnome.org/Boston2005/TheSchedule) >> >> Alternatively, in 2006 we were in the Media Lab: >> - Bartos Theatre >> - Rothschild Room >> - Wiesner Room >> - Room 235 >> - Room 135 >> - Room 483A >> - Room 443A >> - "Cool Hangout Room" >> >> (more details https://live.gnome.org/Boston2006) >> >> In 2008, 2009, & 2010 we were at the MIT Sloan Tang Center / E51 >> Building: >> - E51-315 >> - E51-325 >> - E51-335 >> - E51-345 >> - E51-372 >> - E51-376 >> - Hallway between those rooms for a registration + food table >> >> (more details https://live.gnome.org/Boston2010) >> >> I'm not sure which is the economics building (I guess E51?) >> >> Anyway I hope this list helps. >> >> ~m > > The problem with the Stata Center is it costs money, is harder to book > and the rooms do not hold as much and usually we need an extra room > outside the main hall. The Tang center is usually given to us gratis, > have huge rooms with AV equipment, no AV setup charges and is usually > easy to book during the columbus day weekend. It isn't as sexy as the > Stata Center but it fits our needs much better. Also I have to note > that I think booking for next year doesn't start until February or > March. > > -- > John (J5) Palmieri > ___ > foundation-list mailing list > foundation-list@gnome.org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list > ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Boston Summit logistics (was Re: Desktop Summit Planning)
2011/12/16 Máirín Duffy : > On Fri, 2011-12-16 at 10:39 -0500, Richard Stallman wrote: >> Thanks so much for offering to look into this, Richard! I hear that the >> Stata Center was a better location in the past than the Economics >> Building >> if we have the choice... >> >> When it was in the Stata Center, which rooms were they? If I get the >> room numbers, I will know exactly what to ask for. > > From what I can tell from the wiki, we were in the Stata center most > recently in 2005 and haven't been since. > > Stata Center rooms: > - Kirsch Auditorium > - Room 124 > - Room 144 > - Room 154 > - Hallway between those rooms for a registration + food table > > (more details https://live.gnome.org/Boston2005/TheSchedule) > > Alternatively, in 2006 we were in the Media Lab: > - Bartos Theatre > - Rothschild Room > - Wiesner Room > - Room 235 > - Room 135 > - Room 483A > - Room 443A > - "Cool Hangout Room" > > (more details https://live.gnome.org/Boston2006) > > In 2008, 2009, & 2010 we were at the MIT Sloan Tang Center / E51 > Building: > - E51-315 > - E51-325 > - E51-335 > - E51-345 > - E51-372 > - E51-376 > - Hallway between those rooms for a registration + food table > > (more details https://live.gnome.org/Boston2010) > > I'm not sure which is the economics building (I guess E51?) > > Anyway I hope this list helps. > > ~m The problem with the Stata Center is it costs money, is harder to book and the rooms do not hold as much and usually we need an extra room outside the main hall. The Tang center is usually given to us gratis, have huge rooms with AV equipment, no AV setup charges and is usually easy to book during the columbus day weekend. It isn't as sexy as the Stata Center but it fits our needs much better. Also I have to note that I think booking for next year doesn't start until February or March. -- John (J5) Palmieri ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Boston Summit logistics (was Re: Desktop Summit Planning)
On Fri, 2011-12-16 at 10:39 -0500, Richard Stallman wrote: > Thanks so much for offering to look into this, Richard! I hear that the > Stata Center was a better location in the past than the Economics Building > if we have the choice... > > When it was in the Stata Center, which rooms were they? If I get the > room numbers, I will know exactly what to ask for. >From what I can tell from the wiki, we were in the Stata center most recently in 2005 and haven't been since. Stata Center rooms: - Kirsch Auditorium - Room 124 - Room 144 - Room 154 - Hallway between those rooms for a registration + food table (more details https://live.gnome.org/Boston2005/TheSchedule) Alternatively, in 2006 we were in the Media Lab: - Bartos Theatre - Rothschild Room - Wiesner Room - Room 235 - Room 135 - Room 483A - Room 443A - "Cool Hangout Room" (more details https://live.gnome.org/Boston2006) In 2008, 2009, & 2010 we were at the MIT Sloan Tang Center / E51 Building: - E51-315 - E51-325 - E51-335 - E51-345 - E51-372 - E51-376 - Hallway between those rooms for a registration + food table (more details https://live.gnome.org/Boston2010) I'm not sure which is the economics building (I guess E51?) Anyway I hope this list helps. ~m ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Boston Summit logistics (was Re: Desktop Summit Planning)
Richard, Le vendredi 16 décembre 2011, à 10:39 -0500, Richard Stallman a écrit : > Thanks so much for offering to look into this, Richard! I hear that the > Stata Center was a better location in the past than the Economics Building > if we have the choice... > > When it was in the Stata Center, which rooms were they? If I get the > room numbers, I will know exactly what to ask for. I never went to a Boston Summit in the Stata Center, but in 2004 and 2005, we had rooms 124 and 144 (according to schedules on the wiki: http://live.gnome.org/Boston2004/TheSchedule and http://live.gnome.org/Boston2005/TheSchedule) In the last few years, I think we had E51-315, E51-325, E51-335, E51-345 (in the Tang Center). Cheers, Vincent -- Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Boston Summit logistics (was Re: Desktop Summit Planning)
Thanks so much for offering to look into this, Richard! I hear that the Stata Center was a better location in the past than the Economics Building if we have the choice... When it was in the Stata Center, which rooms were they? If I get the room numbers, I will know exactly what to ask for. -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation 51 Franklin St Boston MA 02110 USA www.fsf.org www.gnu.org Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software. Use free telephony http://directory.fsf.org/category/tel/ ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Desktop Summit Planning
We used to get free rooms (~4) at MIT on Columbus day long weekend. I will inquire. What sort of rooms? Large lecture halls? Ordinary classrooms? Does anyone recall the room numbers from a previous time? -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation 51 Franklin St Boston MA 02110 USA www.fsf.org www.gnu.org Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software. Use free telephony http://directory.fsf.org/category/tel/ ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Desktop Summit Planning
On 14 December 2011 13:32, Lennart Poettering wrote: > Well, but let's not forget that the folks you explicitly list here are > probably more on the side against the colocation than for it. At least > of the one you named first I know that he is against the combined > conf. And I think Richard is too, I think (Richard?) First things first, I'll be happy if we have a GUADEC or a desktop summit, both events rocked hard. My preference would be for the former, just on the personal belief that I end up doing so much extra work for the KDE desktop and get virtually nothing back. It seems to me that low level gnome hackers end up doing all the infrastructure grunt work in the name of cross-desktop compatibility and then KDE either does something different or abstracts it one layer higher. I can't think of one system service we use in the GNOME stack that's maintained by a KDE person. I can name a dozen GNOME maintainers doing the opposite. But like I say, I don't have a particularly strong view about it. Richard. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Boston Summit logistics (was Re: Desktop Summit Planning)
On Thu, December 15, 2011 5:28 pm, Germán Póo-Caamaño wrote: > On Thu, 2011-12-15 at 16:41 -0500, Richard Stallman wrote: >> What did the previous MIT contact do? Maybe I can get it done. > > We used to get free rooms (~4) at MIT on Columbus day long weekend. > > It would be great if you can get done it. > Thanks so much for offering to look into this, Richard! I hear that the Stata Center was a better location in the past than the Economics Building if we have the choice... karen ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Desktop Summit Planning
2011/12/14 Sriram Ramkrishna : > > > On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 3:08 PM, Brian Cameron > wrote: >> >> >> Over the years, GNOME community events have grown in frequency, size >> and the expectations of hosting professional quality events. It is a >> challenge for a volunteer community to keep up with consistently year >> after year. Currently, events tend to be planned in isolation and >> there is too much reinventing of wheels. GUADEC planning, for example, >> tends to mostly be done by the team who won the bid, and their ability >> to put together a good event does vary quite a bit from year to year. >> Fortunately, the 2012 GUADEC Planning team does seem to be in good >> shape, so this is one upcoming event that I am not so concerned about. >> > > So, speaking as someone who was part of an organizing committee for > Plumbers. Linux foundation knows how to do conferences, and do them > professionally. How about co-location with a Linux Foundation conference? > For instance, having Plumbers conference with a desktop conference would be > quite interesting I think considering the direction we are moving towards. > A vertical platform, this might be more interesting. > > Something else to consider when thinking about Boston Summit. > > >> >> >> That said, I do think that the last Desktop Summit event suffered from >> a general lack of participation on the GNOME side of things. When we >> were unable to find a sponsor for GNOME social events, alternatives >> were not organized, for example. GNOME was unable to find resources to >> help with infrastructure issues, such as identify management or helping >> to setup a registration system (a longstanding problem we seem to have >> year after year). More seriously, a event like the Desktop Summit >> should inspire collaborative work and there did not seem to be enough >> effort in terms of planning concrete collaborative activities. If we >> are to hold Desktop Summits in the future, I think we need to focus >> more energy in these areas to make them successful. >> > > There are several things that we can learn from Linux Foundation on how to > run conferences. > > My overall feeling is that we're moving towards a platform based end state > that doesn't really mix that well with other desktop projects. I think > there are definitely some cross work at the lower layers that we can work on > but it seems that there should be a "freedesktop.org" conference or some > such, not a GNOME/KDE. Shouldn't those folks step up and do something like > that? > > My two cents. > > sri > Freedesktop.org doesn't have the same organizational structures that gnome and kde have. It isn't so much a community as a set of servers, admins and developers. It is more of a meeting place on the interwebs than an organization - an official DMZ for the various desktop communities. They don't have the structure to actually run a conference but it might be worth exploring having a conference under the fd.o banner where the conference is run much like we run the Desktop Summit but doesn't cannibalize our respective flagship conferences. The issue though is getting sponsorship to get the right people there and make it successful. I don't know if there will be support from companies for yet another conference. One of the advantages cited by companies for the Desktop Summit is that they don't have to send their employees to two different conferences though I think that is short sighted as less tends to get done at these larger events. -- J5 ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Desktop Summit Planning
On Thu, 2011-12-15 at 16:41 -0500, Richard Stallman wrote: > What did the previous MIT contact do? Maybe I can get it done. We used to get free rooms (~4) at MIT on Columbus day long weekend. It would be great if you can get done it. -- Germán Póo-Caamaño http://people.gnome.org/~gpoo/ signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Desktop Summit Planning
What did the previous MIT contact do? Maybe I can get it done. How about co-location with a Linux Foundation conference? One major drawback of this is that it would inevitably lead GNOME to support the practice of covering up the existence of the GNU system. -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation 51 Franklin St Boston MA 02110 USA www.fsf.org www.gnu.org Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software. Use free telephony http://directory.fsf.org/category/tel/ ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Desktop Summit Planning
On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 3:08 PM, Brian Cameron wrote: > > Over the years, GNOME community events have grown in frequency, size > and the expectations of hosting professional quality events. It is a > challenge for a volunteer community to keep up with consistently year > after year. Currently, events tend to be planned in isolation and > there is too much reinventing of wheels. GUADEC planning, for example, > tends to mostly be done by the team who won the bid, and their ability > to put together a good event does vary quite a bit from year to year. > Fortunately, the 2012 GUADEC Planning team does seem to be in good > shape, so this is one upcoming event that I am not so concerned about. > > So, speaking as someone who was part of an organizing committee for Plumbers. Linux foundation knows how to do conferences, and do them professionally. How about co-location with a Linux Foundation conference? For instance, having Plumbers conference with a desktop conference would be quite interesting I think considering the direction we are moving towards. A vertical platform, this might be more interesting. Something else to consider when thinking about Boston Summit. > > That said, I do think that the last Desktop Summit event suffered from > a general lack of participation on the GNOME side of things. When we > were unable to find a sponsor for GNOME social events, alternatives > were not organized, for example. GNOME was unable to find resources to > help with infrastructure issues, such as identify management or helping > to setup a registration system (a longstanding problem we seem to have > year after year). More seriously, a event like the Desktop Summit > should inspire collaborative work and there did not seem to be enough > effort in terms of planning concrete collaborative activities. If we > are to hold Desktop Summits in the future, I think we need to focus > more energy in these areas to make them successful. > > There are several things that we can learn from Linux Foundation on how to run conferences. My overall feeling is that we're moving towards a platform based end state that doesn't really mix that well with other desktop projects. I think there are definitely some cross work at the lower layers that we can work on but it seems that there should be a "freedesktop.org" conference or some such, not a GNOME/KDE. Shouldn't those folks step up and do something like that? My two cents. sri ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Desktop Summit Planning
On Wed, 2011-12-14 at 17:08 -0600, Brian Cameron wrote: > [...] > Yes, as you might remember, we have had difficulties organizing the > Boston Summit this past year, ending up relocating the event to > Montreal rather last minute. Also, most of the volunteers who have > made GNOME.Asia successful the past few years have indicated that they > are stepping down, so the future of GNOME.Asia is unclear and plans > are behind normal schedule. We need volunteer help in these areas > badly. If we want to have the Boston Summit at MIT again, I believe we > need to secure rooms in the next month or two. Any volunteers? We > need help in these areas. > [...] Regarding to Boston Summit, there was also another problem: we lost our contact at MIT. Colin Walters tried to get rooms there with no luck, but it was not for lack of interest. Perhaps we (the board) failed to find a replacement for J5 _earlier_. However, back then (January?) we did not have ED and 5/7 board members were new. Even though we tried to split ED's work among all of us, it was not easy and we could not do all the work we wanted to do. > That said, I do think that the last Desktop Summit event suffered from > a general lack of participation on the GNOME side of things. When we > were unable to find a sponsor for GNOME social events, alternatives > were not organized, for example. GNOME was unable to find resources to > help with infrastructure issues, such as identify management or helping > to setup a registration system (a longstanding problem we seem to have > year after year). More seriously, a event like the Desktop Summit > should inspire collaborative work and there did not seem to be enough > effort in terms of planning concrete collaborative activities. If we > are to hold Desktop Summits in the future, I think we need to focus > more energy in these areas to make them successful. FWIW, the problem with social events was not the lack of interest in sponsor them. It was too expensive for some companies. If you look at the brochure[1] (page 6), in order to sponsor a social event it was required to be a Gold sponsor (€20,000, plus the cost of the event). This requirement immediately narrows the potential sponsors for social events. Previous events did not have this requirement. However, social events get very high exposure and it was a bit(?) unfair that some companies gets less exposure when paying for a higher sponsor level. Also, the organization wanted to limit the number of social events. Certainly there were issues, like the registration process for Desktop Summit. KDE had a single-sign on system working and we did not have one. If we wanted to use a different thing, we had to jump in and bring something better or equal. So, for some tasks we had people working, but for other we did not have (even thought those that were controversial). > I am not trying to make volunteers who did a great job feel badly that > they did not do enough. Instead, I am trying to highlight that the > amount of work is great and growing. We need to consider how to > better address this going forward. How we can ramp up the energy? If > the workload is too great, should we scale back our event planning > efforts, or find help in other ways (e.g. perhaps by hiring more event > planning help)? Maybe the energy (or the availability) is located in different places that we were used to, and perhaps we should consider it when organizing the events. For instance, there was interest in organizing an event (like Boston Summit) in Portland. Portland could be a good chance to convert those half-converted (and yet popular) hackers that besides their rants still use GNOME 3, and live in the area :-) Joke asides, I do not like the idea of hiring an event manager. It can create friction and the issues at this time are specific to some events. For instance, hackfests are almost self-organized and have worked better than any expectation when we started to encourage them. [1] https://www.desktopsummit.org/sponsors -- Germán Póo-Caamaño http://people.gnome.org/~gpoo/ signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Desktop Summit Planning
El dt 13 de 12 de 2011 a les 21:42 -0600, en/na Brian Cameron va escriure: > GNOME Foundation Members: () > 3. The GNOME community has been having trouble finding volunteers to > help make events successful lately. Some people like Dave Neary, > Lennart Poettering, and Ekaterina Gerasimova did a great job > volunteering to make the last Desktop Summit a success. However, > the fact that there were too few volunteers engaged caused some real > issues. Many of the things GNOME folks have complained about the > last Desktop Summit were caused more by a lack of GNOME volunteers > helping than anything else. For a Desktop Summit to be successful, > we need to more clearly see that the GNOME community is more > interested to engage and wanting to get involved. Lennart and Patricia already told much about the lack (or lack of) volunteers. Some of my favourite memories of being a happy GNOME volunteer on GUADECs are: * One solution that was used on Vilanova's GUADEC was to make all attendees who got sponsorship to help, at least for one or two hours. "We (the GNOME Foundation) has paid you (the happy sponsorshpied GNOME contributor) a small/big amount of money, apart from coding and regular contributions to GNOME, contribute on making the GUADEC rock." <- for me this is perfectly understandable, anyone could have problems with that? I also thing that making as much attendees being volunteers also helps make the GUADEC more ease and enjoyable, you feel more part of it as you help make it successful. * Starting the conference with the core days is trying to make volunteers and organizers go away. *Never*, really, *never* start with core days! Just with one or two days of side tracks or hackfest or parties is enough to recruit the volunteers, show them the venue, the registration process and what not. * What I'm also missing a lot from Vilanova's conference was the evening (10-15 minutes) meetings for all volunteers to express their goods and bads from the conference day that just happened and to highlight (from the organizers) the possible hiccups of the next day, so that you can be aware that +300 attendees are going to come to get registered in half an hour in the morning. Thanks for bringing the topic in December so that we still have time to fix it! Cheers, > Thanks, > > Brian -- Gil Forcada [ca] guifi.net - una xarxa lliure que no para de créixer [en] guifi.net - a non-stopping free network bloc: http://gil.badall.net planet: http://planet.guifi.net ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Desktop Summit Planning
Foundation: A point of clarification: On Wed 14 Dec 2011 04:42, Brian Cameron writes: 3. The GNOME community has been having trouble finding volunteers to help make events successful lately. You mention that we had a problem with this in the last Desktop Summit. Has this been a problem in other events as well? Yes, as you might remember, we have had difficulties organizing the Boston Summit this past year, ending up relocating the event to Montreal rather last minute. Also, most of the volunteers who have made GNOME.Asia successful the past few years have indicated that they are stepping down, so the future of GNOME.Asia is unclear and plans are behind normal schedule. We need volunteer help in these areas badly. If we want to have the Boston Summit at MIT again, I believe we need to secure rooms in the next month or two. Any volunteers? We need help in these areas. Over the years, GNOME community events have grown in frequency, size and the expectations of hosting professional quality events. It is a challenge for a volunteer community to keep up with consistently year after year. Currently, events tend to be planned in isolation and there is too much reinventing of wheels. GUADEC planning, for example, tends to mostly be done by the team who won the bid, and their ability to put together a good event does vary quite a bit from year to year. Fortunately, the 2012 GUADEC Planning team does seem to be in good shape, so this is one upcoming event that I am not so concerned about. I am happy to hear several people report positively about the GNOME volunteer presence at the Desktop Summit, and I apologize for not mentioning the name of every volunteer who did a great job helping to make the event successful, such as Patricia Santana Cruz, Chris Kühl, Jon Nordby, Stormy Peters, Andreas Nilsson, and and William from Texas. I am sure there are many more who have not yet been mentioned. That said, I do think that the last Desktop Summit event suffered from a general lack of participation on the GNOME side of things. When we were unable to find a sponsor for GNOME social events, alternatives were not organized, for example. GNOME was unable to find resources to help with infrastructure issues, such as identify management or helping to setup a registration system (a longstanding problem we seem to have year after year). More seriously, a event like the Desktop Summit should inspire collaborative work and there did not seem to be enough effort in terms of planning concrete collaborative activities. If we are to hold Desktop Summits in the future, I think we need to focus more energy in these areas to make them successful. I am not trying to make volunteers who did a great job feel badly that they did not do enough. Instead, I am trying to highlight that the amount of work is great and growing. We need to consider how to better address this going forward. How we can ramp up the energy? If the workload is too great, should we scale back our event planning efforts, or find help in other ways (e.g. perhaps by hiring more event planning help)? Brian ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Desktop Summit Planning
On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 09:42:28PM -0600, Brian Cameron wrote: > The biggest complaints about the Desktop Summit seem to be: I don't want to miss out on GUADEC. And a Desktop Summit is not a GUADEC. > In discussion, the following options have been suggested as ways to > improve the event. > > 1. To not have a large combined GNOME+KDE event, and to instead have >a smaller Desktop Summit or focused hackfest(s) with a more clear >agenda to work on specific and measurable collaborative tasks. >GUADEC and Akademy would continue as separate events. I favour this strongly. > 2. To arrange the Desktop Summit so that it is more of a co-located >event. The GNOME and KDE events are separate but overlap on >certain days. For example, GUADEC could happen first and continue >for several days, then a few combined days of Desktop Summit >followed by several days of Akademy. This setup would likely be >more complicated for bidding, since it would likely require a >more dynamic space to accommodate the shifting needs. > > 3. The GNOME community has been having trouble finding volunteers to >help make events successful lately. Some people like Dave Neary, Before, or during the event? Before: yes (board asked gnome-nl for The Hague). During: IMO, goes well. Lots of people help when asked. > majority were supportive of the current format, we want to want to I don' see the point in giving up GUADEC just to meet KDE people. If that is needed, do it separate. Hackfests, another event, FOSDEM, etc. Political bla bla: I don't care at all if someone is from KDE, GNOME, something else. I likely going to GUADEC as I can meet *only* GNOME focussed people. With not having a GUADEC each year, I only meet GNOME people every other year (having 1/3 = GNOME is a totally different atmosphere.. plus just not a GUADEC). I did have discussions about KDE release procedure, KDE sysadmin stuff, etc. Those conversations happened by chance. Also had loads of conversations where e.g. someone says they're working on Plasma, and my only reply is "uhuh" (I know it exists, I am not interested to know more). If I meet someone, it is cutesy to say "nice to meet you". To me, I am lying (no clue if it is nice to meet the person, I don't know yet!). -- Regards, Olav ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Desktop Summit Planning
On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 08:02:32PM +0100, Olav Vitters wrote: > On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 11:20:18AM +0100, Andy Wingo wrote: > > You mention that we had a problem with this in the last Desktop Summit. > > Has this been a problem in other events as well? > > The board specifically requested GNOME-NL to hold GUADEC. PS: Talking about the one in The Hague, so past, not future. -- Regards, Olav ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Desktop Summit Planning
On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 11:20:18AM +0100, Andy Wingo wrote: > You mention that we had a problem with this in the last Desktop Summit. > Has this been a problem in other events as well? The board specifically requested GNOME-NL to hold GUADEC. -- Regards, Olav ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Desktop Summit Planning
On 12/14/2011 04:42 AM, Brian Cameron wrote: > > > 1. To not have a large combined GNOME+KDE event, and to instead have >a smaller Desktop Summit or focused hackfest(s) with a more clear >agenda to work on specific and measurable collaborative tasks. >GUADEC and Akademy would continue as separate events. FWIW, in Spain we already organized this "smaller Desktop Summit", called Guademy. It was organized on 2007 [7] and 2008 [8] (and in theory they were successful). As on 2009 Desktop Summit was a combined event, it was not organized again. So this option is more or less bring it back Guademy, although with a more wider (non-local-Spanish) approach. > 2. To arrange the Desktop Summit so that it is more of a co-located >event. The GNOME and KDE events are separate but overlap on >certain days. For example, GUADEC could happen first and continue >for several days, then a few combined days of Desktop Summit >followed by several days of Akademy. This setup would likely be >more complicated for bidding, since it would likely require a >more dynamic space to accommodate the shifting needs. This solution probably would mean that the combined event will be longer. In my personal opinion, GUADEC is already a really long event. And not all people can be on all the days of that such long event. This means that some days, mostly the last ones, GUADEC became a empty event. It is sad to see how many people attend to some talks during those days. BR > > [1] https://www.desktopsummit.org/ > [2] https://live.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/Minutes/IRC20111026 > [3] https://live.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/Minutes/IRC2023 > [4] https://live.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/Minutes/20110809 > https://live.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/Minutes/20110823 > https://live.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/Minutes/20111018 > [5] https://live.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/Minutes/2001 > [6] https://live.gnome.org/CodeOfConduct/ [7] http://2007.guademy.org/ [8] http://www.guademy.org/ -- Alejandro Piñeiro Iglesias ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Desktop Summit Planning
Hi Dave, On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 12:12 PM, Dave Neary wrote: > Hi Brian, > > > On 12/14/2011 04:42 AM, Brian Cameron wrote: >> >> At the October 26th IRC meeting, Jon McCann spoke about his concerns >> about the Desktop Summit.[2] At the November 23rd meeting, Dave Neary >> (who was also very involved in making the past Desktop Summit happen), >> highlighted that there are real benefits to sharing facilities and that >> concerns can be fixed.[3] Dave pointed out that it would be best if a >> decision could be made sooner than later, since it is hard to start >> putting together bids for 2014 if the scope of the event is not clear. > > > It's useful to go back to what GUADEC is for, I think - and work from there > to see whether a Desktop Summit supports or works against that. If we don't > agree on why we have a GUADEC, we're not going to agree on the rest. > > Back in 2005, the last time we had this discussion (at the time, it was over > maintaining User Day, or rather integrating end-user related content and > inviting people from outside the GNOME community to participate in GUADEC) > the goals we came up with, which are still documented in > https://live.gnome.org/GuadecPlanningHowTo were: > > Primary Goals: > > 1. To have fun meeting friends > 2. To allow developers and contributors to have high-bandwidth discussions. > 3. To highlight new ideas and cutting edge developments. > 4. To get new contributors and involve current contributors in a higher > level. > 5. To set the direction of the project for the coming year > > Secondary Goals: > > 1. To create media awareness out of the usual circles > 2. To involve corporate partners and facilitate an approach to the community > 3. To spread free software to the surrounding region ... Those goals miss out some of the most important things about GUADEC, imo. One of the most important functions of GUADEC is to promote GNOME as a community. It is a chance for GNOME contributors to get to know each other and to meet other contributors who they might not have encountered before. It is the only time in the year when we all get together in the same place, sit in the same room, and go for beers together. GUADEC should be the moment when people most feel like they belong to our project. When you attend, you should feel like you are a part of the project and that you are sharing an experience with other project members. A desktop summit is not as effective at promoting GNOME as a community. It means that attendees do not share a common focus and are not able to identify with the project through their experiences at the event. You don't feel that you are a part of GNOME when you are at a Desktop Summit. GUADEC is also a major opportunity for us to promote GNOME within our wider community, as well as to wider audiences. We really suck at this right now, but GUADEC should be one of the biggest marketing events in the GNOME calendar. We should be making the most of it, doing build up work, publicising the event live as it happens, streaming talks, involving the press more. The conference is an opportunity to show off our achievements and spread the word about our mission and vision. A Desktop Summit does not help us to promote GNOME from a marketing point of view. All the messaging you put out for a Desktop Summit operates under the idea that the event is about collaboration in the desktop space. That makes it difficult to use the event to do promotional work that is specific to GNOME. Stories about the exciting, ground-breaking things that the GNOME project has been doing don't really work as a part of a Desktop Summit. Furthermore, though 'desktop collaboration' is a positive message, it isn't exciting and it doesn't draw you in. It's a 'GNOME is nice' message, rather than a 'GNOME is energetic, awesome, inspiring, interesting' message. I don't think we should settle for 'GNOME is nice' as the primary message for our main annual conference. Allan -- IRC: aday on irc.gnome.org Blog: http://afaikblog.wordpress.com/ ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Desktop Summit Planning
Aloha, 2011/12/14 Lennart Poettering > On Tue, 13.12.11 21:42, Brian Cameron (brian.came...@oracle.com) wrote: > > Heya, > > > 1. It subtracts momentum from the GNOME brand and community. With > >GNOME 3 to focus on, the community needs to more focus on making > >GNOME 3 a success, less on collaboration. > > I ran the paper committee in Berlin. While I was very happy with how > this worked out and there was very little friction between the KDE and > GNOME sides of the committee (the only real friction was between some > folks outside of the committee and the committee, where the committee > stood together very well), I must actually say that I am clearly against > the combined conference, because I think it is not for the benefit of > GNOME, simply on the grounds that the contents of the conference > suffered by having to be "fair" towards the KDE side. > > Firstly, we received substantially more GNOME talks than KDE > talks. Secondly, the GNOME talks got consistently better votings by both > sides than the KDE talks. Nonetheless we had to be somewhat fair and > accept a similar amount of KDE talks as GNOME talks. The result is that > we had to refuse a number of good GNOME talks in favour of accepting a > lot of less-than-ideal KDE talks. And honestly, that's something that > made me very unhappy. Ultimately we did accept slightly more GNOME talks > than KDE talks (thankfully nobody noticed, so that this didn't become a > big political issue), but still I found it very sad that we had to > accept some low-quality KDE talks at the expense of higher-quality > GNOME talks. > > This is actually made worse by the fact that the focus of the desktop > summit was even wider than GNOME and KDE, and we even included > Enlightenment talks (and the CFP asked for even more), which in my eyes > are even less in the interest of GNOME. > > I believe the focus of a conference should be on the talks, the actual > contents of a conference, not on whether it makes the organization > simpler or easier. If we are willing to compromise this much on the > contents, then this hurts GNOME and makes the conference a lot less > interesting to attendees, because attendees come for the talks, not for > the flawless organization. > > I think GNOME should really think about what is good for itself, not how > to keep the peace. Effectively, KDE has a lot more to gain from a > combined conference than GNOME has, the benefits of a joined conferenced > are very unbalanced. I strongly believe GNOME should focus on what is > good for GNOME, and much less on what is good for whatever else exists > in the Free Software world. Our interest should be GNOME, and making > GNOME great, and not at all making KDE great too, and Enlightenment, and > whatever else exists. > > I'd even go further than this: I believe one of the goals of GNOME > should be to emphasize vertical integration (i.e. considering > integration of our stack, the GNOME OS a core objective), but > encouraging multiple variables on top of this stack makes that much more > complex. I think it is against our interest encouraging KDE and other > desktop environments. > > And again, I am saying this purely in regards to the contents of the > conference, personally I believe the KDE folks in the paper committee > and outside of it did a great job, and especially Mirko did an > exceptionally good job in running the entire conference. > > > 2. It is hard to measure what specific collaborative benefits are being > >made possible by the Desktop Summit. It is hard to point to specific > >advances that have been accomplished. Some have concerns that not a > >lot of collaboration is actually being done. > > Judging by the papers we got I must say that this is indeed a major > concern. The talks I think were actrually really relevant to both sides, > one could count on the fingers of one hand. They did definitely exist, > and even though we officially gave about a third of the schedule to them > I honestly believe only a tiny fraction of those which were officially > cross-desktop really mattered to both sides. I am tempted to say that > given that this is the way it is a one day cross-desktop miniconf thingy > would have more than sufficed to handle these. The question of course is > whether this one day needs to take place at the desktop summit, or > whether a forum like FOSDEM (where the cross-project idea is much more > emphasized) might not be the better place to organize this. > > > 1. To not have a large combined GNOME+KDE event, and to instead have > >a smaller Desktop Summit or focused hackfest(s) with a more clear > >agenda to work on specific and measurable collaborative tasks. > >GUADEC and Akademy would continue as separate events. > > I think this would be best. I'd suggest to organize this collaboration > event collocated to FOSDEM. > > > 3. The GNOME community has been having trouble finding volunteers to > >help make events successful la
Re: Desktop Summit Planning
On Wed, 14.12.11 13:12, Dave Neary (dne...@gnome.org) wrote: > In my mind, GNOME's gotten to the point where those high-bandwidth, > planning the future discussions (points 2 and 5) have gone beyond > what we traditionally thought of as the GNOME project. > > Just look at where key GNOME contributors are working now: Lennart > Poettering is working on audio and system start-up with a clear > focus on improving the desktop, the browser and web platform have > become key components of the free desktop, Richard Hughes is working > on making system-wide colour management a reality, there are kernel > hackers and Xorg developers working at that level of the stack to > improve the desktop end-user's experience. GNOME has long been good > at fixing problems at the right point in the stack, rather than > patching around infrastructure issues. Well, but let's not forget that the folks you explicitly list here are probably more on the side against the colocation than for it. At least of the one you named first I know that he is against the combined conf. And I think Richard is too, I think (Richard?), and so are the (two?) kernel folks I know who attended the conf. And my guess is the Xorg folks who attended are against the colocation as well. > In addition, applications like LibreOffice, Eclipse, Mozilla, and > people buiilding on the GNOME platform (Unity and XFCE come to mind) > all build on and use our platform, and I think it would be very > beneficial to get people from these projects together to see what we > can do to make that platform better for them. Two things: first of all I don't believe encouraging Unity is in the interest of GNOME, and secondly: this year's desktop summit did invite folks from these communities as well, with no real success. I am tempted to say that the interest from the non-GNOME, non-KDE communities was close to non-existant. Forlorn hope... > KDE is also looking down the stack at things like metadata, audio, > voip, file sharing... - and so I definitely think it makes sense to > have some relevant KDE people working with the relevant GNOME people > on avoiding duplication of effort where it's possible. This definitely makes sense, the question though is whether a desktop summit is the appropriate forum for that. > Definitely, the main benefit of the conference has been the > economies of scale for sponsors - both in organising attendance and > in sponsorship. I think that potentially broadening the conference > further will bring greater benefits - making the Desktop Summit > *the* place to be to talk about the free software desktop would be a > success in my mind. Losing focus even further would be fatal for the entire conference I believe. > In this last conference, there was a decision early on by the > program committee, supported by the boards, to limit the scope of > the conference to KDE & GNOME. Again, even though the schedule > didn't have KDE & GNOME labels on talks, this created a clear "us & > them" - it was obvious which talks were KDE ones, and which were > GNOME. Ahem, the CFP asked for: "Submissions that do not fit into these categories are welcome too, provided that they are relevant for the GNOME or KDE stacks, free desktops or mobile user interfaces in general. We'd like to invite submissions not only from the organizing communities themselves but also from users of free desktops, from projects and organizations related to GNOME and KDE as well as contributors involved in technologies they are based on. Submissions with cross-desktop relevance are preferred. We are looking both for presentations and lightning talks." So we asked for non-KDE, non-GNOME submissions, and we accepted at least one Enlightenment presentation. > Going back to what I said earlier about the need for a place to > gather: I wonder if Plumber's hasn't taken on that role from a > "kernel-up" position, and whether the Desktop Summit should aim to > do so from a "Desktop-down" perspective? I have nothing against > smaller events, but the big advantage of a single annual conference > is that there are a *lot* of conferences, meetings, hackfests and > whatnot happening these days - do you really want to add one more to > people's agenda (which potentially could lead them to avoid GUADEC > altogether, and kill the conference in 1 or 2 years)? Colocating such a conf with FOSDEM or suchlike should fix this problem neatly... Lennart -- Lennart Poettering - Red Hat, Inc. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Desktop Summit Planning
On Tue, 13.12.11 21:42, Brian Cameron (brian.came...@oracle.com) wrote: Heya, > 1. It subtracts momentum from the GNOME brand and community. With >GNOME 3 to focus on, the community needs to more focus on making >GNOME 3 a success, less on collaboration. I ran the paper committee in Berlin. While I was very happy with how this worked out and there was very little friction between the KDE and GNOME sides of the committee (the only real friction was between some folks outside of the committee and the committee, where the committee stood together very well), I must actually say that I am clearly against the combined conference, because I think it is not for the benefit of GNOME, simply on the grounds that the contents of the conference suffered by having to be "fair" towards the KDE side. Firstly, we received substantially more GNOME talks than KDE talks. Secondly, the GNOME talks got consistently better votings by both sides than the KDE talks. Nonetheless we had to be somewhat fair and accept a similar amount of KDE talks as GNOME talks. The result is that we had to refuse a number of good GNOME talks in favour of accepting a lot of less-than-ideal KDE talks. And honestly, that's something that made me very unhappy. Ultimately we did accept slightly more GNOME talks than KDE talks (thankfully nobody noticed, so that this didn't become a big political issue), but still I found it very sad that we had to accept some low-quality KDE talks at the expense of higher-quality GNOME talks. This is actually made worse by the fact that the focus of the desktop summit was even wider than GNOME and KDE, and we even included Enlightenment talks (and the CFP asked for even more), which in my eyes are even less in the interest of GNOME. I believe the focus of a conference should be on the talks, the actual contents of a conference, not on whether it makes the organization simpler or easier. If we are willing to compromise this much on the contents, then this hurts GNOME and makes the conference a lot less interesting to attendees, because attendees come for the talks, not for the flawless organization. I think GNOME should really think about what is good for itself, not how to keep the peace. Effectively, KDE has a lot more to gain from a combined conference than GNOME has, the benefits of a joined conferenced are very unbalanced. I strongly believe GNOME should focus on what is good for GNOME, and much less on what is good for whatever else exists in the Free Software world. Our interest should be GNOME, and making GNOME great, and not at all making KDE great too, and Enlightenment, and whatever else exists. I'd even go further than this: I believe one of the goals of GNOME should be to emphasize vertical integration (i.e. considering integration of our stack, the GNOME OS a core objective), but encouraging multiple variables on top of this stack makes that much more complex. I think it is against our interest encouraging KDE and other desktop environments. And again, I am saying this purely in regards to the contents of the conference, personally I believe the KDE folks in the paper committee and outside of it did a great job, and especially Mirko did an exceptionally good job in running the entire conference. > 2. It is hard to measure what specific collaborative benefits are being >made possible by the Desktop Summit. It is hard to point to specific >advances that have been accomplished. Some have concerns that not a >lot of collaboration is actually being done. Judging by the papers we got I must say that this is indeed a major concern. The talks I think were actrually really relevant to both sides, one could count on the fingers of one hand. They did definitely exist, and even though we officially gave about a third of the schedule to them I honestly believe only a tiny fraction of those which were officially cross-desktop really mattered to both sides. I am tempted to say that given that this is the way it is a one day cross-desktop miniconf thingy would have more than sufficed to handle these. The question of course is whether this one day needs to take place at the desktop summit, or whether a forum like FOSDEM (where the cross-project idea is much more emphasized) might not be the better place to organize this. > 1. To not have a large combined GNOME+KDE event, and to instead have >a smaller Desktop Summit or focused hackfest(s) with a more clear >agenda to work on specific and measurable collaborative tasks. >GUADEC and Akademy would continue as separate events. I think this would be best. I'd suggest to organize this collaboration event collocated to FOSDEM. > 3. The GNOME community has been having trouble finding volunteers to >help make events successful lately. Some people like Dave Neary, >Lennart Poettering, and Ekaterina Gerasimova did a great job >volunteering to make the last Desktop Summit a success. However, >the fact that there were
Re: Desktop Summit Planning
Hi Brian,
On 12/14/2011 04:42 AM, Brian Cameron wrote:
At the October 26th IRC meeting, Jon McCann spoke about his concerns
about the Desktop Summit.[2] At the November 23rd meeting, Dave Neary
(who was also very involved in making the past Desktop Summit happen),
highlighted that there are real benefits to sharing facilities and that
concerns can be fixed.[3] Dave pointed out that it would be best if a
decision could be made sooner than later, since it is hard to start
putting together bids for 2014 if the scope of the event is not clear.
It's useful to go back to what GUADEC is for, I think - and work from
there to see whether a Desktop Summit supports or works against that. If
we don't agree on why we have a GUADEC, we're not going to agree on the
rest.
Back in 2005, the last time we had this discussion (at the time, it was
over maintaining User Day, or rather integrating end-user related
content and inviting people from outside the GNOME community to
participate in GUADEC) the goals we came up with, which are still
documented in https://live.gnome.org/GuadecPlanningHowTo were:
Primary Goals:
1. To have fun meeting friends
2. To allow developers and contributors to have high-bandwidth discussions.
3. To highlight new ideas and cutting edge developments.
4. To get new contributors and involve current contributors in a higher
level.
5. To set the direction of the project for the coming year
Secondary Goals:
1. To create media awareness out of the usual circles
2. To involve corporate partners and facilitate an approach to the community
3. To spread free software to the surrounding region
I don't see how a Desktop Summit affects goal 1.
In my mind, GNOME's gotten to the point where those high-bandwidth,
planning the future discussions (points 2 and 5) have gone beyond what
we traditionally thought of as the GNOME project.
Just look at where key GNOME contributors are working now: Lennart
Poettering is working on audio and system start-up with a clear focus on
improving the desktop, the browser and web platform have become key
components of the free desktop, Richard Hughes is working on making
system-wide colour management a reality, there are kernel hackers and
Xorg developers working at that level of the stack to improve the
desktop end-user's experience. GNOME has long been good at fixing
problems at the right point in the stack, rather than patching around
infrastructure issues.
In addition, applications like LibreOffice, Eclipse, Mozilla, and people
buiilding on the GNOME platform (Unity and XFCE come to mind) all build
on and use our platform, and I think it would be very beneficial to get
people from these projects together to see what we can do to make that
platform better for them.
So it makes sense for us to have some kerrnel, Xorg, web, and
application developers there.
KDE is also looking down the stack at things like metadata, audio, voip,
file sharing... - and so I definitely think it makes sense to have some
relevant KDE people working with the relevant GNOME people on avoiding
duplication of effort where it's possible.
The other goals could potentially be compromised by a desktop summit.
The bigger the conference gets, the more people will tend to stay in
smaller groups of people they know - Dunbar's research on communities in
action - resulting in it being a harder conference for project newcomers
or peripheral contributors to attend and figure out what's going on and
how to get involved.
To address this, it would be possible to organise, in a way similar to
(say) OSCON, dedicated tracks for smaller subsets of the desktop, which
would still allow some cross-pollination, while providing a small enough
surface for newer community members to get some traction.
Also, the more stuff is going on in the conference, the harder it is for
any one topic or theme to get attention. I tend to think that the cream
will rise to the top, and that people will notice exciting work.
Definitely, the main benefit of the conference has been the economies of
scale for sponsors - both in organising attendance and in sponsorship. I
think that potentially broadening the conference further will bring
greater benefits - making the Desktop Summit *the* place to be to talk
about the free software desktop would be a success in my mind.
2. It is hard to measure what specific collaborative benefits are being
made possible by the Desktop Summit. It is hard to point to specific
advances that have been accomplished. Some have concerns that not a
lot of collaboration is actually being done.
Specifically to address this criticism: let me remind people that a lot
of this has come down to the mandate which the first desktop summit was
given ("GUADEC and Akademy co-hosted") which made the lives of the
organising team harder, and also made the conference less successful as
a whole. This is something which both the GNOME and KDE eV boards agree
Re: Desktop Summit Planning
On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 4:42 AM, Brian Cameron wrote: > > 3. The GNOME community has been having trouble finding volunteers to > help make events successful lately. Some people like Dave Neary, > Lennart Poettering, and Ekaterina Gerasimova did a great job > volunteering to make the last Desktop Summit a success. However, > the fact that there were too few volunteers engaged caused some real > issues. Many of the things GNOME folks have complained about the > last Desktop Summit were caused more by a lack of GNOME volunteers > helping than anything else. For a Desktop Summit to be successful, > we need to more clearly see that the GNOME community is more > interested to engage and wanting to get involved. > Actually the number of volunteers in the organizing committee was about even. In addition to the people you named above there was also Patricia, Jon[1] and myself from the GNOME side. There was probably more event volunteers from the KDE side, though. However, we expected this being that Germany and Berlin specifically has a strong KDE contributor community. One thing that could be made a requirement (or at least taken heavily into account) is that the original proposal be made cooperatively. We GNOME folks came on board only at the first kick-off meeting. I do think there was attempt by Claudia and Mirko to reach out to do this but the proposal was done by them. Cheers, Chris [1]: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=653316 ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Desktop Summit Planning
Hi Brian, A point of clarification: On Wed 14 Dec 2011 04:42, Brian Cameron writes: > 3. The GNOME community has been having trouble finding volunteers to >help make events successful lately. You mention that we had a problem with this in the last Desktop Summit. Has this been a problem in other events as well? Andy -- http://wingolog.org/ ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Desktop Summit Planning
GNOME Foundation Members: At two previous GNOME Foundation IRC meetings, there has been discussion about how to approach the Desktop Summit[1] going forward. At the October 26th IRC meeting, Jon McCann spoke about his concerns about the Desktop Summit.[2] At the November 23rd meeting, Dave Neary (who was also very involved in making the past Desktop Summit happen), highlighted that there are real benefits to sharing facilities and that concerns can be fixed.[3] Dave pointed out that it would be best if a decision could be made sooner than later, since it is hard to start putting together bids for 2014 if the scope of the event is not clear. In support of having a Desktop Summit, the survey results taken at the event did report that a strong majority of attendees felt the event was a success and wanted it to continue at the 2-year interval. At the last GNOME Foundation Advisory board meeting, there was also strong support with only one advisory board representative against. The approving advisory board representatives felt that combining GUADEC and Akademy makes it easier for them to coordinate (e.g. sending people) and they appreciate that a combined event eases their ability to sponsor. Also, the past two Desktop Summit events have been profitable. The biggest complaints about the Desktop Summit seem to be: 1. It subtracts momentum from the GNOME brand and community. With GNOME 3 to focus on, the community needs to more focus on making GNOME 3 a success, less on collaboration. 2. It is hard to measure what specific collaborative benefits are being made possible by the Desktop Summit. It is hard to point to specific advances that have been accomplished. Some have concerns that not a lot of collaboration is actually being done. The GNOME Foundation board of directors has been discussing this topic at length[4]. The board is divided with 3 directors believing that the event needs to be organized significantly differently to continue, 3 directors believing that the survey results and advisory board discussions indicate the will of the Foundation community, and 1 director undecided.[5] In discussion, the following options have been suggested as ways to improve the event. 1. To not have a large combined GNOME+KDE event, and to instead have a smaller Desktop Summit or focused hackfest(s) with a more clear agenda to work on specific and measurable collaborative tasks. GUADEC and Akademy would continue as separate events. 2. To arrange the Desktop Summit so that it is more of a co-located event. The GNOME and KDE events are separate but overlap on certain days. For example, GUADEC could happen first and continue for several days, then a few combined days of Desktop Summit followed by several days of Akademy. This setup would likely be more complicated for bidding, since it would likely require a more dynamic space to accommodate the shifting needs. 3. The GNOME community has been having trouble finding volunteers to help make events successful lately. Some people like Dave Neary, Lennart Poettering, and Ekaterina Gerasimova did a great job volunteering to make the last Desktop Summit a success. However, the fact that there were too few volunteers engaged caused some real issues. Many of the things GNOME folks have complained about the last Desktop Summit were caused more by a lack of GNOME volunteers helping than anything else. For a Desktop Summit to be successful, we need to more clearly see that the GNOME community is more interested to engage and wanting to get involved. The board would like for the Foundation membership to help discuss and decide whether it makes sense to move forward with having a Desktop Summit. Although the Desktop Summit survey results indicated a strong majority were supportive of the current format, we want to want to understand what plans would engage GNOME Foundation members and volunteers the most. If we choose to have a Desktop Summit, we need to consider how the event needs to evolve to be more effectively collaborative and whether we think it should keep to the current 2-year schedule. The board has some concerns that this topic may be controversial, or generate flames. So, please, before responding take a moment to collect your thoughts and try to avoid rash responses. Keep in mind the GNOME Code of Conduct[6]. Thanks, Brian --- [1] https://www.desktopsummit.org/ [2] https://live.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/Minutes/IRC20111026 [3] https://live.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/Minutes/IRC2023 [4] https://live.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/Minutes/20110809 https://live.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/Minutes/20110823 https://live.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/Minutes/20111018 [5] https://live.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/Minutes/2001 [6] https://live.gnome.org/CodeOfConduct/ ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://ma
