Re: Proposal unify back our release schedules

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Fri, Apr 19, 2024 at 9:39 AM Kevin Ottens  wrote:

> Hello,
>
> ::most history snipped::
>


> And then have a single big marketing
> announcement for a Plasma x.y.2 per year with its own marketing name.
>
> ::snip::
>


> > * Only have one release announcement on our website. We can call it
> > Megarelease 6.XX like we did for Plasma 6/Gear 24.02 or find a better
> name.
> > I would avoid reusing Software Collection first because the name is quite
> > technical and second because these was already used in the past.
>
> Sure, why not. This is not engineering I'm less opinionated about it.
> Apart
> from decoupling more between engineering effort and marketing
> announcements
> that is.
>
> Maybe reconsider the "Megarelease" term though... I've literally been
> laughed
> at for the use of that term outside of our community. Also, I think it was
> a
> fine term for a one off when moving on a major new version of Qt, but
> it'll
> get old quickly for the "business as usual".
>

I suggest that if we move to do any sort of more infrequent "mega releases"
we call it KDE Community Software Release or similar. "KDE" is shorthand
for our community, after all; why not spell it out.

Valorie

>
> Again no strong opinion there, but I thought I'd mention what I've seen
> around
> me.
>
> Regards.
> --
> Kevin Ottens, http://ervin.ipsquad.net
>
> enioka Haute Couture - proud supporting member of KDE
> https://hc.enioka.com/en



-- 
she/her. "Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself
running with them." - Marcus Aurelius

Re: "I Love KDE"

[Valorie Zimmerman]

I love KDE! The community, who welcomed me so many years ago, the
developers who respected me as a non-coding (except in English!) person and
contributor, all of the wonderful packagers who provide our fabulous
software to users around the world, the distro leaders who not only keep
useful bug reports coming but work with developers to fix them, and the
creative thinkers who keep dreaming big and making their dreams come true
for the rest of us. I love all the leaders who do the scut work behind the
scenes, reporting on niggling issues which must be fixed to keep the infra
running, the sysadmins who throw their bodies in front of attackers and
keep all of us safe.

I love you all.

Valorie aka "Linux Grandma," Kubuntu user for 20 years!

On Thu, Feb 22, 2024 at 11:08 AM victorhck  wrote:

> I can subscribe the destilled flavor of positive feedback that this
> message has.
>
> I also really Love KDE since I test in 2011 with openSUSE and still here
> I am, a happy KDE and openSUSE user.
>
> So really thanks to the community behind KDE. Developers, testers,
> casual contributors, translators, the people in desing group, people
> that help in forums, users who spread the word and users all around the
> globe!!
>
> Keep doing a great work! not just for milestones like Plasma 6, but a
> hard work every day keeping KDE stable and reliable
>
> Greetings!
>
>
> --
> ---
> GPG Key: 0xcc742e8dc9b7e22a
> Fingerprint = 6FE2 3B1F AAC8 E5B7 63EA 88A9 CC74 2E8D C9B7 E22A
>
> Aprende a proteger la privacidad de tu correo:
> https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org/es/
>
> Mi blog sobre openSUSE, GNU/Linux y software libre:
> https://victorhckinthefreeworld.com/
>
> Herramientas para proteger tu privacidad
> https://victorhck.gitlab.io/privacytools-es/
>
>

-- 
she/her. "Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself
running with them." - Marcus Aurelius

Re: [GSoC Mentors] GSoC 2024 open for org applications January 22 - February 6

[Valorie Zimmerman]

I'm willing to remain on the list of co-admins, but will not be able to be
more active than I was last year.

Valorie

On Tue, Jan 9, 2024 at 6:32 PM Johnny Jazeix  wrote:

>  Hi,
>
> Are there people willing to help co-admin this year? It would be nice to
> be at least 3 to share the workload.
>
> If mentors are interested, there will be a session Thursday (link sent to
> the mentor list, I've removed it from below as I'm not sure if it's
> supposed to be mentors only).
>
> Main point seem to be: "Starting in 2024 we will have small (~90 hour
> projects), medium (~175 hr projects) and large (~350 hour) projects
> available to GSoC contributors. 90 hours projects are optional."
>
> I've updated the skeleton wiki page to create the 2024 season:
> https://community.kde.org/GSoC/2024/Ideas.
>
> Please start discussing among your teams what ideas will be great to have
> this year and who is willing to mentor, as the organisation application
> date needs to apply between the January 22 - February 6 and we need a wiki
> page filled with ideas by then.
> And please don't wait the last moment to fill the page.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Johnny
>
> -- Forwarded message -
> De : 'sttaylor' via Google Summer of Code Mentors List <
> google-summer-of-code-mentors-l...@googlegroups.com>
> Date: ven. 5 janv. 2024 à 00:28
> Subject: [GSoC Mentors] GSoC Organization Application Info Session January
> 11th 1700 UTC
> To: Google Summer of Code Mentors List <
> google-summer-of-code-mentors-l...@googlegroups.com>
>
>
> Happy New Year!
>
> We are very excited to get started on this 20th year of Google Summer of
> Code!  With Organization applications opening in a few weeks, January 22
> - February 6, we wanted to host an information session for organizations
> looking to apply to GSoC as well as for new org admins for veteran orgs so
> they understand the application process.
>
> Date: Thursday, January 11
>
> Time: 17:00 - 17:45 UTC
>
> GSoC Program Lead, Stephanie Taylor will go through the org application
> process and discuss the tips to a solid organization application as well as
> some of the other things to consider when applying as a GSoC organization.
>
> There will be plenty of time for Q as well for the last half of the
> session.
>
> Some quick tips for everyone to consider when submitting an Organization
> application for Google Summer of Code:
>
>1.
>
>Starting in 2024 we will have small (~90 hour projects), medium (~175
>hr projects) and large (~350 hour) projects available to GSoC contributors.
>Orgs should have medium and large projects available in their Project Ideas
>lists. Small project ideas are not required for orgs, but if the smaller
>size project works for your org they should  be included in your
>Organization’s Ideas List.
>2.
>
>Reach out to your community members now to ask if they would like to
>be mentors for the program.
>
> Having a thorough and well thought out list of Project Ideas
> 
> is the most important part of your application.
>
> Open source projects can apply  to
> be mentoring organizations from January 22 - February 6 at 1800 UTC.
>
> Resources:
>
> Mentor Guide 
>
> Timeline 
>
> FAQs 
>
> Roles and Responsibilities
> 
>
> Marketing Materials
> 
> (slide deck, flyers)
>
> Videos 
>
>
> Best,
>
> Stephanie Taylor
>
> GSoC Program Lead
>
> --
>


-- 
she/her. "Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself
running with them." - Marcus Aurelius

Re: [announcement] Telegram bridging to be retired Wed. 20 Sept. | 5 to-dos

[Valorie Zimmerman]

My response is interspersed.

On Wed, Aug 23, 2023 at 9:51 AM Paul Brown  wrote:

> On Wednesday, 23 August 2023 17:04:04 CEST Ingo Klöcker wrote:
> > On Mittwoch, 23. August 2023 16:55:25 CEST Niccolò Ve wrote:
> > > > Postponing the deadline is not ideal, since there always will be
> people
> > > > jumping out saying "Why wasn't I told" "Was it discussed before"
> again
> > > > and again.
> > >
> > > Please note that the community was never told about this decision
> before
> > > yesterday, and it was never discussed publicly.
> >
> > https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-community/2023q2/007656.html
>
> That link is denouncing the very thing, that all this was going on without
> the
> wider community's knowledge . It hardly counts as an official announcement.
>
> Besides, you have to stop assuming that because you published something
> once
> on some internal outlet, you are covered.
>

I have two hats on here - my KDE hat and my Kubuntu hat. The Kubuntu Tg
channel (and IRC chan for that matter) are linked to the KDE infra in
various ways. I don't know the tech details but I was an early Tg adopter
years ago because it was the only thing that worked for real time
communication one Akademy. I have since removed it from my phone.

>
> The people this is going to affect most (i.e. the Telegram end users)
> don't
> read mailing lists or know what a BoF is. Most people who are using our
> apps
> and are discussing them on Telegram are barely off of Whatsapp and
> probably
> don't even know what KDE is.
>

YES. I do mostly genealogy these days, and most people I interact with do
not know (or have forgotten) what mail lists are. Of course I continue to
love them, as I do IRC. But I don't use either one on my phone. I'm old
enough that I don't care to use my phone for most things that younger folks
want to do or have no other option. I never was able to get Matrix working
right on my phone, and never even tried on my new one. IRC is awesome on my
laptops; matrix never worked well there either, so I stopped trying. There
is not enough time in life for everything.

>
> But they are your users. They are the ones you can ask to donate when you
> need
> resources to carry on developing your project, they make up the numbers
> we
> can quote when we want to convince would-be sponsors, they are the
> "everyone"
> mentioned in KDE's vision.
>

Please let's listen to Paul. He is bringing the voices of those otherwise
nameless users whom we NEED into this conversation. To cut off many
hundreds of thousands of users seems like slow suicide to me to KDE as a
project.

>
> I am always surprised on occasions like this of how little some people
> here
> care. Other projects would  be over the Moon to have this user base, but
> here
> it seems like it is perfectly okay to cut hundreds of users off completely
> because of a technical issue.
>
> Very puzzling.
>

More than puzzling, it is distressing. What is the point of creating
awesome software if we are going to cut adrift hundreds of thousands of
users with a tenuous connection to us?

Valorie, ex-CWG and still connected through the GSoC admin team and Kubuntu

PS: Cutting off the Kubuntu Tg chans/rooms is just fine.

>
> Cheers
>
> Paul
> --
> Promotion & Communication
>
> www: https://kde.org
> Mastodon: https://floss.social/@kde
> Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kde/
> Twitter: https://twitter.com/kdecommunity
> LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kde
>

-- 
she/her. "Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself
running with them." - Marcus Aurelius

Re: KDE Network in the USA

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Hi Bhavisha, there is still a KDE-USA mail list at
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-usa which should be informed as
well!

Valorie

On Sat, Jun 18, 2022 at 7:31 AM Bhavisha Dhruve 
wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> The KDE Network team is pleased to announce that KDE Network-USA is
> participating in Southern California at SCaLE 19X – the 19th annual
> Southern California Linux Expo – which will take place on  July 28-31, 2022
> at the Hilton Los Angeles Airport in Los Angeles, CA.
>
> SCaLE is the largest community-run open-source and free software
> conference in North America.
>
> It will be great if you can come and visit us. KDE’s booth number will be
> 605.
>
> Thank you once again for all the support, hope to see some of you at the
> conference or Akademy later this year.
>
> Regards,
>
> Bhavisha Dhruve
>
>

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Fwd: Re: Bystander Intervention and Allyship Virtual Workshops

[Valorie Zimmerman]

I'm not sure I can go, but anyone wanting this training is welcome to
participate, so sign up if you want to learn how to stop bullying when you
see it.

Valorie

-- Forwarded message -
From: 'sttaylor' via Google Summer of Code Mentors List <
google-summer-of-code-mentors-l...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Mon, Jun 13, 2022 at 11:52 AM
Subject: [GSoC Mentors] Re: Bystander Intervention and Allyship Virtual
Workshops for GSoC Mentors
To: Google Summer of Code Mentors List <
google-summer-of-code-mentors-l...@googlegroups.com>


And to clarify these workshops are *open to all of you on this list* (it's
not just for GSoC 2022 mentors and org admins).  We have plenty of space
available, we hope to see you all there!

Best,
Stephanie

On Friday, June 10, 2022 at 8:26:57 PM UTC-7 sttaylor wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> After the success of the Allyship virtual workshops we held last September
> (about 95 of you attended these sessions) we are offering a couple more
> Allyship workshops for folks who couldn’t attend last year and we are
> adding 3 new workshops on Bystander Intervention. Dr. Kim Tran, a strategic
> expert in diversity, equity, and inclusion will lead these 90-minute
> virtual workshops for our open source communities, and offer DEI education
> to support our contributors!
>
> These workshops serve to facilitate conversations around allyship,
> bystander intervention and inclusion in tech companies and activist spaces
> allowing organizations and companies to create better workplaces, welcoming
> environments, and mitigate potential set-backs.
>
> These 90-minute virtual workshops are organized with small groups (max of
> 35 people) to allow for conversations, questions, and engagement. These
> sessions will be live and not recorded to allow participants to create
> trust and take part fully in the workshops.
>
> The workshops have been designed with open source in mind, and specific
> challenges that our communities face based on the voluntary nature and
> history of open source. These workshops are for all groups interested in
> creating a more welcoming and inclusive environment in their communities,
> regardless of their background.
>
> Bystander intervention gives global teams the tools to address bias in
> tech. Learning how to recognize, intervene, and show empathy raises
> awareness, improves attitudes, and encourages others to disrupt. It also
> helps targets report and seek support. In this session, participants learn
> how to identify common workplace biases and effectively interrupt
> marginalization. The Brave Bystanding session creates belonging through
> skill building and practical techniques that address inequity in all
> contexts.
>
> We encourage you to take the Allyship workshop before taking part in the
> Bystander Intervention workshop as there are concepts discussed in depth in
> the Allyship workshop that will be needed to participate fully in the
> Bystander Intervention workshop. If you took the Allyship course last year
> this is the same general workshop, please do not sign up for the Allyship
> session again. : )
>
> If you are interested in taking part in one (or both) of the workshops
> please complete this Interest form
> 
> by Friday, June 17th 1800 UTC. Once we have all of the responses we’ll
> divide folks between the workshops and send you a confirmation email with
> more details on the workshops after June 20th.
>
> Best,
>
> Stephanie, Saranya and Radha
>

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Re: The status of freenode (the IRC network used by KDE)

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Wed, May 19, 2021 at 12:58 PM Aleix Pol  wrote:

> On Wed, May 19, 2021 at 7:45 PM Martin Flöser  wrote:
> >
> > Am Mittwoch, 19. Mai 2021, 10:34:26 CEST schrieb Christian:
> > > Dear KDE community,
> > >
> > > KDE has been using the free services of the freenode IRC networks for a
> > > little bit more than two decades, and hopefully happily and
> successfully
> > > so.
> >
> > Thanks for informing us. This sounds horrible and must have been a very
> > stressful time for all of you staffers.
> >
> > > Due to this leakage, Andrew Lee (former PIA/LTM, now shells.com)
> > > learned of the new situation and asked democratically elected
> > > freenode volunteers to step down from their position, as seen in the
> > > logs linked on [4] [5] [6]
> > > Therefore making the takover attempt and some details public.
> >
> > Given that this is driven by shells.com I think the KDE community
> should step
> > up and remove all references to shells.com. Their behavior in this case
> goes
> > clearly against our values.
>
> It seems to me that we are jumping to conclusions only based on hearsay.
>
> Today at the Board call we talked with Fuchs and Duffus about
> Freenode. I've reached out to our Shells contact to see what's
> happening and will be talking to them soon.
> At this point the connection between this Freenode kerfuffle and
> Shells is unclear to me, I'd prefer to understand what the situation
> is before we ban them from our websites because they're somehow
> related by blood.
>
> Aleix
>

I'm very happy to hear that the Board talked to everyone and reached out to
Shells. Having read loads of logs about this, if the Board decided to hand
Shells back their contribution, I would give some extra money to help cover
that if necessary.

The sooner we can leave freenode in peace and good order, in my opinion,
the better. I love IRC, and I used to love freenode, but it is sullied now.

Valorie <--- speaking only for myself

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Another take on planning for the journey ahead

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Found on Twitter: Audrey Eschright @ameschright

With the FSF imploding, I’m thinking again about the idea of a 3rd wave of
> FLOSS and what we really want from it (I gave this talk three years ago!)
> http://lifeofaudrey.com/essays/history_and_future_floss.html


Short essay, really excellent and thought-provoking, although I miss KDE's
part in the story.

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Re: Apology

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Hi Niccolò,

On Fri, Mar 26, 2021 at 3:26 PM Niccolò Ve 
wrote:

> Hi.
>
> > Posts about Richard Stallman are off-topic and will not be allowed.
>
> This is... plain out wrong. Off topic means off topic.
>

The KDE Community list exists, according to the subscription page:
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community

The purpose of the mailing list is to provide a place for non-technical
> information and discussions which are relevant to the KDE community as a
> whole. All people who consider themselves to be part of the KDE community
> are invited to join. Conversations on the mailing list are respectful,
> considerate, polite and constructive following our KDE Code of Conduct.
> The list collects announcements, information and results from discussions
> in other places and offers a place to get feedback on non-technical
> questions or plans of relevance for the whole KDE community.


Anything else is off-topic.


> A RMS reply to a thread about RMS is NOT off topic.
>

The original post was about the FSF and their governance. Unfortunately
"RMS pro/con" hijacked that thread and caused this list to be moderated.


> If you want to shutdown the discussion, just say so.
>

I did so.


> The fact that RMS is not "the issue" (he's surely _an_ issue...) does not
> change that
> the kde community email was about RMS. I sent an email 10 hours *before*
> this apology.
> It was rejected just* now.* As offtopic.
>

I live in the US; most of the other mods live in Europe. If they had wanted
to act on your email they could have done so, but I believe I was the one
to reject your post. There was nothing time-sensitive in it.

I did not like that thread, but this handling of the situation is plain out
> bad. This apology
> mail only made things worse. If I did not know about KDE, I'd say that
> they are censoring
> the discussion. Instead I'm just embarrassed.
>

Requiring lists to be on-topic is not censorship, which *governments* do.
We're volunteers trying to keep lists "respectful, considerate, polite and
constructive." Had the discussion kept to that, even though off-topic, it
probably could have been solved by a warning.

Even the original motivation for putting the ML under moderation could've
> been worded better,
> it raised complaints from some people I know.
>

Yes, I should have followed my own advice and removed my personal thoughts.
That was not constructive.

Putting an email under manual moderation requires that manual moderation to
> happen much,
> much faster than 10 hours. If help is needed in moderating, please say so.
> If you want to shutdown the discussion about RMS, say it was getting too
> aggressive, not that
> it's "offtopic".
>
> Niccolò
>

We're all volunteers. Help is always welcome! List administration is not
the most interesting job, but it is not usually difficult either. If you
are interested, write to "$listname-ow...@kde.org" (in this case,
kde-community-owner at kde.org) and volunteer your services.

Valorie

>
> Il giorno ven 26 mar 2021 alle ore 20:36 Valorie Zimmerman <
> valorie.zimmer...@gmail.com> ha scritto:
>
>> Hello my friends,
>>
>> When I put this list on emergency moderation, I felt that this was
>> necessary. It still seems so, but I want to lift moderation as soon as
>> possible.
>>
>> I may have played a part in continuing the negative thread that "wouldn't
>> die" by expressing my own opinion. I should have followed my own advice and
>> walked away after writing my email and then removed parts which expressed a
>> personal opinion.
>>
>> While I may disagree with others about the value of RMS to Free Software,
>> he is not the issue. The more organizations I've been involved with, the
>> more I realize the value of good governance. The FSF has been critical to
>> the growth of Free Software, and the recent news about their Board is very
>> worrying.
>>
>> My statement did not do anything to convey that or to help, and for that
>> I am truly sorry.
>>
>> Posts about Richard Stallman are off-topic and will not be allowed.
>>
>> Thanks to those of you who called my attention to my part in all of this.
>>
>> All the best to each of you, to KDE and all of the Free software
>> communities,
>>
>> Valorie
>>
>> --
>> http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her
>>
>
>
> --
> Niccolò Venerandi
>
>

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Apology

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Hello my friends,

When I put this list on emergency moderation, I felt that this was
necessary. It still seems so, but I want to lift moderation as soon as
possible.

I may have played a part in continuing the negative thread that "wouldn't
die" by expressing my own opinion. I should have followed my own advice and
walked away after writing my email and then removed parts which expressed a
personal opinion.

While I may disagree with others about the value of RMS to Free Software,
he is not the issue. The more organizations I've been involved with, the
more I realize the value of good governance. The FSF has been critical to
the growth of Free Software, and the recent news about their Board is very
worrying.

My statement did not do anything to convey that or to help, and for that I
am truly sorry.

Posts about Richard Stallman are off-topic and will not be allowed.

Thanks to those of you who called my attention to my part in all of this.

All the best to each of you, to KDE and all of the Free software
communities,

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Re: This list is now on emergency moderation

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Hi Cori, reply inline

On Thu, Mar 25, 2021 at 1:20 PM cori  wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I only subscribed to this list recently because someone pointed out to
> me that a discussion was going on which might interest me. I read some
> of the messages in the discussions about Richard Stallman, and was not
> inclined to participate.
>

Thanks for that. We do welcome your participation, and it is not necessary
to weigh in on every conversation.

>
> However, I do feel I have something to say here, and although I am
> perfectly aware that most probably my email will not be let through, I
> just don't want to keep silent this time.
>
>
> > toxic person
>
> >   * Be considerate
> >   * Be respectful
> >   * Be collaborative
> >   * Be pragmatic
> >   * Support others in the community
>

Point taken. I should have said "controversial person" or not applied a
label at all. Thanks for making that clear.

I don't think calling someone "toxic" is respectful or considerate. In
> my view, it's not collaborative either, since how can there be
> collaboration with the name calling, that may hurt readers' feelings?
> Expressing personal opinions about someone is not pragmatic, either, it
> doesn't add anything constructive to whatever needs to be done. And it
> certainly is not supportive of others in the community.
>
> In sum, I think this messages violates the very same rules of behavior
> it claims to uphold.
>
> Thank you.
>

Thank you for speaking up. I will do better in the future.

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

This list is now on emergency moderation

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Dear all,

Now that a discussion about a toxic person outside our community, and more
importantly, the governance of an important part of the FOSS ecosystem has
now devolved into "nazi" being tossed around:

This list is now moderated. Only posts which meet the high standards of our
agreement about responsibility to and for one another will be let through.

If you are angry, pound the keys, write your post -- and then walk away.
Later, when your feelings have cooled, please re-read what you have
written. Read https://kde.org/code-of-conduct/ where we agree to

   - Be considerate
   - Be respectful
   - Be collaborative
   - Be pragmatic
   - Support others in the community
   - Get support from others in the community

If necessary, we will moderate some people individually and stop the
emergency list-wide moderation.

Remember what we value: each other, and Free Software.

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Re: On the reappointment of Richard Stallman as a director of the FSF

[Valorie Zimmerman]

+1

On Wed, Mar 24, 2021 at 3:27 PM Aleix Pol  wrote:

> Dear community,
> From the KDE e.V. we followed closely the discussions on the last few
> days regarding this recent decision within the Free Software
> Foundation's leadership.
>
> We have tried to sum up our thoughts in the following announcement
> with the hope to foster collectively the Free Software leadership we
> need.
> https://ev.kde.org/2021/03/24/on-the-reappointment-of-rms-fsf/
>
> Looking forward to a more inclusive discussion that will shape the
> Free Software movement of tomorrow.
>
> Best regards,
> Aleix Pol with the KDE e.V. Board of Directors
>


-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Re: RMS and open letter

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Tue, Mar 23, 2021 at 12:50 PM Carl Schwan  wrote:

> Hello all,
> like you probably heard already RMS was reinstatement to the
> Board of Directors of the Free Software Foundation. RMS has
> always been a negative force to the Free Software movement due
> to his toxic behavior. There is an open letter asking for his
> and the current board FSF resignation available at
> https://rms-open-letter.github.io/.
>
> It was already signed by many other Free Software contributors
> from many organizations (GNOME, OSI, Apache, ...) and it would be
> a good idea for some us to sign it too.
>
> This can be done by either sending a email digitalautonomy at riseup.net
> or by submitting a pull request at
> https://github.com/rms-open-letter/rms-open-letter.github.io/pulls.
>
> Regards,
> Carl Schwan
> https://carlschwan.eu


Thanks, Carl. I would like to point out that Carl posted his suggestion to
the individual people on this list. He did not propose that the KDE e.V.
officially take a stand.

If you agree with Carl that RMS should not be able to slink back onto the
Board of the FSF and that action by the FSF is bad for Free Software, then
his email tells you how to register your concern.

If you disagree, you need take no action. RMS is now back on the FSF Board,
and none of us know how or why that happened.

I'm unsure why there is outrage in offering people a choice?

Valorie < pro-Free Software; against supporting pedophilia and pedophiles

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

How a worm showed us the way to open science

[Valorie Zimmerman]

I've been reading a timeline of progress on "Milestones in Genomic
Sequencing." It's part of the celebration of the anniversary of the Human
Genome Project. One of the short videos that is part of that timeline (at
https://www.nature.com/immersive/d42859-020-00099-0/index.html) is this one
about the development of open science. I think you will find it
interesting, when you think back to the growth of the KDE community and our
codebase:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTwcYQ9WHOA_channel=naturevideo

All the best,

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Re: Hello from MyGNUHealth

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Hey Luis!

On Fri, Dec 18, 2020 at 6:14 AM Luis Falcon  wrote:

> Dear KDE community
>
> I am happy to announce that MyGNUHealth, the GH Personal Health
> record, is now a member of the KDE family!
>

So happy to hear that you have joined us. If you or some of your other
developers are interested in participating in Google Summer of Code, now is
the time to begin planning for it. Please join the mentor list
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-soc-mentor and we'll get you
started.

All the best,

Valorie, for KDE Student Programs

::major snips::
>
> Happy and healthy hacking,
> Luis
>
> --
> Dr. Luis Falcon, MD, MSc
> President, GNU Solidario
> Advancing Social Medicine
>


-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Fwd: partnership

[Valorie Zimmerman]

This came to the Community Working Group, when it should have been sent to
KDE Community ML. Please do not CC the Community-WG list in replies. -v

-- Forwarded message -
From: 
Date: Wed, Sep 23, 2020 at 1:07 PM
Subject: partnership
To: , , ,
, ,



Dear Friends of KDE eingetragener Verein,
  We are a little team of 3 scientists who defend ethical values provided
by free/libre software and "free culture" in general.
  Currently we are creating a french structure named CDOSS (Compliance
for Data Open Source Software, www.cdoss.tech) in the the mission to
certificate every person using AI and Big Data Open Source Softwares to
prove its compliance with standards, legislation and contractual
requirements.
  As specialists we feel the need that it could be important to
demonstrate technical competence and adherence to an ethical code for
the emerging data processing technologies.
   We are preparing 6 certifications to present abilties to :
- implement a IA models
- administer and perform maintenance tasks in Big Data platforms
  So we would ask for your support (as a possible partnership) to carry
out our projects.
  More over, we plan to offer a certification body for persons on an
ISO/IEC standard
  So that a CDOSS certified engineer could provide its clients
comprehensive services that inspire trust and benefit society as a
whole.
  We remain at your disposal for further information,
Sincerely yours,
Jérôme Filippone, CTO and Co-founder of CDOSS Ltd, Data Project Manager,
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerome-filippone-172a9910/
Dr Bassem Benhamed, Full professor & IA Expert,
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bassem-ben-hamed-02b43713b/
Dr Heni Bouhamed, Senior Lecturer & Big Data Consultant,
https://sites.google.com/site/drhenibouhamed/

Re: Proposal: Mailing List owner policy

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Unfortunately 9 UTC = 2 am here. But I will submit some notes about it. -v

On Tue, Aug 25, 2020 at 2:28 PM Albert Astals Cid  wrote:

> El dijous, 23 de juliol de 2020, a les 0:31:29 CEST, Albert Astals Cid va
> escriure:
> > Dear Community,
> >
> > One important part of mailing lists being healthy is
> owners/moderators[1].
> >
> > They moderate the lists, they help users that want to
> subscribe/unsubscribe but don't know how to, they enact emergency
> moderation in the very very seldom case that it is needed, etc.
> >
> > So to keep our mailing lists healthy we need to be sure to have healthy
> list owners.
> >
> > In plural, more than one, because from time to time, we go on vacation
> and the list duties still need taking care of.
> >
> > For that I'd like to enact this policy:
> >
> > Mailing lists should have at least 2 active owners, ideally 3
> [Obviously exceptions apply, like if we just started a mailing list to
> coordinate translators for a language that has no translation in KDE yet,
> we'd probably have no way to get 2 list owners]
> >
> > One keyword in that sentence is "active".
> >
> > Mailing list ownership/moderation un-activity is hard to detect.
> >
> > One way to potentially detect it, is by those summaries that sysadmin
> sends periodically for lists with lots of mails to moderate, but that
> doesn't cover all the cases.
> >
> > For example, it's possible that a mailing list has 2 owners and only one
> of them is inactive, since the other one is keeping the list in working
> condition we don't see it as a problem, but if that person goes on holiday,
> then it suddenly is.
> >
> > For that I'd like to enact this policy sub-point:
> >
> > Mailing list owners will be contacted every year asking if they are
> still active and if they want to continue being list owner or if they'd
> prefer we find a substitute.
> >
> > If they say "please find a substitute" or fail to answer in a given time
> frame (I'd say a month is fair), they will be removed as owners and in case
> the "at least 2 active owners, ideally 3" policy is broken we'll find a new
> person.
> >
> > Does that sound something like we could agree on?
> >
> > Then the big question is "who will do this work?" Because it seems quite
> a bit of work (albeit only once a year). I would suggest the Community
> Working Group does this, as it's a way to keep our community healthy, but i
> understand it's quite some work, so i volunteer to do it if the CWG doesn't
> feel this is a task they want to take on.
> >
> > Things I'm missing?
> >
> > Improvement suggestions?
>
> So it seems there was some agreement that is something that could improve
> but we didn't 100% agree on what to do. I've scheduled an Akademy BoF,
> hopefully we can reach to a conclusion there.
>
> https://community.kde.org/Akademy/2020/Tuesday#Room_02_-_8th_September
>
> Cheers,
>   Albert
>
> >
> > Cheers,
> >   Albert
> >
> > [1] yes, i know they are not the same, but since one is a subset of the
> other, let's pretend they are.
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
>

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Re: Proposal: Mailing List owner policy

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Hi Ingo,

On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 12:59 AM Ingo Klöcker  wrote:

> On Sonntag, 26. Juli 2020 18:31:08 CEST Philippe Cloutier wrote:
> > An even bigger question, I'm afraid. When nobody steps up, what would we
> > do? I wouldn't mind "moderating" this list today, for instance, since I
> > found the time to read it. But I for one would not *commit* myself to
> > moderate it or any other; I just don't have the required availability
> > and if I had, I wouldn't guarantee I would remain available.
>
> I'm sorry, but I have the feeling that you are making too much of a fuss
> about
> this. Maybe you are misunderstanding what "moderating" entails. Or maybe I
> misunderstood for years what moderation of a mailing list entails.
>
> I am owner of one mailing list and moderator of another. Moderation of the
> second mailing list is restricted to the moderation of posts that are held
> for
> moderation mostly because those post come from unsubscribed senders (99 %
> of
> this is SPAM). I'm not even subscribed to the second mailing list. I don't
> see
> moderation of legit posts (i.e. posts that are not held for moderation) as
> my
> task. This kind of moderation costs almost no time.
>
> Regards,
> Ingo
>

It's true that it costs each of us listowners/moderators "no time" per
list. Albert's point is what happens when such people disappear? While it
may seem like easy work that "anyone" can do, it can be like people
throwing litter into the trashcan instead of into the street. Each such act
takes a mere second, but when it is not done, there are mounds of garbage
(spam).

If all of us listowner/moderators see ourselves as part of the list *team*,
then we can cover for one another, and recruit new team members when
necessary. I don't see this as a "fuss" but more about turning a small
problem into a small plus for the KDE community.

Valorie
-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Re: Proposal: Mailing List owner policy

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Thu, Jul 23, 2020 at 3:28 PM Albert Astals Cid  wrote:

> El dijous, 23 de juliol de 2020, a les 23:49:23 CEST, Valorie Zimmerman va
> escriure:
> > I had another thought hours after I sent my reply to Albert. What if we
> > create a list for KDE listowners to which all listowners and mods are
> > subscribed? That way we can approach issues as a team, share resources
> and
> > problems, ask one another for coverage during planned absences, etc.
> >
> > We had a list like this at Rootsweb, a free genealogy community, and it
> > generally worked well. RW also used Mailman software before closing the
> > lists recently. I've moved most of my former lists to Groups.io which is
> a
> > splendid platform. I very much wish it was Free software!
> >
> > It seems like a lits would be a more stable way to approach the issue
> than
> > an annual inquiry email.
> >
> > Thoughts?
>
> I think a listowners list may be interesting to explore, but i don't see
> how it solves the "3 of the 4 list owners of okular-devel have gone away"
> problem.
>
> We still need to ping them, don't we?
>
> Cheers,
>   Albert
>

True that. However at least we'll have all the listowners corralled,
keeping in mind that KDE is a very polite and orderly anarchist collective.
:-)

I have listowner privileges on quite a few KDE lists where things I don't
understand are being discussed. However, I can tell the difference between
a serious email to a devel list and spam, and using the cli application
"listadmin" I can sort the spam from the actual posts for lots of lists in
very little time. So a few of us doing that will remove most of the burden
from many others.

 If *all* of the listowners & mods are subbed to the new list, when they
leave I can write to them and find out why, so we would not have to wait a
year to put out the call for replacements.

Valorie

> Valorie
> >
> > On Thu, Jul 23, 2020 at 1:38 AM Ben Cooksley  wrote:
> >
> > > On Thu, Jul 23, 2020 at 4:55 PM Valorie Zimmerman
> > >  wrote:
> > > >
> > > > On Wed, Jul 22, 2020 at 3:31 PM Albert Astals Cid 
> wrote:
> > > >>
> > > >> Dear Community,
> > > >>
> > > >> One important part of mailing lists being healthy is
> > > owners/moderators[1].
> > > >>
> > > >> They moderate the lists, they help users that want to
> > > subscribe/unsubscribe but don't know how to, they enact emergency
> > > moderation in the very very seldom case that it is needed, etc.
> > > >>
> > > >> So to keep our mailing lists healthy we need to be sure to have
> healthy
> > > list owners.
> > > >>
> > > >> In plural, more than one, because from time to time, we go on
> vacation
> > > and the list duties still need taking care of.
> > > >>
> > > >> For that I'd like to enact this policy:
> > > >>
> > > >> Mailing lists should have at least 2 active owners, ideally 3
> > > [Obviously exceptions apply, like if we just started a mailing list to
> > > coordinate translators for a language that has no translation in KDE
> yet,
> > > we'd probably have no way to get 2 list owners]
> > > >>
> > > >> One keyword in that sentence is "active".
> > > >>
> > > >> Mailing list ownership/moderation un-activity is hard to detect.
> > > >>
> > > >> One way to potentially detect it, is by those summaries that
> sysadmin
> > > sends periodically for lists with lots of mails to moderate, but that
> > > doesn't cover all the cases.
> > > >>
> > > >> For example, it's possible that a mailing list has 2 owners and only
> > > one of them is inactive, since the other one is keeping the list in
> working
> > > condition we don't see it as a problem, but if that person goes on
> holiday,
> > > then it suddenly is.
> > > >>
> > > >> For that I'd like to enact this policy sub-point:
> > > >>
> > > >> Mailing list owners will be contacted every year asking if they
> are
> > > still active and if they want to continue being list owner or if they'd
> > > prefer we find a substitute.
> > > >>
> > > >> If they say "please find a substitute" or fail to answer in a given
> > > time frame (I'd say a month is fair), they will be removed as owners
> and in
> > > case the "at least 2 active owners, ideally 3&qu

Re: Proposal: Mailing List owner policy

[Valorie Zimmerman]

I had another thought hours after I sent my reply to Albert. What if we
create a list for KDE listowners to which all listowners and mods are
subscribed? That way we can approach issues as a team, share resources and
problems, ask one another for coverage during planned absences, etc.

We had a list like this at Rootsweb, a free genealogy community, and it
generally worked well. RW also used Mailman software before closing the
lists recently. I've moved most of my former lists to Groups.io which is a
splendid platform. I very much wish it was Free software!

It seems like a lits would be a more stable way to approach the issue than
an annual inquiry email.

Thoughts?

Valorie

On Thu, Jul 23, 2020 at 1:38 AM Ben Cooksley  wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 23, 2020 at 4:55 PM Valorie Zimmerman
>  wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, Jul 22, 2020 at 3:31 PM Albert Astals Cid  wrote:
> >>
> >> Dear Community,
> >>
> >> One important part of mailing lists being healthy is
> owners/moderators[1].
> >>
> >> They moderate the lists, they help users that want to
> subscribe/unsubscribe but don't know how to, they enact emergency
> moderation in the very very seldom case that it is needed, etc.
> >>
> >> So to keep our mailing lists healthy we need to be sure to have healthy
> list owners.
> >>
> >> In plural, more than one, because from time to time, we go on vacation
> and the list duties still need taking care of.
> >>
> >> For that I'd like to enact this policy:
> >>
> >> Mailing lists should have at least 2 active owners, ideally 3
> [Obviously exceptions apply, like if we just started a mailing list to
> coordinate translators for a language that has no translation in KDE yet,
> we'd probably have no way to get 2 list owners]
> >>
> >> One keyword in that sentence is "active".
> >>
> >> Mailing list ownership/moderation un-activity is hard to detect.
> >>
> >> One way to potentially detect it, is by those summaries that sysadmin
> sends periodically for lists with lots of mails to moderate, but that
> doesn't cover all the cases.
> >>
> >> For example, it's possible that a mailing list has 2 owners and only
> one of them is inactive, since the other one is keeping the list in working
> condition we don't see it as a problem, but if that person goes on holiday,
> then it suddenly is.
> >>
> >> For that I'd like to enact this policy sub-point:
> >>
> >> Mailing list owners will be contacted every year asking if they are
> still active and if they want to continue being list owner or if they'd
> prefer we find a substitute.
> >>
> >> If they say "please find a substitute" or fail to answer in a given
> time frame (I'd say a month is fair), they will be removed as owners and in
> case the "at least 2 active owners, ideally 3" policy is broken we'll find
> a new person.
> >>
> >> Does that sound something like we could agree on?
> >
> >
> > I think this is a good idea.
> >
> >> Then the big question is "who will do this work?" Because it seems
> quite a bit of work (albeit only once a year). I would suggest the
> Community Working Group does this, as it's a way to keep our community
> healthy, but i understand it's quite some work, so i volunteer to do it if
> the CWG doesn't feel this is a task they want to take on.
> >
> >
> > As a member of CWG, I think that this is a suitable task for us, and I'm
> willing to do it. However, surely there is a master list of all the lists
> and who the stated owners and mods are. If so, can't the sending be done
> somewhat automatically? With the answers going to the CWG or whoever, to
> find replacement people.
> >
>
> You'd need a way of catching the exceptions - the people who don't reply
> though.
> Not sure how easy that would be to automate, but it's probably possible.
>
> In terms of getting a list of all lists, we can provide one of those
> (it's attached). I'm not sure if Mailman provides anything out of the
> box that lists who the owners of a list are though.
>
> >> Things I'm missing?
> >
> >
> > Healthy lists are somewhat active. While a major protective duty of
> owners and mods is to keep spam out and keep conversations moving in a
> positive way, another is to keep the list active by bringing to it
> appropriate topics of discussion. I don't want that forgotten. Too often
> issues are discussed in IRC and never brought to the list where they ought
> to be.
> >
> >> Improvement suggestions?
> >>
> >> Cheers,
> >>   Albert
> >>
> >> [1] yes, i know they are not the same, but since one is a subset of the
> other, let's pretend they are.
> >
> >
> > I would like to hear from Sysadmin how many lists we have and how many
> owners and if there is a way to automatically send an email to all owners
> along with the names of the lists they administer.
> >
> > Valorie
>
> Cheers,
> Ben
>
> >
> > --
> > http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her
> >
> >
>


-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

New person asking their way; was empty subject

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Hello Ayush,

On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 6:03 PM Ayush Kundu (RA1811035010045) <
ak9...@srmist.edu.in> wrote:

> Hello there, this is Ayush from Calcutta, India and currently I'm pursuing
> my Bachelors in Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering. I'm highly
> interested in thd field of Computer Science and equally keen to contribute
> some open source. My areas of interest include Competitive Programming(C++,
> Java, Python, R) and Data Analytics. I would be highly grateful if you
> could provide me with an opportunity. Thank You.
>

Everyone here has the opportunity to pick out a project and work on it. You
don't need a special invitation. This will work better if you join the list
(I think you didn't join this one) and then read some of the discussion
from the past month or two.

We make a huge variety of software, from small command line apps and our
frameworks (libraries), applications from small games to big video and
music players, and of course Plasma. Some prefer to work deep in the stack
and others on UI/UX.

Use our software for awhile, try fixing some bugs you find, and see where
your interests are.

Welcome to the KDE community!

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Re: BigBlueButton for non-KDE stuff?

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Let me say upfront that I don't know of a policy. However

On Thu, Jul 9, 2020 at 5:03 AM Pau Garcia Quiles 
wrote:

> Hello
>
> I was wondering if there is a policy or restriction to use meet.kde.org
>
> Why this question?
>
> Uyuni (https://www.uyuni-project.org/) is an open source systems
> management solution, at the moment mostly driven by SUSE (because Uyuni is
> the upstream for SUSE Manager). Uyuni is not associated with KDE, and only
> loosely associated with openSUSE.
>
> We started Uyuni Community Hours a couple of months ago, to great success.
> We were using GoToMeeting because that's what I had from SUSE but now we
> would like to move to an open source conferencing tool and are looking for
> a home.
>
> openSUSE offers Jitsi (meet.opensuse.org), which has the problem of not
> allowing room reservations.
>
> KDE's BigBlueButton allows reservations but I was wondering if it's OK to
> use meet.kde.org for non-KDE related discussion.
>
> --
> Pau Garcia Quiles
> http://www.elpauer.org
>

Kubuntu asked the BBB team years ago if we could have a free account, which
was generously offered. Why not try out their trial server at
https://bigbluebutton.org/ and then either ask for a free account or set up
the software on a server somewhere? It is free software, and the devels are
very nice people.

Valorie

Re: The chat situation

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Sun, Jun 14, 2020 at 3:40 PM Ihor Antonov  wrote:

> On Wednesday, 10 June 2020 16:16:55 PDT Nate Graham wrote:
> > ...
>
> Has anyone considered Zulip https://zulipchat.com/ ?
>
> Rust community uses it a lot, and it has THE BEST threading support ever.
>
> --
> Ihor Antonov


It is very nice, and the team are great people. I went to one of their
sessions a few years back at a GSoC Mentor Summit. Thinking about using it
for the KDE community, I asked them about bridging to IRC. They said that
they had tried and given up.

Without a way to bridge with IRC, I don't see how we can use it, no matter
how attractive it is.

Valorie

Re: Showing respect (was: Re: The KDEPIM / Akonadi situation)

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Fri, Jun 12, 2020 at 6:04 AM Friedrich W. H. Kossebau 
wrote:

> Am Freitag, 12. Juni 2020, 05:11:31 CEST schrieb Nate Graham:
> > However I think there is a bigger challenge that just the technical
> > issues. My interactions in bug reports have been quite negative, I have
> > to say, and I don't feel like the developer culture is very welcoming
> > right now.
>

I'm reading in here late, sorry.

It takes two to tango. I have not had negative experience with KDE PIM
> people.
>
> And Nate, if I saw you advocating to have my KDE software removed from KDE-
> centric distributions (even more when triggered because some proprietary-
> privacy-screwing service support being broken, is that what KDE is about?)
> like in https://phabricator.kde.org/T12486 , that would magically lower
> the
> quality of my interaction in bug reports with you as well. And no, this is
> not
> about who started.
>

Nate was acting there on behalf of Kubuntu, since we were putting out an
LTS last time. We get so many user issues with PIM, especially with the
Gmail situation. Nobody blamed the KDE PIM devels, but as a distro, Kubuntu
has to act to offer our users the most friendly, welcoming environment. We
can't ship software that won't work for a large swath of users.

KDE PIM is packaged and available as always. Sadly, we had to drop Amarok
until it returns to the new Kf5 world. It is our policy to offer all the
quality KDE software with the fewest patches possible, and Nate has been a
huge help in that effort.

Please, let us keep this a community working together, not against each
> other,
> and one showing respect to each others efforts. All of Plasma, KDEPIM,
> KDevelop etc. pp. have lots of issues. We could be bitching about each
> others
> products all day long and where their developers have not instantly cared
> about our very important issues and our oh so very clever and well done
> solution/fixes/improvements, with all their politeness, spending all of
> their
> time just for us, or where we see them going wrong ways and how they fail
> to
> meet other products quality and features.
> He, one could use Gnome, Visual Studio Code, Thunderbird. etc. pp., who
> needs
> KDE!!1!
>
> I am missing what this email thread here should achieve, despite being
> demotivating for those whose product is talked about or even bad-mouthing
> them. We all know there are big and small flaws. Those get fixed by people
> working on them. Not by people showing off their knowledge that there are
> flaws. And I doubt the developers of the products do not know about the
> flaws.
> They just do not have the resources left to handle them, given resources
> are
> limited.
>
> And when you compare KDEPIM to Evolution and Thunderbird, you also want to
> compare the current resources behind. Which of those products has
> developers
> behind that work on them during paid jobs, not only in their leisure time?
>
> I am happy to be able to use KMail, all the years.
>

Unfortunately I have not, and it used to be my favorite application. But
what to put on the ISO is not personal favorite or not, but about what is
the best experience for users.

If you want to help KDEPIM, but cannot become the needed qualified
> developer
> to help by being another resource yourself, see to make business plans
> instead
> to organize the needed resources to get more funded developers. If you
> also
> cannot do that, bad luck. World will not be improved by you.
> PIM is more complex given all the various data and service specifications
> and
> various buggy implementations of them which have to be handled to please
> user
> expectations. And you have to be able to also manage massive amounts of
> data
> without annoying the user by waiting times. It's not what your beginner/
> amateur developer can easily do. KDEPIM thankfully still has some
> professional
> developers around who invest their leisure time now and then. I am
> thankful
> they do, so KDEPIM is not dead. From my few bug reports in the last
> months,
> some of them were fixed the other day or were already before.
>
> Cheers
> Friedrich
>

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Re: Mentors needed

[Valorie Zimmerman]

He cannot officially stay part of GSoC under those conditions. 29th June is
First Evaluations by which time he should have finishing roughly one third
of his project.

Please ask him urgently to withdraw. We're waiting on the story
announcing and welcoming the accepted students until that is done.

We can discuss what can be done unofficially and out of GSoC when he has
the time to do the work.

Valorie

On Tue, May 5, 2020 at 6:51 AM Alexa M  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Yeah, he's the same student. He says that he could contribute only a
> little until his university exams end date and after that full-time. That
> could mean part or very little time until 10-20 of July and 100% the rest
> of the time, However there is still a possibility that the exams
> dates shift but he can't say for sure as there is no official
> announcement yet regarding the final dates. Concluding, he said that if
> this is ok for us then he would also be ok to continue under these
> conditions.
>
> Best,
> Alexandra
>
> Στις Τρί, 5 Μαΐ 2020 στις 5:45 π.μ., ο/η Valorie Zimmerman <
> valorie.zimmer...@gmail.com> έγραψε:
>
>> Are we discussing the same student, Agisilaos Kounelis who proposed "Port
>> QtQuickControls Calendar widget to QtQuickControls2 module" ? If so, they
>> have not withdrawn. If this indeed the student, if they will not
>> participate officially then need to *now* mark "Withdraw."
>>
>> Valorie
>>
>> On Mon, May 4, 2020 at 2:12 AM Alexa M  wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> The student decided to not to participate in GSoC this year due to other
>>> university obligations running late because of the current situation
>>> including uncertain exams dates and he was afraid he would not be able
>>> to comply.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> AlexandraB
>>>
>>> On Fri, May 1, 2020, 00:06 Timothée Giet  wrote:
>>>
>>>> Le 30/04/2020 à 22:07, Timothée Giet a écrit :
>>>>
>>>> Le 30/04/2020 à 21:38, Valorie Zimmerman a écrit :
>>>>
>>>> Hello folks, we have a project about porting a QtQuickControls module
>>>> to QtQuickControls2 with only one mentor who marked "I want to mentor" on
>>>> the GSoC webapp.
>>>>
>>>> If you have already signed into the GSoC webapp as a mentor, and would
>>>> like to help out with this project, please mark "I want to mentor" in the
>>>> app.
>>>>
>>>> If you have the skills needed to mentor but have not yet logged into
>>>> the app, please:
>>>>
>>>> 1. ensure that you are subscribed to KDE-Soc-Mentor mail list [1]
>>>>
>>>> 2. write to kde-soc-managem...@kde.org and ask to be invited to the
>>>> webapp.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks!
>>>>
>>>> Valorie
>>>>
>>>> 1. https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-soc-mentor
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I may not be the best mentor this project, but as GCompris would
>>>> benefit a lot from the output of this proposal (this missing module is the
>>>> main blocker we have to migrate to QtQuickControls2), I'm ok to
>>>> backup-mentor it... At least I can provide generic advices and testing.
>>>>
>>>> But some help from someone more specialist of Qt internals would be
>>>> welcome!
>>>>
>>>> Timothée
>>>>
>>>> On second thought, as I'm not so sure I can provide valuable help to
>>>> mentor this project, I unchecked the "want to mentor" button there... but
>>>> again, if there's anyone else willing to help mentoring this project, it
>>>> would be awesome.
>>>>
>>>> Timo.
>>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her
>>
>>
>>

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Re: Mentors needed

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Are we discussing the same student, Agisilaos Kounelis who proposed "Port
QtQuickControls Calendar widget to QtQuickControls2 module" ? If so, they
have not withdrawn. If this indeed the student, if they will not
participate officially then need to *now* mark "Withdraw."

Valorie

On Mon, May 4, 2020 at 2:12 AM Alexa M  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> The student decided to not to participate in GSoC this year due to other 
> university
> obligations running late because of the current situation including uncertain
> exams dates and he was afraid he would not be able to comply.
>
> Best,
> AlexandraB
>
> On Fri, May 1, 2020, 00:06 Timothée Giet  wrote:
>
>> Le 30/04/2020 à 22:07, Timothée Giet a écrit :
>>
>> Le 30/04/2020 à 21:38, Valorie Zimmerman a écrit :
>>
>> Hello folks, we have a project about porting a QtQuickControls module to
>> QtQuickControls2 with only one mentor who marked "I want to mentor" on the
>> GSoC webapp.
>>
>> If you have already signed into the GSoC webapp as a mentor, and would
>> like to help out with this project, please mark "I want to mentor" in the
>> app.
>>
>> If you have the skills needed to mentor but have not yet logged into the
>> app, please:
>>
>> 1. ensure that you are subscribed to KDE-Soc-Mentor mail list [1]
>>
>> 2. write to kde-soc-managem...@kde.org and ask to be invited to the
>> webapp.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> Valorie
>>
>> 1. https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-soc-mentor
>>
>> --
>> http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her
>>
>>
>> I may not be the best mentor this project, but as GCompris would benefit
>> a lot from the output of this proposal (this missing module is the main
>> blocker we have to migrate to QtQuickControls2), I'm ok to backup-mentor
>> it... At least I can provide generic advices and testing.
>>
>> But some help from someone more specialist of Qt internals would be
>> welcome!
>>
>> Timothée
>>
>> On second thought, as I'm not so sure I can provide valuable help to
>> mentor this project, I unchecked the "want to mentor" button there... but
>> again, if there's anyone else willing to help mentoring this project, it
>> would be awesome.
>>
>> Timo.
>>
>

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Re: Mentors needed

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Mon, May 4, 2020 at 2:12 AM Alexa M  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> The student decided to not to participate in GSoC this year due to other 
> university
> obligations running late because of the current situation including uncertain
> exams dates and he was afraid he would not be able to comply.
>
> Best,
> AlexandraB
>

That's unfortunate. Is is possible the student will still be able to work
on this project part-time if we can find mentoring for him?

Valorie

On Fri, May 1, 2020, 00:06 Timothée Giet  wrote:
>
>> Le 30/04/2020 à 22:07, Timothée Giet a écrit :
>>
>> Le 30/04/2020 à 21:38, Valorie Zimmerman a écrit :
>>
>> Hello folks, we have a project about porting a QtQuickControls module to
>> QtQuickControls2 with only one mentor who marked "I want to mentor" on the
>> GSoC webapp.
>>
>> ::some old snipped::
>>
>> I may not be the best mentor this project, but as GCompris would benefit
>> a lot from the output of this proposal (this missing module is the main
>> blocker we have to migrate to QtQuickControls2), I'm ok to backup-mentor
>> it... At least I can provide generic advices and testing.
>>
>> But some help from someone more specialist of Qt internals would be
>> welcome!
>>
>> Timothée
>>
>> On second thought, as I'm not so sure I can provide valuable help to
>> mentor this project, I unchecked the "want to mentor" button there... but
>> again, if there's anyone else willing to help mentoring this project, it
>> would be awesome.
>>
>> Timo.
>>
>

Mentors needed

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Hello folks, we have a project about porting a QtQuickControls module to
QtQuickControls2 with only one mentor who marked "I want to mentor" on the
GSoC webapp.

If you have already signed into the GSoC webapp as a mentor, and would like
to help out with this project, please mark "I want to mentor" in the app.

If you have the skills needed to mentor but have not yet logged into the
app, please:

1. ensure that you are subscribed to KDE-Soc-Mentor mail list [1]

2. write to kde-soc-managem...@kde.org and ask to be invited to the webapp.

Thanks!

Valorie

1. https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-soc-mentor

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Re: Valorie Zimmerman made a contribution in your honor

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Wed, Apr 22, 2020 at 9:58 AM Lydia Pintscher  wrote:

> Thank you, Valorie :)
>
> Cheers
> Lydia
>
> --
> Lydia Pintscher - http://about.me/lydia.pintscher
> KDE e.V. Board of Directors
> http://kde.org - http://open-advice.org
>

I thought it would be one more way to get our name out. :-)

Thank you KDE Community for all the awesome you bring.

Happy Earth Day,

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Additional mentors for GSOC project

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Hi all, this was posted to a list I don't subscribe to, but Ralf is still
needing some co-mentors, so am copy/pasting:

Additional mentor for GSOC project searched
> Ralf Habacker ralf.habacker at freenet.de
> Wed Apr 8 11:40:42 BST 2020
> Hi,
> for the appended GSOC project KDE organization wants to have additional
> mentors. The task is to be a backup for the main mentor.
>  From https://google.github.io/gsocguides/mentor/:
> Mentor: Mentors are people from the community who volunteer to work with
> a student. Mentors provide guidance such as pointers to useful
> documentation, code reviews, etc. In addition to providing students with
> feedback and pointers, a mentor acts as an ambassador to help student
> contributors integrate into their project’s community. Some
> organizations choose to assign more than one mentor to each of their
> students. Many members of the community provide guidance to their
> project’s GSoC students without mentoring in an “official” capacity,
> much as they would answer anyone’s questions on the project’s mailing
> list or IRC channel.


This isn't quite correct. If you want to help out, please subscribe to
KDE-Soc-Mentor ML [1]

Then write to kde-soc-managem...@kde.org and ask to be invited to the GSoC
webapp. Accept the invitation to register as Ralf correctly says.

If anyone has interest, please register at the Google GSOC site
> (https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/) as mentor and click on "Want to
> mentor" at
>
> https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/dashboard/organization/4610988642402304/proposal/6153080292245504/
> Regards
> Ralf


URL: <
> http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-finance-apps/attachments/20200408/001847f9/attachment-0001.pdf
> >


Thank you! GSoC would like us to have *two* backup mentors per student this
year, given the tenuous health situation in the world right now.

Valorie

1. https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-soc-mentor

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

More GSoC Mentors needed

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Hi folks, we have possibly enough primary mentors for GSoC this year,
however the GSoC admins are urging us during these pandemic times, to have
*two* backup mentors for each student. If you think you can help us out:

1. Subscribe to the KDE-Soc-Mentor mail list:
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-soc-mentor

2. Message one of us admins your google-connected email address, so we can
invite you to the webapp

3. Accept the invite from the webapp, and dig into proposals you would like
to help out with. Please comment either to the student in the google doc,
or to your fellow mentors on the mail proposal page.

Thanks!

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Re: Google Summer of Code Proposal (Draft)

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Wed, Mar 25, 2020 at 12:39 PM Mohamad Ziad Alkabakibi <
m.ziad.k2...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear sir,
>

Not all of us are men.

I am writing to submit my proposal draft. Furthermore, I would like to
> mention that I do not have a mentor yet.
>
> I would like to know the review of the idea in general so I can continue
> working on its details and submit the complete proposal document as soon as
> possible.
>
> Please find the proposal draft attached to this email.
>

That is not how this works. Had you read the rules, you would have known
this [1]. Writing to a general list like this so late in the GSoC process
is unrealistic, at best.

>
>
> Your sincerely
>
> Mohamad Ziad Alkabakibi
>
>
>
> Sent from Mail  for
> Windows 10
>

Valorie

1. https://community.kde.org/GSoC

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Re: Instagram Account

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Mon, Mar 23, 2020 at 5:00 AM Jonathan Riddell  wrote:

> Me and Niccolo (veggero) have set up an instagram account for KDE.  It
> feels like a fun new way to engage with some of our users.  Instagram is
> based on pictures of pretty people and places so screenshots are cool there
> but will likely bore the audience so we're keen to have pics of KDE doing
> stuff.
>

Neato!

https://www.instagram.com/kdecommunity/
>
> So send me your pics of doing KDE activities.
>
> More discussion here https://phabricator.kde.org/T12836
>
> And if you want to help out let me know.
>
> Jonathan
>

To you personally, or to some NextCloud instance?

Valorie

Re: 2020 HackIllinois hackathon: after-action report

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Very cool, Nate! Thanks for the report.

Valorie

On Mon, Mar 2, 2020 at 5:40 PM Nate Graham  wrote:

> Greetings KDE friends!
>
> This weekend I attended the 2020 HackIllinois event in Champaign-Urbana
> as a FOSS mentor, representing KDE. I'd like to present my after-action
> report:
>
>
>
> *Overview*
>
> First the good news: the KDE team won!
>
> My students reported that the judges were impressed with their results,
> excitement, and passion, and the fact that one of the submitted patches
> (https://invent.kde.org/kde/konsole/-/merge_requests/68) has already
> been merged.
>
> My students principally worked on building a visualizer for plasma-pa's
> microphone audio input level
> (https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=411563) and managed to put
> together a pretty decent proof-of-concept:
> https://phabricator.kde.org/F8146046 (code is available at
> https://github.com/NSLeung/KDE-Neon-HackIllinois2020/commits/joey_branch).
>
> The code is not in a merge-worthy state, but could definitely get there
> eventually.
>
> They also submitted some nice smaller patches: the aforementioned
> Konsole fix, and one for Dolphin too:
> https://phabricator.kde.org/D27757. They also made a thorough
> investigation of a significant Yakuake issue that has been affecting two
> of them: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=389448.
>
> Two of the students in particular seem quite eager to continue their
> contributions.
>
>
>
> *Promo & social observations:*
>
> Nobody had an unkind or negative word for KDE. People who had heard of
> us really seemed to love us.
>
> The other FOSS mentors at the event who I talked to had all heard of KDE
> and some had used Plasma in the past or still do. While most of the
> students I talked to had never heard of KDE, most of the ones who had
> were already using a Plasma-based distro (mostly KDE Neon, with some
> Manjaro)! Several GNOME-using students were impressed by what they saw
> and eager to help out, and the students already using KDE software were
> super duper enthusiastic. Most had never filed any bug reports or
> submitted patches, but eagerly jumped into this. They did not find the
> process of doing so especially difficult, so I suspect that a lack of
> outreach was principally what had kept them from doing so before.
>
> Students were especially impressed with Yakuake, the embedded terminals
> in Dolphin and Kate, and Plasma itself. They all thought it was very
> attractive and polished-looking.
>
>
>
> *Onboarding & technical observations:*
>
> Overall, the process of setting up a KDE development environment from
> scratch was not a major pain point, especially for the Linux-using
> students. However a number of build failures took a lot of time to
> investigate and teach people how to work around:
> https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=418328,
> https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=418330,
> https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=418331,
> https://phabricator.kde.org/D10041. Please help to keep the master
> branches of your projects compilable with default CMake settings, common
> compilers, and easily installable dependencies, everyone! :)
>
> The students using Apple laptops had to set up their development
> environments in virtual machines due to a lack of macOS support in our
> current developer tooling and documentation. I had them install Neon
> Developer Edition, which worked fine overall, but it occurred to me that
> this edition would be more useful for its stated purpose if it shipped
> with a pre-generated .kdesrc-buildrc config file, plus kdesrc-build
> itself and all necessary dependencies from
>
> https://community.kde.org/Guidelines_and_HOWTOs/Build_from_source/Install_the_dependencies#KDE_neon.2C_Debian.2C_Ubuntu.2C_Kubuntu.
>
> These enhancements would have yielded been significant time savings for
> my VM-using students.
>
>
>
> *Hardware observations:*
>
>  From my observations, at least 70% of the students attending the event
> were using Apple hardware running macOS. Most of the remaining students
> were using non-Apple hardware running some flavor of Linux, about a
> 60/40 mix of Plasma and GNOME, respectively. I did not see a single
> student using a PC running any version of Windows.
>
>
>
> Overall it felt like a worthwhile endeavor! Now time for some sleep...
>
> Nate
>


-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Re: Welcome, Adam!

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Sat, Feb 22, 2020 at 12:37 PM Adam Szopa  wrote:

> Dnia sobota, 22 lutego 2020 21:32:47 CET Lydia Pintscher pisze:
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > last year we were looking for someone to help us with project
> > coordination tasks. Today I'm happy to let you know that we have found
> > a great person. I'd like to introduce you to Adam Szopa who will be
> > working with us from now on. I'll let him say more about himself.
> >
> > Adam's focus will be on supporting the goals - especially in the first
> > months. He'll help with setting up regular calls, reporting progress,
> > goals sprints organisation as well as any other organisational things
> > the goals keepers need support with to make sure the goals make good
> > progress. After that Adam will also have some time to help with other
> > project coordination tasks beyond the goals. If your team would like
> > to take advantage of that please reach out to me and Adam.
> >
> > Please give him a warm welcome.
> >
> >
> > Cheers
> > Lydia
>
> Hello KDE community!
>
> Thank you Lydia for the introduction. I'll take a few moments to talk
> about
> who I am, and how I want to help KDE become the organization it deserves
> to
> be.
>
> I've worked for several years as a software developer for various
> companies,
> but in the last few years I've found that I can bring even more value if I
> take on a more management focused role. And so, my programming time has
> turned
> into occasional Kata exercise in Rust, and my job is helping developers
> however I can in  achieving their goals, and helping management be more
> organized and informed.
>
> My experience with KDE started when I found early screenshots of the new
> upcoming Plasma 5 desktop. Around that time I was looking to move my main
> PC
> from a different ecosystem, and something with that new look really
> resonated
> with me. Let me tell you, the early "Kubuntu Plasma 5.0 alpha preview"
> system
> was, wild, unstable but very exciting! I'm very glad I stuck with it, and
> witnessed the evolution into the desktop it is today. Eventually I moved
> to
> KDE Neon, and that's where I'm at now.
>
> KDE is an amazing community. No matter if you're an active contributor, a
> bug
> submitter or just a user of the software, you help create a better digital
> environment for thousands of people, an environment that is aligned with
> the
> KDE vision (https://community.kde.org/KDE/Vision). And while the
> community
> itself is growing, and the software reaches new and new people every day,
> the
> hurdles of maintaining the organization part of it all grow as well.
>
> And this is were I come in. As Lydia mentioned I will first focus on
> making
> sure there is nothing stopping us from reaching our goals (
> https://kde.org/
> goals), and then move to other areas where my coordination assistance can
> help.
>
> Remember, there is no shame in asking for help. The same way you'd ask the
> community for technical assistance with the software, you can ask me for
> coordination help.
>
> I'm reachable by:
>
> email: adam.sz...@kde.org
>
> matrix: @adam:kde.org
>
> I'm looking forward to hearing from you.
>
> - Adam
>

Welcome Adam! I'm working with the Community Working Group and the
Onboarding initiative. Not that onboarding is new, but we've been trying to
get a work group together since Akademy last year. It seems all of us have
been too busy onboarding new folks to do the paperwork and meetings that
the Board would like. We've just finished the Season of KDE program and are
now in the beginning of the Google Summer of Code gear-up.

Glad to have you helping us out!

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Re: Finalizing my position as Marketing Contractor

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Amen to that Jens! Ivana, you might think you didn't do enough, but you
give the job your best, and stepped back when you needed to. This is a
wonderful example to all of us. You said,

The whole experience helped me overcome many of my fears, allowed me to
> meet wonderful people from all over the world, and taught me valuable
> lessons about marketing in open source communities. I'll keep learning, and
> I'll never stop striving to become better.


Thank you for that!

Valorie

On Wed, Feb 19, 2020 at 1:46 PM Jens  wrote:

> <3 It has been awesome seeing you kick ass in KDE!
>
> Don't be a stranger!
>
> /Jens
>
> On onsdag 19 februari 2020 kl. 11:21:11 CET Ivana Isadora Devcic wrote:
> > Hello everyone,
> >
> > hope you're doing well!
> >
> > As most of you know, I have been employed by KDE e.V. as a Marketing
> > Contractor alongside Paul Brown. Those of you involved in KDE Promo might
> > have noticed my absence lately, and the truth is I haven't been actively
> > contributing for a while now.
> >
> > The reason is that my responsibilities at my day job have increased
> > significantly over the last year. I often work long hours and my weekly
> > schedule is highly unpredictable. This makes it difficult to contribute
> to
> > KDE in the capacity that is expected of me. This has also unfairly put
> > pressure on Paul, who had to work extra to cover for me.
> >
> > Therefore, I have decided to step down. As I'm no longer able to support
> > the community, I don't want to waste everyone's time and resources. It's
> > time to make room for someone new and fresh.
> >
> > The KDE e.V. Board has already approved this decision, so I am just
> > announcing it now to make it official. I'll use this opportunity to thank
> > them for everything - for taking a chance on me in the first place; for
> > always being supportive, understanding, and patient; and for being the
> best
> > employers anyone could wish for. :)
> >
> > Although I'm sad that I didn't accomplish much in KDE Promo, I'm still
> > happy that I played a part in reviving the team. The Promo work is never
> > done - we have to keep spreading the good word about KDE and our
> software.
> >
> > I'm confident that those who come after me will do better than I did, and
> > that they will make you all proud. Also, I'm not going anywhere, really
> :).
> > I'll still stick around in Promo and try to contribute as much as I can.
> >
> > Before I close this email, I'd like to thank everyone in KDE who welcomed
> > me and worked with me. I know it sounds corny, but this has really been a
> > dream job for me. The whole experience helped me overcome many of my
> fears,
> > allowed me to meet wonderful people from all over the world, and taught
> me
> > valuable lessons about marketing in open source communities. I'll keep
> > learning, and I'll never stop striving to become better.
> >
> > Thanks for reading! I wish you all the best, and if you ever wanna chat,
> > you know where to find me.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Ivana Isadora Devcic
>

Re: KDE Developer Documentation

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Fri, Dec 27, 2019 at 6:53 PM Juan Carlos Torres 
wrote:

> On Sat, Dec 28, 2019, 08:39 Olivier Churlaud  wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> At CERN we didn't speak about this, except with the Plasma team who spoke
>> about having a cookbook based on git containing all the code and
>> explanations.
>>
>> Sebastian Klüger was the one who raised the idea. I have no idea if
>> something came out of this.
>>
>
> I wasn't made aware of any development in that matter when I asked Plasma
> devs. The problem still stands that QML and JS documentation seem difficult
> to properly do in Doxygen even with the QML extension.
>
> For frameworks we wanted to break the idea that you need to take all kf5
>> libs to use one, hence we didn't want to promote too much the transverse
>> tutorial. This idea can be challenged, though.
>>
>
> I think there's room for both. The Frameworks documentation definitely
> need to be standalone and complete, including examples. But there will also
> be some need for tutorials and guides that revolve around themes, topics,
> and applications. It's less about "you need all kf5 libs" and more about
> "you can connect and use multiple kf5 libs this way to make Qt
> applications". These would be higher-level documentation rather than
> Framework-specific.
>
> Whether they can or should be in the apidox may be a different discussion.
> I'll try to review the tutorials and see which can go where and also think
> of tutorials and guides that may not be a direct fit for apidocs.
>

By the way, the Frameworks Cookbook was written and is still available:
https://community.kde.org/Books for more information. And we did do it in
git!

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Re: New website design

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Sat, Dec 21, 2019 at 7:09 AM Johannes Zarl-Zierl 
wrote:

> Hi everyone!
>
> The KDE website team has created a new website for KPhotoAlbum. Visually,
> the
> site reflects our goal of moving closer towards the rest of the KDE
> community.
>
> The old site has served us well over the years, but some things were hard
> to
> find and other information was duplicated between the website the KDE
> Userbase
> Wiki. We tried hard to clean up the site content and make it nicer to
> browse.
>
> From a technical viewpoint, the new site uses a static site generator,
> which
> hopefully makes things easier for the sysadmin team.
>
> Since the new site has gone live today, I invite everyone to take a look at
>
>  https://kphotoalbum.org
>
>
> A very special thanks to Simon Krull who did the initial port from PHP to
> Jekyll, and to Carl Schwan who listened to our needs and polished the site
> to
> the point where it is today. Without them, this move would not have been
> possible!
>
> While we're at it: another thanks to the KDE sysadmin team! Most of the
> time,
> it's easy to forget about you because things "just work". Yet, whenever
> some
> thing breaks or a change requires your help, you're always quick to help!
>
>
> Cheers,
>   Johannes
>   (KPhotoAlbum maintainer)
>

Thank you Johannes for announcing this and presenting your shiny new
website. It looks wonderful! Thanks to the rest of you who made this
happen.

All the best,

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Re: Planet KDE posts not about KDE (was: Re: Please don't make planet.kde.org into a politics feed)

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Sat, Dec 14, 2019 at 12:58 PM Alexander Neundorf 
wrote:

> On Mittwoch, 11. Dezember 2019 22:23:10 CET Boudewijn Rempt wrote:
> ...
> > The purpose of the planet is not to give news, is not to soothe troubled
> > breasts, is not to provide PR, it's a place where blogs by KDE developers
> > are brought together, and yes, that means that you will see other parts
> of
> > those KDE developer's lifes. This is healthy; too many people believe
> that
> > working on free, kde, open, source, software is the only thing we do or
> > are. Let them learn.
> >
> > I don't want people to see only the KDE, Krita part of my life, but also
> the
> > rest of what I am.
>
> +1
>
> Alex
>

This is also why I read the planet. Other feeds I read (Linuxchix, Ubuntu)
are similar.

Valorie

Re: Thank you! (was: Re: Reducing the load on Sysadmin)

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Amen to that! Sysadmin have always supported us (Student Programs,
Community Working Group) in when we've asked and even before we ask. :-)

Thank you.

Valorie

On Sun, Nov 10, 2019 at 3:28 AM Martin Steigerwald 
wrote:

> Dear Ben, dear admins for KDE infrastructure,
>
> Ben Cooksley - 09.11.19, 00:49:49 CET:
> > One of the things that was prepared as a result of the Sysadmin BoF at
> > Akademy was a list of systems and services which we look after and
> > provide to the community.
> >
> > Whilst individually all of the services seem fairly reasonable and
> > maintainable, the cumulative number of them has created a situation
> > where they limit our ability to reasonably maintain our services as a
> > collective whole.
>
> I followed the discussion followed by this and your other mails about
> that topic. And I am completely missing a very important thing in there:
>
> *Thank you*!
>
> *Thank you big time* to you and the other admins for all the work you do
> to keep KDE infrastructure running smoothly.
>
> Your work often is a lot less visible than the next shiny feature inside
> of Plasma or an application. It often happens in the background and may
> not be always thanked for at all, just cause no one notices to what
> extent it is your work that keeps all the services we take for granted
> running so smoothly as I do. I know how it can feel as I did quite some
> of similar work myself for some time.
>
> On top of that you and other admins responded to some requests of mine
> often quite quickly and even when it was just about re-open and fill a
> mailing list archive for kdepim / kdepim-users on own KDE's own
> infrastructure or some spam here and there. You did that on top of all
> the other work you have.
>
> So again, so that it really sinks in:
>
> *Thank you*
>
>
> In addition to that I ask everyone who responds to the more detailed
> mails to consider whether your answer will mostly mean even more work
> for the admins or whether it would actually help to reduce some of the
> workload. Please think a moment or two how you can make is easier for
> the admins to ease reduce their workload instead of adding even more
> work on top of it.
>
> I considered to offer some of my time to KDE admin work some times ago,
> but so far did not do that step out of the fear that I would easily be
> swamped by work then while leading an already very busy life and
> struggling to achieve some of my most important goals. And knowing how
> challenging it can be for me to say "no"… I rather did not offer help,
> even tough I would consider myself qualified enough for this kind of
> work, beyond a little collecting of some mails into an archive so far or
> so.
>
> I see your mail as a call for help, a call to have your workload eased a
> bit, Ben. I thought you would only be writing this in case you struggle
> with the current workload. And I can easily imagine that you do.
>
> All I ask everyone for is some respect for that, some respect for the
> often unseen work you admins do.
>
> So again:
>
> *Thank you!*
>
> I appreciate your work. Big time.
>
> Best,
> --
> Martin
>
>
>

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Re: Call for Mentors and Project Ideas for Season of KDE 2020

[Valorie Zimmerman]

It's so great to see Caio stepping up to lead Season of KDE for the first
time. Please everyone support him and help us onboard new contributors!

Valorie

On Thu, Nov 7, 2019 at 6:06 AM Caio Jordão Carvalho 
wrote:

> Hello, everyone!
>
> After a one-year hiatus since the last edition of Season of KDE in 2018,
> we have started to make plans for the next edition!
>
> But before announcing the program, we need to have a significant number of
> mentors and interesting projects. Now we have an Ideas Page (
> https://community.kde.org/SoK/Ideas/2020) where mentors can list their
> projects. Remember that SoK is more general than GSoC, so these ideas are
> not limited only to coding tasks and you can include projects related to
> documentation, artwork, translation, reports and other types of work as
> well as code.
>
> Now we have this timeline schedule and the announcement post is going to
> be published soon, so we need to include the ideas on the page now.
>
> The timeline is:
>
> 2nd December 2019 - 3th January 2020: Participant and Mentor Application
> period
>
> 6th January 2020: Projects announced
>
> 8th January 2020, 00:00 UTC: SoK work period begins
>
> 17th February 2020, 23:59 UTC: End of work
>
> 21th February 2020: Results announced
>
> 28th February 2020: Certificates issued
>
> Beginning of Q3 2020: Merchandise and Swag sent out by courier
>
>
> That's all for now, folks!
>
> Best,
> Caio
>
> --
> Caio Jordão de Lima Carvalho
> - http://carvalho.site
>

Re: Requesting for guidance

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Tue, Oct 22, 2019 at 6:49 PM Yukti Khosla  wrote:

> Hello Sir,
>

Hi Yukti,

As a beginner, I am a little confused as to how I should start
> contributing. I am well versed in Python, C, C++, and Java.
>
> https://www.hackerrank.com/yuktikhosla?hr_r=1
>
> I would be obliged if I could be given a chance to contribute.
>
> Thanking you,
> Yours sincerely,
> Yukti Khosla.
>

It's good to hear from you. Lots of us are not "sirs" and we're not very
formal. I see that Nate quickly replied with some details. I'll add a note
about using email lists: you will want to subscribe so that you don't have
to wait for the list admin to release your post to the list. See
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community for how to do that.

Welcome!

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Re: Climate Impact and KDE

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Fri, Sep 20, 2019 at 4:04 AM Paul Brown  wrote:

> On viernes, 20 de septiembre de 2019 11:02:44 (CEST) Jens wrote:
> > So recent discussions about Climate Strike raised some very good points
> > about what KDE as a community can do to decrease its footprint. I want
> > to thank Friedrich for raising them.
> >
> > Personally I think this is a rather fun focus for design, community
> > work and development (and I should probably have thought about it
> > faster so it could have been squished into the goals voting/suggesting
> > - but such is life) and just want to toss some ideas around if others
> > are interested
> >
> > Community ideas:
> > Making a clear statement that carbon footprint in travel will be a
> > factor in travel support from the eV. Basically we know that there is
> > zero possibility for some to choose, say trains (train from India or
> > across the Atlantic is not feasible), but adding that as a part of the
> > application process; "choose best transport with ecology and
> > environment in mind" can go a long way and for larger events asking
> > organizers to look up alternatives and present them as part of the "how
> > to get to X" page (much of this is already done of course but
> > formalizing it would be awesome).
>
>
> > Decentralized and Online community events. Now I think we all know the
> > value of meeting IRL, how important that is and how it can't be
> > replaced, but I would love to explore how we can make online or smaller
> > co-run events more interesting. Basically trying to time several
> > smaller local events with each other and do some broadcast of talks and
> > a way for each event to be able to ask questions of the others talks
> > (as if they where there). Evaluate and check how we can make social
> > events but online sort of.
>

Randa was so great for that. Sadly we can't get that particular house, but
perhaps someplace like the Linuxhotel? And yes, with some streaming of
talks so that those who can't attend can still participate.

> Improve our internal social communication. This sounds a bit guache but
> > I think looking at how we can make the forum/social media angle more
> > attractive, perhaps more formal, might help the wider community feel a
> > part without having to travel to large events (which beyond ecological
> > impact is often impossible for many, for various reasons)
>

Jonathan Riddell has volunteered to set up Discourse for us, to test as a
replacement for the KDE Forums, and perhaps for our mail lists as well.
Those who are interested in this should check out
https://phabricator.kde.org/T11675. It may take awhile because of the
Identity issue, but there is hope!


> > Technical Ideas:
> > Look at Plasma and applications energy consumption - and I know it is a
> > piss in the ocean but its several pisses in the ocean - and how to
> > either improve that further or create systems to minimize energy
> > consumption or creating something to more clearly and accessibly show
> > energy consumption and suggestions to improve it.
>

My 6-year-old Dell is running the latest, no problem! The only boost to it
I did was replace the failed old HD/SSD with a new SSD.

> Publish our own energy consumption and carbon footprint in regards to
> > servers etc (Ben Cooksley posted a link and perhaps a clear write up on
> > the subject would be cool?), and mention/formalize our own commitment
> > to it.
>

Yes please.

> A closer relationship with Fairphone and Postmarket OS. So, from what I
> > can gather have a pretty good relationship with Postmarket OS (via
> > Plasma Mobile), perhaps explore that with regards to Fairphone together
> > with them? Explore hardware vendors who try to minize their ecological
> > impact and see if we can either do things with them - OR do things
> > aimed at their hardware?
> >
> > (Please note: I am not as technically adept as most here so y'all
> > probably have way better ideas than me on this subject)
> >
> > What do you think?
> >
> > /Jens
>
> This sounds like it should be put in a task, worked on a bit and
> formalised
> later in our documentation (Wiki?). It is brilliant first step and I, for
> one,
> appreciate and support it.
>
> Thanks for that, Jens.
>
> Paul
>

Yay! The e.V. has been discussing a policy for the e.V. itself, but a
community-led effort would support that amazingly well. This is our future
we're discussing. I have a grandson, age 11. We are creating the world
he'll live in. I think we can help.

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Re: Re[2]: FSF leadership

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Good question, Jake.

On Thu, Sep 19, 2019 at 3:07 PM Jay tay  wrote:

> Why does race, gender etc. Even have to be discussed. More politics in a
> non political place. I'd rather talk about tech and furthering this
> project. This is ridiculous.
>
> --
> Jake A.
>
::snip old::

The reason the issue is important is that many of our potential
contributors have been driven away, and are now being driven away. This
hinders our tech development. Sorry, anywhere humans collectively do things
together is by definition "political".

Our discussion is all about furthering this project and the FOSS community
as a whole, so we can make good tech that suits the needs of all of us.

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Re: FSF leadership

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Thanks for all the input so far, especially from Lydia on behalf of the
Board.

On Thu, Sep 19, 2019 at 12:17 PM Nate Graham  wrote:

> I find it amusing that there is such diversity in interpretations of
> what "ensure diversity" means. :)
>
> Some people seem to interpret it to mean "remove institutional barriers
> and bias faced by non-straight-white-male candidates" and other people
> interpret it to mean "prefer and promote non-straight-white-male
> candidates over others".
>
> These are different things, and if we don't agree on what is being
> proposed, it's easy to accidentally argue against something you may
> actually approve of because it was expressed using terms that did not
> mean what you thought they mean.
>

+1

So instead of using ambiguous turns of phrase likely to provoke an
> argument over definition of terms, how about we just be clear and say
> what we mean?
>
> By "ensure diversity", are we talking about "remove institutional
> barriers and bias faced by non-straight-white-male candidates"? Or
> something else?
>
> Nate
>

When I say diversity, I mean removing barriers and bias. I would hope that
*all* of our actions, including our code, accomplish that. This is why one
of our values is accessiblility, why we stress internationalization, have
active translation teams and welcome all people to the community. As Harald
said, we " ought to encourage and light the way."

Valorie


> On 9/19/19 5:54 AM, Nadeem Hasan wrote:
> > It is amazing to see as we reach the year 2020, the amount of ignorance
> > (willful or otherwise) regarding what ensuring diversity means among the
> > educated adults in this group.
> >
> > The call to ensure diversity does not mean choosing someone less
> > qualified who is not "white straight male" for the "sake" of diversity.
> > It means removing any hurdles that have been institutionally put in
> > place to prevent such a person from being selected for a leadership role
> > even if they are well qualified.
> >
> > Regards.
> >
> > On Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 6:48 AM Harald Sitter  > > wrote:
> >
> > On Thu, Sep 19, 2019 at 10:29 AM Jens  > > wrote:
> >  >
> >  > TBH I worry less about past transgressions or the communicative
> > fallout
> >  > than I do a lack of response from us. (this is me not having a
> > blessed
> >  > clue what exactly went down 2009)
> >  >
> >  > I do agree with you on many points and I think you raise a lot of
> > good
> >  > concerns at the same time, we missed the boat then to comment -
> what
> >  > we're seeing now is not a boat ten years travelled, but a new one
> >  > launched from shore so to speak.
> >  >
> >  > I think with a bit of finesse we can use it as a voice of support
> for
> >  > FSF, a hope to ensure a leadership that can better serve the FSF
> as
> >  > well as weave it into a comment on our commitment for the same -
> > AND do
> >  > so in a way that can include the ideological diversity of KDE.
> >  >
> >  > In practice (FOR EXAMPLE):
> >  > "We support the FSF in its work to find a new President and would
> > urge
> >  > them to find one that represent the Free Software movement as a
> whole
> >  > and can grow the entirety of the community.
> >  > We all (the KDE community included) have to ensure that past
> > biases do
> >  > not limit our choices of leadership and that access to Free
> Software,
> >  > the technologies and the communities isn't blocked by those same
> > biases
> >  > and cultures."
> >
> > +1 to what Jens said in the entire thread.
> >
> > I will add that I don't think we need to publicly talk to or about
> the
> > FSF specifically though, but maybe I am just not grasping the scope
> of
> > the incident there. Perhaps we should; after all, while the FSF is a
> > separate organization it is still the figure head of the free
> software
> > movement as a whole. We are part of the movement and so our opinion
> > matters and we should make it heard. At the same time I am not sure
> > what wagging a finger in the particular direction of the FSF
> > accomplishes.
> >
> > With that in mind I would propose that we make a statement, but not
> to
> > the FSF... our statement should be one in support of a healthy,
> > diverse and inclusive free software community to that very community
> > at large. This applies to the FSF, to GNOME, to us, we all need to be
> > aware of our own biases so we can prevent bias-driven decision making
> > and foster diversity.
> >
> > KDE's statement ought to encourage and light the way.
> >
> > HS
>

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

FSF leadership

[Valorie Zimmerman]

As many of you know, Richard Stallman has stepped down from the FSF.
However, his supporters on the FSF Board remain. The FSF is on our Advisory
Board, according to https://ev.kde.org/advisoryboard.php

Accordingly, I would like us (the KDE Community) to advise them to
diversify their Board, as RedHat has done here:
https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/open-letter-free-software-foundation-board-directors.
If we cannot do this as a community, I would like to ask the Board to do
this on our behalf.

All the best,

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Re: Retirement of notes.kde.org

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Hey Ben,

On Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 11:58 AM Ben Cooksley  wrote:

> Good evening all,
>
> Currently we're in the situation where the software we use to run
> notes.kde.org is both difficult to maintain, as well as support (for
> things like document confidentiality for various groups within KDE).
>
> We'd therefore like to retire the service, replacing it with the
> Realtime Text Editor within Nextcloud (share.kde.org). Internally this
> editor uses Markdown.
>
> You can find a demo of this at https://share.kde.org/s/gtFcRmwetRKqTZJ
> (no login required)
>
> It would be appreciated if everyone could please test the realtime
> text editor and let us know if they encounter any issues.
>
> In terms of feature differences, we are aware that
> highlighting/authorship information won't be retained by the new
> editor, and there can occasionally be problems when editing the same
> line with someone else simultaneously.
>
> If everyone is okay with this we'd like to go ahead with shutting down
> notes.kde.org as soon as possible.
>
> Thanks,
> Ben Cooksley
> KDE Sysadmin
>

I noticed that most every BoF at Akademy this year used notes to link the
BoF notes. Will all these notes be just disappeared? If so, that is really
unfortunate. There is a reason many of us continue to use notes. One can
see who typed what, one can see the history of the doc - and other points
mentioned on https://share.kde.org/s/gtFcRmwetRKqTZJ.

::sigh::

Valorie
-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Re: KDE userbase wiki update

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Second what Kenny said! All the Community pages I looked at look fantastic.

Thanks so much Carl and Ben for getting this done.

Valorie

On Sat, Jul 27, 2019 at 12:53 PM Kenny Duffus  wrote:

> On 27 July 2019 18:43:23 BST, c...@carlschwan.eu wrote:
>>
>> Hello KDE community,
>>
>> today following the userbase wiki update, the KDE Community wiki was updated
>> to MediaWiki 1.31 and is now using the Aether theme (with a dark theme for
>> browser supporting the prefers-color-scheme specification). Let me know if 
>> you
>> find any graphical glitsches or bugs. :)
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Carl Schwan
>> https://carlschwan.eu
>>
>>
> Great, thanks for working on this
>
> --
>
> Kenny
> (Male pronouns: he/him)
>


-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Re: Testbed Discourse Server For Trial discuss.kde.org.uk

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Hi all,

On Sun, Jun 30, 2019 at 10:48 AM Luigi Toscano 
wrote:

> Nate Graham ha scritto:
> > On 6/29/19 4:04 PM, Thomas Pfeiffer wrote:
> >> Hi Jonathan,
> >> Thank you for setting this up!
> >> I've recently had the opportunity to experience Discourse in action in
> >> another community, and found it to fulfill most of the things we found
> >> lacking in both of our current forum and mailing list software (which
> >> makes sense given that they're both age-old and haven't seen much - if
> >> any - exciting feature development in years).
> >> So I (personally, not speaking for the board) would really like us to
> >> test it out and see if we can replace first our forum and hopefully some
> >> day Mailman with Discourse.
> >> Thanks,
> >> Thomas
> >>
> >
> > +1, I'm also quite in favor of this. Having used it in other
> communities, I
> > find that it works well as a sort of half-forum-half-mailing-list tool
> that
> > can succeed in replacing both.
>
> I may have already asked this: do we have a plan to evaluate also
> hyperkitty
> (mailman 3 frontend) before completely replacing also the mailing lists? It
> provides a forum-like interface.
>
> --
> Luigi
>

I'm using the Mailman 3/hyperkitty for genealogy mail lists at
Rootsweb.com. I was not in on the setup, which IMO is not done very well at
Rootsweb, so maybe these comments are unfair.

So far though, I Do Not Like MM3, or hyperkittly. If there is a way to
administer lists via the commandline, as we have now with Listadmin, I've
not found it. Hyperkitty (besides being an extraordinarily bad name) is not
a good forum replacement at ALL. The search barely works, for starters.
True, the way our KDE list archives is set up is bad as well.

That said, I'm not sold on Discourse. I've tried the one ubuntu has set up
[1], and have not yet figured out how to get the email interface to work
correctly. Aha, while clicking around in it I see that they didn't enable
that feature. I find Discourse hard to move around it. I keep having to
mess with the URL to get back to Home. So far, old mailman lists +
IRC/T/Matrix wins.

Whether Discourse could replace our KDE forums is an open question.

Valorie

1. https://discourse.ubuntu.com/

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her

Re: Party Train to Akademy

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Oooo, what a lovely idea! I'm already booked on the TGV though, since I'm
arriving in Paris on Monday to spend a couple of days with a genealogy and
anthropology friend.

Taking the Paris Gare Lyon/Milano P Garibal  on 5 September at 10:37
(Thursday morning) Paris time. I put myself in the notes anyway, although
the tickets are already booked.

Valorie

On Thu, Jun 27, 2019 at 4:26 AM Dan Leinir Turthra Jensen 
wrote:

> On Thursday, 27 June 2019 12:16:56 BST Jonathan Riddell wrote:
> > Me and Dan
>
>   Hello, i'm also dan ;)
>
> > would like to take the train to Akademy from London via Paris,
> > it's a full day's travel but about the same cost as flying, much better
> for
> > your carbon footprint, much better views and none of the faffy and
> > expensive getting to and from airports to sit around for hours.
> >
> > If you'd like in to the booking let me know, either joining at London or
> at
> > Paris
> > https://notes.kde.org/p/akademy-2019-party-train
> >
> > Jonathan
>
>
> --
> ..dan / leinir..
> http://leinir.dk/
>
>
>

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Re: KDE Github mirror members

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Wed, Jun 26, 2019 at 11:15 AM Albert Vaca Cintora 
wrote:

> I've created an etherpad so we can collect the list of people who
> wants to be added.
>
> Add your emails there (not your github handles):
>
> https://notes.kde.org/p/xl23vAB62f
>
> On Wed, Jun 26, 2019 at 2:04 PM Albert Vaca Cintora
>  wrote:
> >
> > Hi!
> >
> > I don't know who manages our Github account, but I want to propose we
> > add ourselves as "members" [1] of the KDE org, so we can get the nice
> > KDE badge on our Github profiles.
> >
> > I would be proud to have the KDE logo on my profile under the
> > Organizations I belong to :)
> >
> > What do you think? It's just a cosmetic change (we don't need to give
> > any permissions to the members we add to the org) but it's a nice one
> > :) See for example the people in the Mozilla org [2].
> >
> > Who can do this, and who else would be interested in being added?
> >
> > [1] https://github.com/orgs/KDE/people
> > [2] https://github.com/orgs/mozilla/people
>

Although I don't personally use github, I value having a login there, and
would like a KDE badge to go along with my Kubuntu-team one. I hope we get
something cool like this on Gitlab too.

Valorie

Welcome to our GSoC students

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Hi all, some technical glitches held up the Dot story welcoming our KDE
GSoC students, but now it's published:

https://dot.kde.org/2019/06/09/announcing-our-google-summer-code-2019-students

Please join me in welcoming our students here, in IRC, on the lists and on
social media.

All the best,

Valorie

PS: Thank you to Paul Brown for making the Dot story happen today.

Re: Google Summer of Code

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Thu, Apr 4, 2019 at 10:12 PM Supriya Palli 
wrote:

> Hello,
>
>
>
> My name is Supriya Palli and I am a first-year Computer Science B.S.
> student at Florida State University. I currently finishing up a C++ course
> in Object Oriented Programming and am looking for ways to continue my
> learning in C++ and other technologies over the summer. I noticed that some
> of the projects you have listed for Google Summer of Code include C++ as a
> skill, but I am not sure I would meet the other skill requirements. Are
> there any specific projects you would recommend for beginners? Or any
> projects I could contribute to outside of the Google Summer of Code program?
>
>
> *Thank You,*
> *Supriya Palli*
>

Hello Supriya, thanks for writing. You're rather late to the program, I'm
afraid, but perfect timing to prepare for next year. The deadline for
student proposals is the 9th, and part of the requirement, as I'm sure
you've seen, is linking some commits to the KDE codebase. The deadline
gives you not enough time to connect to a team and develop a good proposal.

The specific task I suggest is to run the software! install a linux
distribution that has KDE Plasma and our applications, and use that as your
every day computer environment. Do you encounter bugs in something you
like? See if you can fix them after reporting the bugs on bugs.kde.org.
Upload your diff, your patch on Phabricator if that team uses it. Join
their IRC/Matrix/ etc channels, subscribe to their mail list, and get to
know the developers. See how they interact with their GSoC students. There
are lots of teams, so hang out in #kde-devel, the general channel too.
#kde-soc is the channel for GSoC students and mentors -- all are welcome.

GSoC is only one way to contribute to KDE, and not the major way most get
involved at all. Start at https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved and see
where you end up!

All the best,

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Is the GSoC Ideas list page still open? YES

[Valorie Zimmerman]

We got a question today about the Ideas page -
https://community.kde.org/GSoC/2019/Ideas - is open for more ideas. YES!

We were accepted as a GSoC org and we are open for business. Prepare to be
inundated by students wondering how to make themselves useful to you;
please make them welcome and help them find something productive to do.

If you see any way to improve our GSoC pages or other suggestions, please
pitch in! If you want to mentor and have not yet subscribed to the mentor
list, please do that now, and also ask to be invited to the webapp. You
should also be listed somewhere on that Ideas page as a mentor.

Please write to kde-soc-managem...@kde.org if you need help with any of
this.

All the best,

Valorie, for KDE Student Programs

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Re: KDE now has its own Matrix infrastructure

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Hi folks, since the CWG was referenced, I'll just reply here where we were
mentioned. I'm a Dot editor and IRC/Matrix user too.

On Tue, Feb 26, 2019 at 5:35 AM Jonathan Riddell  wrote:

> The workboard item is https://phabricator.kde.org/T10477 ,  it wasn't
> tagged KDE promo, it wasn't sent to the dot-editors list and I wasn't
> pinged (I'm the only active volunteer Dot editor).
>

I contribute sometimes, too.

I've tried to discuss problems in promo with the e.V. board and CWG in
> the past when long term contributors have left, when the team was
> changed from a community team to a closed access team, when our
> mailing lists were micro managed or when I was insulted for organising
> a conference stall but I've only been dismissed or ignored and the
> community at large seems happy for that to happen so I can't offer any
> assurances of changes.
>
> Jonathan
>

Hey Jon, I hope that the CWG response was not dismissive, and you were
certainly not ignored. We always listen and try to help when possible. If
you didn't feel at the very least listened to, we failed there.

You are one of the most stalwart and longest-serving volunteers, so when
you are unhappy and angry, I don't think anyone is happy about that. That
doesn't mean that all of us see your list above as an accurate statement.

>
> On Tue, 26 Feb 2019 at 11:46, Christian Loosli  wrote:
> >
> > Hi Jonathan,
> >
> > thanks for the wrap-up.
> > I am less interested in pointing blame, and more interested in
> >
> > - how this could have happened
> > - what our learnings are so this doesn't happen again in the future?
> >
> > It still is unclear to me how non-true accusations without further
> explanation
> > made it into the article. Even for people who are not familiar with the
> > subject, this imho should never happen. If you are not sure, you don't
> throw
> > around accusations of things being insecure.
> > It bothers me even more that there is a lengthy discussion on the
> subject (and
> > a follow up survey and result) available to the people who participated
> in
> > this, the article looked to me like this discussion, survey and result
> (that
> > we did put a lot of time and effort in) were ignored.
> >
> > From what I gathered it even was given to the right people to
> proof-read, but
> > the article was released without waiting for a reply. How can that
> happen, and
> > why was it so urgent to push that article out?
> >
> > So to avoid this in the future, I'd like to see us following a process
> that
> > does involved proof-reading by people familiar with the subject, so we
> look as
> > professional as we as KDE should be by now, and usually are.
> >
> > As a last but not least, I'm also not terribly happy when people
> involved were
> > also the ones still, in public, making statements against one of the
> > technologies we decided to use and support, stating we should abandon
> them.
> > Together with the flawed article this doesn't look good.
> > I'd love to see people at least try to not let their personal views bias
> them
> > too much, especially not when a group decision was made. I have my
> personal
> > views and preferences on this too, but I try my best to accept the
> decision
> > taken and support it.
> >
> > Thanks and kind regards,
> >
> > Christian
>

I was very unhappy with the published story as it first appeared because it
led with attacks on IRC as a protocol rather than featuring the new choice
we all have. More widespread review would, I hope, have exposed that. That
said, the promo team is always dealing with late copy and a short
time-frame.

More widespread testing of the Matrix bridge would have helped the rollout
as well, and I'm unaware of any attempt to do that.

I hope that these is lessons learned. I'm taking the criticism of the CWG
in as well. We have far too small a group now, and more members of the CWG
are welcome. Write us and tell us about yourself if you are interested in
helping out: community...@kde.org

Valorie

Re: Don't shoot the messenger (was Re: KDE now has its own Matrix

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Fri, Feb 22, 2019 at 11:54 AM Jonathan Riddell  wrote:

> On Wed, Feb 20, 2019 at 02:06:26PM +0100, Paul Brown wrote:
> > What the subject says. Please address your concerns to the people who
> made the
> > decision and passed down the bullet points of the text.
>
> Posts on KDE Dot News should be reviewed by other Dot editors which
> this one doesn't seem to have been, and editors should take
> reposonsibility for the contents rather than hide behind some
> anonymous decision makers, this is not how we work in KDE.
>
> Jonathan
>

Folks, please remember how we work in KDE -- in teams, as Jon reminds us.
The KDE Dot editors, just like the rest of the KDE community teams,
welcomes new members. The people who step up to write, to translate, to
make graphics, to write and review code, even to administer teams and
programs -- all are open, welcome new people and think together to make our
community and our products the best possible.

Sometimes this means questioning the direction we're heading, and offering
a new vision. I believe that we are resilient because we're open to
criticism, and willing to evaluate our own ideas and behavior. Over the
past couple of years I've seen us grow stronger and more effective because
of the strength of our teams.

When you are upset about some aspect of an action that has been taken,
please type your angry email and then -- before clicking send -- walk away
from your computer and do something else. Think about how you can help make
the situation better, and then return to your computer. Re-read that angry
email and think about how you can recast your response to be helpful, and
not just angry. I don't mean that anger isn't justified or even useful.
Anger can fuel us to speak up in the face of evil even when we're afraid.
But it can also fuel controversy that doesn't make us better.

Use your anger, grief, fear or even dis-quiet to make us all better.

Love to all,

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Re: kde.modular.im: "I am at least 16 years old. "

[Valorie Zimmerman]

I have to agree. We want youngsters to be involved in all aspects of the
KDE community, not just GCi. Kids will still join and just lie about being
16, but why make them do that?

I don't think we gain anything and lose an aspect of friendliness and
openness that we've always had. Many of our best contributors began before
age 16. I want that to continue -- and younger people are more likely to
use Matrix than some of us who are set in our IRC habits.

Valorie

On Wed, Feb 20, 2019 at 2:33 PM Krešimir Čohar  wrote:

> I don't see what we gain by imposing this rule (16 or over) and we do
> stand to lose a lot (up and coming teen programmers whose skills could be
> honed and tempered, and whose contributions could make a substantial
> difference to KDE).
>
> On Wed, Feb 20, 2019 at 11:04 AM Boudewijn Rempt  wrote:
>
>> There's the
>> https://kde.modular.im/_matrix/consent?h=6fc7fefb99181b28ffdf2be32225ead05a8cd6c148da23482edbcc4b08ce7ddd=boud
>> page you need to agree to before one can join. And it asks people to
>> confirm that they're older than 16.
>>
>> Why do we have this condition? There are plenty of reasons why we would
>> need people younger than 16 to be able to chat with people in the KDE
>> community. We've had contributors and even people giving presentations at
>> Akademy who were younger than 16.
>>
>> --
>> https://www.krita.org
>
>

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Re: Planet KDE's Twitter KDE List

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Thu, Feb 14, 2019 at 7:13 AM Agustin Benito (toscalix) 
wrote:

> Hi Jonathan,
> On Thu, Feb 14, 2019 at 12:40 PM Jonathan Riddell  wrote:
> >
> > Planet KDE has a feed of Twitter posts from a manually curated list of
> > KDE people on it.  This is below the Reddit feed and Mastodon KDE
> > account feed.  It replaced the embedded #kde tag in Twitter when they
> > removed the ability to embed that.
> >
> > Since it's been set up I've had nobody suggest themselves or others be
> > added to the feed and I fear it'll just get more off topic and
> > irrelevant.
> >
> > Does anyone have an opinion on whether it's useful and interesting?  I
> > can't decide.
>
> If it is about reading twitter entries related with KDE people,
> Twitter clients (web or local) are a much better place than our
> Planet. I think that a well structured set of links that redirect
> Planet readers coming from different social media platforms to out
> most popular contents would be a better approach than the current
> feed.
>
> I am a avid Twitter user.
>
> What I miss though is a proper feed of KDE people I can read in a
> Twitter client. I would create a Twitter list in the KDE Community
> Twitter account and add a big and prominent link to the feed of that
> list in several places, being the KDE planet web one of them. This way
> instead of following KDE people by adding them to my followers one by
> one, I would do it through the list. Those of us who use Twitter
> aggregators would really appreciate it.
>
> Thanks for asking. I appreciate that from time to time you question
> the status quo and come out with these questions.
>
> Best Regards
>
> Agustin
>

When I wanted to buff up the list of people I follow on twitter, I went to
KDE Community's Twitter page, and looked at which accounts KDE follows, and
who follows KDE. I did the same thing when I set up Mastodon again. I think
this is much more useful than any list, which will always be out-of-date.
That said, a list would be shorter.

Valorie
@valoriez, Valorie@mastodon.social

Re: Shutdown of paste.kde.org

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Hi Ben

On Sat, Feb 2, 2019 at 11:46 AM Ben Cooksley  wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> For some time now Sysadmin has been aware that the application we use
> to run paste.kde.org is unmaintained, and therefore represents a
> security risk. Additionally, for a long time now we've been forced to
> require people to login in order to create pastes there, due to the
> severity of the abuse we've experienced.
>
> Because this makes it functionally equivalent to the pastebin
> functionality included in both Phabricator
> (phabricator.kde.org/paste/) and Gitlab (invent.kde.org/snippets)
> we've decided that it would be best if paste.kde.org were to be
> discontinued.
>
> We'll be shutting this service down in approximately one weeks time.
> Should anyone be using it to store content for long term purposes we'd
> advise you to migrate it to either Phabricator, Gitlab or somewhere
> more permanent (like a wiki) before the shutdown.
>
> Following the shutdown we will be erasing the database, so any pastes
> not saved elsewhere before this time will be lost.
>
> Should anyone have any questions regarding this, please let us know.
>
> Regards,
> Ben Cooksley
> KDE Sysadmin
>

Besides having access to maintained code, are the new services also
requiring logins? Seems like this would cut down immensely on the spam,
malware, pirated stuff, illegal porn, etc. that pastebins seem to host.

Valorie
-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Re: GSoC org application time

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Now I see that I neglected the link to the Ideas page. :(

Here it is: https://community.kde.org/GSoC/2019/Ideas

On Wed, Jan 16, 2019 at 11:24 PM Valorie Zimmerman <
valorie.zimmer...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all, I've started our application.
>
> The deadline for applications: February 6, 2019 at 12:00 (PST).
>
> By the deadline, we need to have an absolutely *splendid* Ideas page (1).
> Before the deadline, I'll remove all the placeholders such as teams with no
> Ideas listed, or ideas with no mentors listed. Teams which have
> participated in the past but are empty still: KDE Partition
> Manager, Kopete, Choqok, Peruse, KGpg, KWin, Plasma, WikiToLearn, KDevelop
> and Xdg-desktop-portal-kde.
>
> So far, I'm the only admin listed. Anyone game to help administer this
> year? It works well when we have a team, so that any of us can have an
> off-week (or week off) sometimes. There are two aspects to being an org
> admin: working with mentors, and working with students. "Paperwork" is a
> very small part of the job.
>
> The mentor work is all about helping mentors and their teams work well
> with their student. Some need coaching on communication, poking to do their
> evaluations, etc.
>
> The student work in the beginning is coaching students in getting
> involved, creating their devel environment, helping them craft their
> proposals and get linked into the teams, and so forth. Later, it will be
> helping them through the tough spots, especially when their mentors aren't
> being helpful, or even helping withdraw gracefully.
>
> We need at least one more admin, and can have up to five. Please write to
> kde-soc-managem...@kde.org (not me personally please!) about your
> interest.
>
> All the best,
>
> Valorie
>
> --
> http://about.me/valoriez
>
>
>

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Re: GSoC org application time

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Thu, Jan 17, 2019 at 12:25 AM Paul Brown  wrote:

> On Thursday, 17 January 2019 08:24:37 CET Valorie Zimmerman wrote:
> > Hi all, I've started our application.
> >
> > The deadline for applications: February 6, 2019 at 12:00 (PST).
> >
> > By the deadline, we need to have an absolutely *splendid* Ideas page (1).
> > Before the deadline, I'll remove all the placeholders such as teams with
> no
> > Ideas listed, or ideas with no mentors listed. Teams which have
> > participated in the past but are empty still: KDE Partition
> > Manager, Kopete, Choqok, Peruse, KGpg, KWin, Plasma, WikiToLearn,
> KDevelop
> > and Xdg-desktop-portal-kde.
> >
> > So far, I'm the only admin listed. Anyone game to help administer this
> > year? It works well when we have a team, so that any of us can have an
> > off-week (or week off) sometimes. There are two aspects to being an org
> > admin: working with mentors, and working with students. "Paperwork" is a
> > very small part of the job.
> >
> > The mentor work is all about helping mentors and their teams work well
> with
> > their student. Some need coaching on communication, poking to do their
> > evaluations, etc.
> >
> > The student work in the beginning is coaching students in getting
> involved,
> > creating their devel environment, helping them craft their proposals and
> > get linked into the teams, and so forth. Later, it will be helping them
> > through the tough spots, especially when their mentors aren't being
> > helpful, or even helping withdraw gracefully.
>
> Hi Valorie,
>
> Apologies for asking what may be obvious to others, but what sort of
> technical
> knowledge does a mentor require to carry out the job effectively?
>

Each team publishes "ideas" on the Ideas page which gives a general outline
of what the team envisions for their software, and notes what technical
skills will be necessary, how to contact the team, and who the probable
mentor(s) will be.

We always try to have two mentors per student; sometimes they specialize in
entirely different areas, and sometimes are members of the same team and
have the same focus. It depends on the idea and eventual student proposal.
Sometimes we have projects that span teams and even have shared students
with Gnome and other orgs, in which case we have mentors from each.

At minimum, a mentor will need to be able to advise the student and review
their code, along with the social skills to deal with a young student who
perhaps has scant FOSS experience.

Would posting something like this to the Dot help to get the word out do
> you
> think? How else can Promo help?
>

I don't think so. The teams who are not wanting to participate shouldn't do
so. I just need to prod those who already have ideas in mind to get them
onto the page. :-)

We'll want to announce the opening of the contest around February 26 when
the accepted organizations are announced, and again when Student
applications open up March 25, and then when we get students accepted May
6.  The rest of the time I just borrow Lydia's pointy stick and poke
people. :-)

Thanks,

Valorie

Cheers
>
> Paul
>

GSoC org application time

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Hi all, I've started our application.

The deadline for applications: February 6, 2019 at 12:00 (PST).

By the deadline, we need to have an absolutely *splendid* Ideas page (1).
Before the deadline, I'll remove all the placeholders such as teams with no
Ideas listed, or ideas with no mentors listed. Teams which have
participated in the past but are empty still: KDE Partition
Manager, Kopete, Choqok, Peruse, KGpg, KWin, Plasma, WikiToLearn, KDevelop
and Xdg-desktop-portal-kde.

So far, I'm the only admin listed. Anyone game to help administer this
year? It works well when we have a team, so that any of us can have an
off-week (or week off) sometimes. There are two aspects to being an org
admin: working with mentors, and working with students. "Paperwork" is a
very small part of the job.

The mentor work is all about helping mentors and their teams work well with
their student. Some need coaching on communication, poking to do their
evaluations, etc.

The student work in the beginning is coaching students in getting involved,
creating their devel environment, helping them craft their proposals and
get linked into the teams, and so forth. Later, it will be helping them
through the tough spots, especially when their mentors aren't being
helpful, or even helping withdraw gracefully.

We need at least one more admin, and can have up to five. Please write to
kde-soc-managem...@kde.org (not me personally please!) about your interest.

All the best,

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Google Summer of Code

[Valorie Zimmerman]

I know it's only December, but GSoC is beginning earlier this year on the
organization end, at least. Now is the time to join the mentor's list if
you may mentor, and for all teams who want to mentor to add their ideas to
the Ideas page:

https://community.kde.org/GSoC/2019/Ideas

Please also take a look at the main GSoC page:
https://community.kde.org/GSoC and see if it needs any changes. Please
discuss those with us on kde-soc-men...@kde.org.

We need to submit our application January 15 2019 which is only 5 or so
weeks away! So please get those Ideas filled in *now*.

Thanks,

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Google Code-in

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Hello folks, we are still very low on mentors (only 11 have signed up so
far) and tasks: about 45 at last glance.

Please get with your teams and find some more mentors, and get creative
with some tasks. Assign writing some unit tests! Get some bug reports
tested! Help kids get your application installed in Windows, Mac or Linux!

Look at https://community.kde.org/GCi for guidelines and ideas.

If you have not yet subscribed to KDE-Soc-Mentor ML please do that, and
then ask for an invite to the webapp, and put in your tasks! The contest
starts for student October 23rd 2018.

Let's get ready!

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Re: Bugzilla template problems

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Thu, Oct 4, 2018 at 1:11 PM Harald Sitter  wrote:

> Oh btw, just as a random FYI: I think stuff like this is why ubuntu
> eventually ended up having a GUI tool (ubuntu-bug) to help file bug
> reports with useful metadata. Putting it on the user to figure this
> stuff out is unreliable at best and can easily get overwhelming.
>

This. Is there a way for us to have the Help > File a bug menu start a
"kde-bug" process like "ubuntu-bug" ? And to have a `kde-bug packagename`
in the commandline? In Kubuntu, this makes filing even complex bug reports
(such as against the installer while testing release candidate ISOs) much
more easy, and the information provided is exactly what the Ubuntu
developers need to make fixes.

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Re: Improving Bugzilla Status Names

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Fri, Sep 28, 2018 at 1:48 AM Luigi Toscano 
wrote:

> Kai Uwe Broulik ha scritto:
> > Hi,
> >
> >  > Here is my follow-up change recommendation based on feedback and
> research:
> >  >
> >  > UNCONFIRMED -> REPORTED
> >  > WONTFIX -> INTENTIONAL
> >  > INVALID -> NOTABUG
> >
> > one issue I'm having with "REPORTED" is that it shows up as "REPO" in
> the list
> > and can easily be confused with "REOP" for "REOPENED". Perhaps we need
> > something different for Reopened then.
>
> If we rename also that, we would have two bug names diverging from the
> other
> bug trackers, instead of just one. Moreover I find that there is no much
> to
> discuss on the appropriateness of REOPENED.
> I'd rather find an alternative for REPORTED, if this confusion is going to
> be
> an issue.
>
> --
> Luigi
>

OPENED ?

Valorie
-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Going to GSoC Mentor Summit -- who should we meet with?

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Hello folks, Fábián Kristóf and I are headed to the Bay area in California
in a couple of weeks for the Mentor Summit. This year they have provided us
with some tools to prepare for this action-packed weekend in advance, which
is good!

Besides an instance of Zulip chat just for attendees, we also have a list
of all the orgs who will be attending:

https://sites.google.com/view/gsoc-mentorsummit-2018/more-info/orgs-and-projects

If you see a project on that list that we should spend some time with,
please tell us soon so we can set up time to meet with these folks.

Thanks!

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Google Code-in

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Hello folks, GCi is much earlier this year, so we need to gather tasks NOW.
The org application period is now open, and I see a good start on tasks on
https://community.kde.org/GCi. However, they are all from GCompris!

Please look over their tasks and copy some for your own project!

Yes, this contest is quite a bit of work, however this year it will not run
through the Christmas holidays which should make life easier. We've had
time to rest from Akademy travel so it's time to gear up and get some bugs
fixed, unit tests written, wiki pages composed, and get some testing done!

Please join the kde-soc-mentor list if you plan to mentor, and ask in
#kde-soc-admin or write to kde-soc-managem...@kde.org if you are willing to
help out with administration for the contest.

All the best,

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Fwd: [GCI-mentors] GCI 2018 org applications open September 6-17 - contest begins October 23rd for students

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Hi everyone, just got this email a bit ago:

-- Forwarded message --
From: Google Code-in Mentors 
Date: Wed, Aug 29, 2018 at 12:34 PM
Subject: [GCI-mentors] GCI 2018 org applications open September 6-17 -
contest begins October 23rd for students
To: Google Code-in Mentors 


Hello GCI mentors,

We are pleased to announce Google Code-in (GCI) 2018 , the
9th consecutive year of our contest for pre-university students ages
13-17. Please
be aware GCI will start about a month earlier this year than in previous
years - the contest starts for students October 23rd!

The GCI timeline, FAQs, Rules and flyers have been updated on the contest
site .

Organizations -- If you would like to apply for the 2018 program please
start thinking about the tasks you would like students to work on and reach
out to your community members to ask if they would like to be mentors for
the program. *Organization applications open for GCI orgs *next week on
Thursday, September 6th, and close less than 2 weeks later on Monday,
September 17th. We will announce organizations on Tuesday, September 18th
giving orgs 5 weeks to create their tasks before the contest begins on
October 23rd.

The major changes for GCI 2018 are:

   -

   Orgs will evaluate the 20 students completing the most tasks with their
   org when deciding on finalists and winners
   -

   Orgs will choose 6 finalists (instead of 5)
   -

   We have renamed the User Interface category to Design
   -

   Students will have to wait until Google reviews their Parental Consent
   form before they can claim their first task. This will slow things down but
   it is a requirement to be able to continue the program.
   -

   No tasks asking for personal information about students will be allowed
   (this includes tasks asking for students to introduce themselves with info
   like what country they are from, or photos of the students, etc.).

We are looking to continue the growth of this program and reach a record
number of teenagers this year! Read more on today’s blog post

.

If you have any questions about Google Code-in please contact us at
gci-supp...@google.com

Best,

Stephanie and Mary

==

Please begin noting ideas for tasks now! We must apply *next week* and I
assume will need already a list of 50+ tasks. Use
https://community.kde.org/GCi for now.

Valorie
-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Re: Improving our integration with KDE application teams, and supporting companies

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Now that I'm coming out of jetlag, catching up on email and so happy
to see the direction this discussion is taking.
On Thu, Aug 23, 2018 at 7:51 AM Jeremy Whiting  wrote:
>
> Hi All,
>
> On Mon, Aug 20, 2018 at 1:29 PM Adriaan de Groot  wrote:
>>
>> Mostly I'm repeating this item from Cornelius because it follows so well from
>> what Valorie *originally* asked, rather than a bunch of misintepretations and
>> discussing-something-else.
>>
>> On Monday, 20 August 2018 10:58:05 CEST Cornelius Schumacher wrote:
>> > I don't think that anybody has a problem with having a healthy ecosystem of
>> > companies around KDE. That's not the debate we are having.

Slight pushback here: Boud has gotten negative feedback for having a
foundation to pay devels for Krita. Frank definitely got negative
feedback, enough to take ownCloud out of the KDE ecosystem.

>> The thread started with Valorie exclaiming surprise that there was pushback 
>> on
>> the entire notion of having companies / paid development around the KDE
>> community. Some people have chimed in saying that that's not what they hear 
>> at
>> all, so at this point I'm inclined to say that Valorie had the bad luck to 
>> run
>> into one or two grumpy people.

Possibly. However I've heard a lot of this over the years. It could
have been the same few grumpy people though; I didn't keep track. :-)

>> [Disclosure: Cornelius is presumably paid to work on Free Software-ish things
>> throughout the week; I am paid to work on Free Software things for at least
>> half of the week, and am looking for more.]
>>
>
> I also work on Free Software-ish things myself, but haven't done as much KDE 
> stuff
> in the past few years.
>
>
>>
>> But we could run a separate email thread with this question:
>>
>>  - do we (as a community) want an ecosystem of companies and paid development
>> around KDE?

This was my main question, and I and most answering here seem to say
YES. I believe that this growth is crucial to the on-going growth and
health of the KDE community.

> I would argue that whether we as a community want that or not we already have 
> it. I can
> name on a couple of hands quickly a number of community members that either 
> are paid
> to work directly on KDE stuff or on free software in general and do KDE stuff 
> in "Community"
> paid time by the company they work for.

And to the extent this is true, and those companies make enough money
to keep paying them, this is a Good Thing. Blue Systems is great, but
do they have a plan to make money? As far as I can see, it seems to be
more a KDE charity. I think this is great, *and* I would like to see
profit-making companies surround us as well. Not just a few, but
*many* of them. Many of our applications, for instance, could be
world-class, and support small companies which in turn support them.
In addition, I'd like to see companies doing support for companies and
individuals using KDE software on Linux, Mac and Windows. I'd like to
see at least on the Windows Store many more applications making a bit
of money.

>> > > For those people who claim that having paid people work on a Free 
>> > > Software
>> > > project will inevitably kill all motivation for volunteers, let's look at
>> >
>> > > some examples within or close to KDE:
>> > We need to get clear on what we are debating. It's not that paid people are
>> > a problem. It's about how this is done and who is paying them.

Which is why we need a lot of companies. Having only a few means each
has an outsized influence on the direction of the developers and what
direction they take the software.

>> > We have a very conscious standing decision that KDE e.V. does not pay
>> > developers. This clearly separates paid and volunteer work there so that
>> > there can be no issue with harming volunteer motivation. We might want to
>> > revisit this decision but would need to be very clear about the governance
>> > of this work.
>>
>> You're right. That's a very separate debate. That question is:
>>
>>  - are there any circumstances under which KDE e.V. itself should fund
>> development, by paying developers directly or hiring companies to do so?

IMO the e.V. should be spending money to develop KDE infrastructure --
the website, both developer and user documentation, and our hardware
and the sysadmins who care for it. In addition, we need Promo (which
we now have, and paid and volunteer people happily work together),
sprints and other meetings, which again I think could use paid staff
and volunteers working together.

> Yes, I think this is the real question here. We already have paid developers, 
> the question
> is whether e.V. should get involved in that aspect.
>
> One possible way to remove the emotional aspect of this would be to have the 
> board
> or some work group come up with a bounty list of long-standing issues we 
> would like to see
> fixed and whoever (individual or group/company) is able to properly fix the 
> issue gets the
> money for that bounty. This 

Re: Improving our integration with KDE application teams, and supporting companies

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Just to follow up: many people have talked about this topic with me at
Akademy. What I'm not seeing is a public discussion here on the
community list. Note: I deliberately did not send this to the e.V.
list because this is not strictly an e.V. matter. I do believe that
the e.V. should support and welcome companies, but NOT hire
programmers.

I'm very frustrated to hear "but the e.V. should not hire developers"
said so often when that was not proposed.

Can we please discuss how we can best encourage companies and
foundations to grow up within the KDE community? I believe such
companies will support our work if we in turn support them. Our young
developers will be able to look forward to working in Free software
and even to contribute to the KDE codebase and other efforts! If there
are other ways we can grow our community and the surrounding ecosystem
we should discuss them as well. If we remain a project entirely
supported by volunteers, we can't grow large enough to make an impact.
I would like our work -- both volunteer and paid -- to make an impact
and actually change the world for the better.

This seems to be a controversial topic although I do not understand
why. This seems crucial to me, so please let's hash it out.

We need help to improve the usability of KDE's software and making it
more accessible and user-friendly for a wider variety of users.

We need help to offer users a complete software environment that helps
them to protect their privacy.

We need help to treamline the access for contributors, to improve our
documentation, and so much else.

We need to grow!

Valorie

On Sat, Aug 11, 2018 at 5:25 AM, Valorie Zimmerman
 wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 11, 2018 at 4:01 AM, Gilles Caulier
>  wrote:
>>
>> 2018-08-11 12:34 GMT+02:00 Valorie Zimmerman :
>>>
>>> Hello folks, I've recently spent a week with Boud and Irina Rempt at
>>> their invitation. I hope that this sort of generous hospitality
>>> becomes the norm in our our KDE family. While there, we had many
>>> conversations about the past, present and future of KDE. I was
>>> surprised to learn that during the life of KO, Boud's previous company
>>> with Inga Wallin and now with his small company which supports Krita,
>>> he encountered quite a bit of opposition *in the KDE community*!
>>
>>
>> Hi Valorie,
>>
>> What do you mean exactly by "opposition" ?
>>
>> Best
>>
>> Gilles Caulier
>
> Opposition in the form not of "this is how I think you could do this
> better" but "what a horrible idea to pay people to support KDE
> software for MONEY!" and "What, another foundation? And to pay
> developers? Terrible thing."
>
> I was shocked to hear that such thoughts were expressed to the very
> people doing the work to support KDE in a professional way.
>
> In addition there is the widespread opinion that amateurs are better
> than professionals for KDE, and that if there are professionals
> working on software, that the volunteers will leave. In fact, this
> idea seems widespread in the FOSS world. From what I have seen,
> professionals can *increase* volunteer contributions, by laying the
> groundwork for successful onboarding, by paying attention to details
> which volunteers left undone or did improperly, by doing work that no
> volunteers have the skills or interest in doing, in ensuring that
> documentation is up-to-date, by thinking of tasks such as training
> sessions for bug-triage, documentation writing, packaging, testing
> days and so forth.
>
> Valorie
>
> --
> http://about.me/valoriez



-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Re: Public report of the Community Working Group

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Sun, Aug 12, 2018 at 12:48 PM, Marta Rybczynska
 wrote:
> Valorie,
> Thank you very much for the work and for the report.
>
> On Sat, Aug 11, 2018 at 5:52 PM, Valorie Zimmerman
>  wrote:
>>
>>
>> * Case: death of Marko Käning, former KDE devel
>> Outcome: Sysadmin disabled the account
>
>
> I find this outcome very disturbing. My proposal is (seconding Valorie's
> comment during the raport)
> to formally estabilish a procedure: in case of death or serious medical
> conditions of a contributor
> or a former contributor, if the community learns about the fact, the Board
> sends a card to the person
> or their family. The card may be replaced by other means if more
> appropriate.
>
> Regards,
> Marta

I too found it rather cold and unfeeling, which is not like us. In the
past, we have sometimes named a release after the person, and given a
bit of a tribute to them in the release document if this is OK with
the family. I remember this with Clare Lotion, for instance.

Somehow Marko's death went un-noticed which is sad, and why I made
mention of it.

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Re: Twitter access

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Sat, Aug 11, 2018 at 2:22 PM, Jonathan Riddell  wrote:
> I had asked the CWG the following:

I will not answer the questions that Paul answered, just those to the
CWG and/or me.

> Who are the higher-ups I've been told control access to KDE social
> media accounts, how did they get their position, how are they
> accountable to KDE as a whole and how do they decide who can
> contribute to KDE's promo?
>
> Is it desired I have access to two of KDE's social media accounts but
> not more or should I be removed from the accounts I do have access to?
>
> Is there a general blockage on community members being full members of
> KDE promo or is it just a limitation for me?

Personally, I've been a middling member of the promo team, and have
felt perfectly welcome to contribute. I've seen nobody on the IRC
channel/Telegram group/mail list(s) blocked in any way. That
*includes* you. Anyone trying to block Jon, one of the longest time
contributors to promo/the Dot, would be daft. You are the one who
inspired some of us, or at least ME to become involved in promo/the
Dot initially.

> The only answer I got was about how feeling amongst wider Linux users
> was good for Plasma these days and therefor the promo team must be the
> right setup, which confuses correlation and causation.  I understood
> the CWG would take no further interest and it was surprising to see
> Valorie considered it an open issue today.  Any other feedback I've
> had on the issue is just patronising comments about the need for
> review as if I was not aware of the process over the last 15 years.  I
> had hoped to get back into promo having stepped back from being
> hassled last year.  But as all of KDE except a few I have spoken to
> privately are happy with the current promo set up I have just stopped
> my involvement and will move on to other places where I can take a
> full part.  Stuff I did which KDE may want to try to fill includes
> FOSDEM stalls, Embedded Linux Conf stall, Planet KDE, promo for Plasma
> releases beyond the announcement, articles during Akademy week, other
> random stuff as I felt the need.
>
> Jonathan

Change is the only constant. Promo was severely lacking, so the e.V.
hired contractors to both do some of the grunt work of promo, but also
to build a team and a new, more structured way of handling not just
promo content, but also the timing. This was necessary because it had
not always been done well in the past, and is now better.

It is not opaque; it is quite clear and stuctured. Processes in the
promo team actually mirror quite well the growth of reviews of all
code contribution on the software side of KDE.

I'm missing talking with you, Jon. Very much. Even at the party
tonight, you didn't attend.

Valorie

> On 11 August 2018 at 20:59, Paul Brown  wrote:
>> On sábado, 11 de agosto de 2018 20:39:51 (CEST) Jonathan Riddell wrote:
>>> Everyone seems fine for Promo to be run in an opaque way with
>>> community members unable to take a full part.
>>
>> What do you think is opaque, Jonathan? It would help us if you could give us
>> concrete examples so we could change anything that isn't working.
>>
>>> That makes it
>>> uninteresting as a volunteer activity for me so I stopped doing promo
>>> again.  The promo team is very welcome to work with me on Plasma
>>> releases,
>>
>> This is good news.
>>
>>> although they've had a very poor record of doing this in the
>>> past.
>>
>> I recall things differently, than again, we have worked with several 
>> projects,
>> (such as Kdenlive, Krita, etc.) on their releases and things have worked 
>> well.
>> I may be mixing things up. The thing is, if we can make it work for them, we
>> can sure make it work for Plasma.
>>
>> As with other projects, for which we have representatives connected to the
>> Promo channels all day, every day, I would again like to invite you to rejoin
>> Promo actively so we can all work together openly on what's best for Plasma.
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Paul

>>> Jonathan
>>>
>>> On Sat, Aug 11, 2018 at 01:16:44AM -0700, Valorie Zimmerman wrote:
>>> > Sorry to speak up so late in this process; however I need to make an
>>> > Akademy report.
>>> >
>>> > Jon, have you worked out with the Promo team how best to coordinate
>>> > release promo in the future? If not, is there someone else in the
>>> > Plasma release team who will be taking over this duty?
>>> >
>>> > I would appreciate a response today.
>>> >
>>> > Valorie
>>> >
>>> > On Thu, Jul 19, 2018 at 11:13 AM, Andy B  wrote:
>>> > >

Public report of the Community Working Group

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Just presented at Akademy with no slides, so here are my notes:

* Case: conflict between Plasma release manager and Promo team in
public (KDE Community list)
Outcome: Open

* Case: VDG <> KWin maintainer in public (KDE Community list,
https://phabricator.kde.org/T8707)
Outcome: some soul-searching on all sides - Tomaz spoke/listened to some people

* Case: rudeness by maintainer in Bug Report 387931
Outcome: Open

* Case: death of Marko Käning, former KDE devel
Outcome: Sysadmin disabled the account

* Case: future of KDE chat solutions
Outcome: lots of discussion, mostly friendly. Work is ongoing

Respectfully submitted,

Valorie Zimmerman for the CWG

Re: Improving our integration with KDE application teams, and supporting companies

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Sat, Aug 11, 2018 at 4:01 AM, Gilles Caulier
 wrote:
>
> 2018-08-11 12:34 GMT+02:00 Valorie Zimmerman :
>>
>> Hello folks, I've recently spent a week with Boud and Irina Rempt at
>> their invitation. I hope that this sort of generous hospitality
>> becomes the norm in our our KDE family. While there, we had many
>> conversations about the past, present and future of KDE. I was
>> surprised to learn that during the life of KO, Boud's previous company
>> with Inga Wallin and now with his small company which supports Krita,
>> he encountered quite a bit of opposition *in the KDE community*!
>
>
> Hi Valorie,
>
> What do you mean exactly by "opposition" ?
>
> Best
>
> Gilles Caulier

Opposition in the form not of "this is how I think you could do this
better" but "what a horrible idea to pay people to support KDE
software for MONEY!" and "What, another foundation? And to pay
developers? Terrible thing."

I was shocked to hear that such thoughts were expressed to the very
people doing the work to support KDE in a professional way.

In addition there is the widespread opinion that amateurs are better
than professionals for KDE, and that if there are professionals
working on software, that the volunteers will leave. In fact, this
idea seems widespread in the FOSS world. From what I have seen,
professionals can *increase* volunteer contributions, by laying the
groundwork for successful onboarding, by paying attention to details
which volunteers left undone or did improperly, by doing work that no
volunteers have the skills or interest in doing, in ensuring that
documentation is up-to-date, by thinking of tasks such as training
sessions for bug-triage, documentation writing, packaging, testing
days and so forth.

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Improving our integration with KDE application teams, and supporting companies

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Hello folks, I've recently spent a week with Boud and Irina Rempt at
their invitation. I hope that this sort of generous hospitality
becomes the norm in our our KDE family. While there, we had many
conversations about the past, present and future of KDE. I was
surprised to learn that during the life of KO, Boud's previous company
with Inga Wallin and now with his small company which supports Krita,
he encountered quite a bit of opposition *in the KDE community*!

I've long been puzzled why KDE applications seem to be relegated to
the "second circle" of KDE, and companies supporting KDE software even
further out.

Not just puzzled, but somewhat discouraged, to be honest. When I
consider the future of a healthy KDE, I see many small companies
popping up, offering commercial support and specialized applications
to users. Far too often I see our great young programmers work within
KDE for a few years, but when they find a job "outside" then pair up
and perhaps have children, they are only involved tangentially. In a
healthy ecosystem, there would numerous KDE affiliated companies
competing to hire them, and they would stay involved as long as they
wanted, while supporting themselves.

Am I the only one who thinks of our future in this way? I think it's
great that we are improving ties with "outside" companies and groups,
and fully support that. But *inside* KDE we should be starting
companies and foundations who can collect donations to support KDE
programmers. I would like to know the thoughts of others and how we
can best encourage this.

Please let's talk about this during Akademy.

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Re: Twitter access

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Sorry to speak up so late in this process; however I need to make an
Akademy report.

Jon, have you worked out with the Promo team how best to coordinate
release promo in the future? If not, is there someone else in the
Plasma release team who will be taking over this duty?

I would appreciate a response today.

Valorie

On Thu, Jul 19, 2018 at 11:13 AM, Andy B  wrote:
>
> On July 19, 2018 at 9:26:03 AM, David Narvaez (david.narv...@computer.org)
> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Jul 19, 2018 at 11:05 AM, Jonathan Riddell  wrote:
>> I did but I see nobody has an interest in me being a full part of it
>
> That's simply not true: we have all seen Paul Brown's message where
> you are invited to participate in the promo team. What you mean to say
> is that you are not allowed to be part of the promo team under your
> own rules and conditions, but when you put it like that you do not
> sound much like a victim and you lose some negotiation power.
>
> While I personally have no position regarding your one-man charge
> against the promo team (I do not have enough information to pick a
> side here), I am very much against your theatrical portrayal of the
> issue when we can all clearly see what is going on here. If you want
> to do promo under your own terms like back in the ol' days 15 years
> ago, then just say so, no need to play victim.
>
> David E. Narvaez
>
> Before we are too flustered by this interaction, let’s see what we can do
> now. Jon, does the team need to post anything to our twitter account? Is
> there something that needs to be out soon?

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Re: Happy 10th Birthday UserBase

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Lovely to hear from you, Anne!

On Sun, Aug 5, 2018 at 1:59 AM, Anne Wilson  wrote:
> In August 2008 Userbase was born.  Much has happened in the 10 years
> sine then.  A huge thanks is due to Niklas, for giving us the
> translation tool, and to all who contributed, at any time.
>
> It's exciting to think of what the next 10 years could bring.
>
> AnneW

You were the Goddess of Userbase. We do need leadership with your
enthusiasm to refresh and renew and take us forward!

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Re: Hep needed !!! (Open Source Contributions)

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Hi Calvin, good to hear from you.

First, please don't address people as "sir." In free and open source
communities, such salutations are not welcome. OK?

It is quite lovely to hear you reach out to us. However, you don't say
what you are interested in doing? Do you want to write code?
Contribute to the documentation? Do translation or
internationalization? Artwork? Help out organizing meetings, sprints
and other events?

You say you read the GSoC page. What sort of ideas excited you? What
sort of team are you interested in working with?

Do you use KDE software? If so, have you found things you want to fix,
or make better? That is where most people begin, no matter their
skills. This is exactly how I first engaged, when I found Amarok user
documentation lacking.

We welcome everyone, and every skill, at every level. If you think
that because you are a beginner you have less to offer, that is
mistaken. Your beginner status is your super power! Many of us
long-time users know how to work around pain points. It says something
that you have found it difficult to find your way in so far. We have a
team working on making "on-boarding" better. I hope that they will be
replying to you as well, to find out what you tried before you wrote
here to the KDE-Community list.

Finally, have you seen https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved ?

Looking forward to hearing from you again.

All the best,

Valorie

On Sat, May 5, 2018 at 4:20 AM, Calvin  wrote:
> Sir,
> I am Om Pandey , a college student from India , I got to know about Gsoc and
> open source contribution in December 2017 , Since then i have been trying to
> contribute to the open source community
> I am in my freshmen year of college and i have been trying to look out for
> ways of contribution to the open source community with all failed attempts i
> am completely lost as what i should do or where i should start please guide
> me so that i can learn to contribute .
> I chose to message this organisation i was advised by one of friends and i
> saw your name come up on one of the Facebook communities stating that your
> organisation could help my situation by guiding me .
> Please guide me as to what is to be done , I know some of the technologies
> as listed on your Gsoc page and the rest i promise to learn to the best of
> my efforts.
> I have an entire year to go ,please guide me and I promise that to the best
> of my efforts I shall perform.
> Regards,
> Yours Truly,
> Om Pandey

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Re: KDE Season Website

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Thanks for stepping up, Lays!

Both of you please talk to us in KDE-Soc-Management which is the
Student Programs general admin email for more about what is required
to get this done. Having a new webapp for the upcoming Season of KDE
would be awesome!

Valorie

On Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 6:02 PM, Lays Rodrigues <lays.rodrig...@kde.org> wrote:
> Hi Valorie,
> I may help with that, I have a knowledge of web programming. The student
> needs a mentor?
>
> Cheers,
> (Sorry that I replied before using my old mail... So dont mind a duplicate)
>
> On Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 9:03 PM, Lays Rodrigues
> <laysrodriguessi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Valorie,
>> I may help with that, I have a knowledge of web programming. The student
>> needs a mentor?
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 6:49 PM, Valorie Zimmerman
>> <valorie.zimmer...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hello community, I just got the following email, and I'm wondering if
>>> there is someone or perhaps a small group of someones who can respond
>>> to this student? We admins of the Student Programs effort would very
>>> much like to have a new website for Season of KDE. Is there a small
>>> group who love web programming who would like to spearhead this
>>> effort?
>>>
>>> Valorie
>>>
>>>
>>> -- Forwarded message --
>>> From: Kanishkar J <kanishk...@hotmail.com>
>>> Date: Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 10:24 AM
>>> Subject: KDE Season Website
>>> To: "valorie.zimmer...@gmail.com" <valorie.zimmer...@gmail.com>
>>>
>>>
>>> Hello
>>>
>>> I am Kanishkar J, a computer science undergrad from India. I had
>>> contacted you regarding KDE Season Website GSOC project. But the
>>> project was discarded due to the lack of a mentor. I wanted to know if
>>> I could work on it out of GSOC. I am excited about working on it for
>>> this summers. Please let me know asap.
>>>
>>> Thank you
>>>
>>> regards,
>>> Kanishkar J
>>> Computer Science Undergraduate
>>> Indian Institute of Technology Indore
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Valorie
>>>
>>> --
>>> http://about.me/valoriez
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Lays Rodrigues
>> Intern at Rede Globo
>> Software Developer at KDE
>> Information Systems student at Federal Fluminense University
>> http://lays.space
>> Telegram: @lays147

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Fwd: KDE Season Website

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Hello community, I just got the following email, and I'm wondering if
there is someone or perhaps a small group of someones who can respond
to this student? We admins of the Student Programs effort would very
much like to have a new website for Season of KDE. Is there a small
group who love web programming who would like to spearhead this
effort?

Valorie


-- Forwarded message --
From: Kanishkar J 
Date: Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 10:24 AM
Subject: KDE Season Website
To: "valorie.zimmer...@gmail.com" 


Hello

I am Kanishkar J, a computer science undergrad from India. I had
contacted you regarding KDE Season Website GSOC project. But the
project was discarded due to the lack of a mentor. I wanted to know if
I could work on it out of GSOC. I am excited about working on it for
this summers. Please let me know asap.

Thank you

regards,
Kanishkar J
Computer Science Undergraduate
Indian Institute of Technology Indore



Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Re: kde.org and Plasma LTS

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Woot! Fast and great work there, Ivan! and thank you Riddell for
getting it up quickly.

Valorie

On Wed, Feb 28, 2018 at 3:53 PM, Jonathan Riddell  wrote:
>
> Groovy I put that on kde.org now
>
> On Wed, Feb 28, 2018 at 08:07:56PM +0100, Ivan Čukić wrote:
>> If nobody creates a better one:
>> http://poincare.matf.bg.ac.rs/~ivan/files/plasma-5-12-lts-logo.jpg
>>
>> Not my best work, but it fits the website reasonably well. It is not a
>> big "12" nor
>> anything similar, but it is ... something :]
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Ivan
>>
>> [edit] just realized it does 'contain' one and two in a sense
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Feb 28, 2018 at 7:39 PM, Jonathan Riddell  wrote:
>> >
>> > The image is a large 8 so the whole thing needs changed.  The background 
>> > behind the 8 image would be best to update but I don't suppose anyone is 
>> > too fussed.  The 'Plasma 5.8 LTS' text is just text which is changed in a 
>> > json file.
>> >
>> > Jonathan
>> >
>> >
>> > On Wed, Feb 28, 2018 at 10:59:52AM -0700, Andy Betts wrote:
>> >> Like I said. Are we ok if we just change the version number and keep the 
>> >> same
>> >> background?
>> >>
>> >> Thank you,
>> >>
>> >> Andy
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On 2/28/2018 10:51:39 AM, Ben Cooksley  wrote:
>> >>
>> >> On Thu, Mar 1, 2018 at 5:17 AM, Andy Betts wrote:
>> >> > I was approached to work on a banner for the page, but I haven't 
>> >> had the
>> >> > time to make anything. I think that maybe an easy change is to 
>> >> simply
>> >> change
>> >> > the text to show the right version but maybe not change the 
>> >> wallpaper
>> >> behind
>> >> > it. Bushan seemed to have access.
>> >>
>> >> Access isn't a problem, it's having an image ready to replace the 
>> >> current
>> >> one.
>> >> I've no idea how the current one was produced, so it would be nice if
>> >> someone familiar with that, or an artist, where to put together the
>> >> replacement.
>> >>
>> >> Cheers,
>> >> Ben
>> >>
>> >> >
>> >> > Thank you,
>> >> >
>> >> > Andy
>> >> >
>> >> > On 2/28/2018 9:15:39 AM, Ivan Čukić wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> > I can do it for Plasma if nobody from VDG is available.
>> >> >
>> >> > Ch
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > --
>> >> > KDE, ivan.cu...@kde.org, http://cukic.co/
>> >> > gpg key fingerprint: 292F 9B5C 5A1B 2A2F 9CF3 45DF C9C5 77AF 0A37 
>> >> 240A
>> >>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> KDE, ivan.cu...@kde.org, http://cukic.co/
>> gpg key fingerprint: 292F 9B5C 5A1B 2A2F 9CF3  45DF C9C5 77AF 0A37 240A



-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Now is the time for all prospective GSoC mentors to gear up!

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Hello everyone, our application to become a part of Google Summer of Code
has been accepted! So, if you are going to become a mentor, now is the time
to:

1. Ensure you are subscribed to KDE-Soc-Mentor mail list [1].

2. Write to kde-soc-men...@kde.org to be invited to the GSoC web app. This
way we can ensure that one of us invites you. All you need is a
google-enabled email account.

The email from the OSPO says,

"Inviting Mentors to your Org

"Org Admins should now be sending potential mentors invitations to be a
part of their organization. The mentor will need to click the link in the
email they receive to accept the invitation and create their account. All
mentors must be invited by an Org Admin."

3. Click the link in that email to get into the webapp and set up your
account there. None of your information from previous years is saved.

What we org admins need is all mentors to complete all three steps within
the next few days.

Thanks!

Valorie

1. https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-soc-mentor

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Re: Input on privacy goal

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Fri, Jan 19, 2018 at 12:24 PM, Carsten Pfeiffer  wrote:

> Am Freitag, 19. Januar 2018, 15:30:25 CET schrieb Volker Krause:
>
Hi,
>
> > Here are some thoughts on threat models for this, as a possible way to
> > better capture what we want to achieve.
>
> that's a good start!
>
> I'd like to add
>
> 6) Rogue local software
>
> Assume you run any kind of software not coming from a trusted source (your
> distribution). E.g. you clone a github repo and run the code. That code may
> pull in further untrusted dependencies (maven, node, ...). It should be
> easy
> to protect your personal data, kwallets, browser history, etc. and local
> network from that code.
>
> Possible counter-measures: easy and configurable sandboxing
>
> Thanks
> Carsten
>


On just this "rogue code" see this enjoyable post:

https://hackernoon.com/im-harvesting-credit-card-numbers-and-passwords-from-your-site-here-s-how-9a8cb347c5b5

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Re: KDE and Google Summer of Code 2018

[Valorie Zimmerman]

I'm very discouraged to see so little movement on this. After skipping GCi
this past fall, are we now also considering skipping GSoC? Or downsizing
the number of students we are mentoring?

Without Ideas we will not get students. More important, we must complete
the Org application soon, and the Ideas page is the core of that
application.

This is good for your team and your project, in the long run. It brings in
new contributors and fresh ideas.

If you need some guidance, please read
https://google.github.io/gsocguides/mentor/defining-a-project-ideas-list.html

I should have linked to it for the last email.

Valorie

On Wed, Jan 10, 2018 at 3:03 PM, Valorie Zimmerman <
valorie.zimmer...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Hello GSoC mentors, and teams supporting mentors,
>
> TL;DR: Fill out https://community.kde.org/GSoC/2018/Ideas; read
> https://community.kde.org/GSoC. Now.
>
> Every year, we've asked for more time to get ramped up for GSoC, and so
> now is the time for organizations to apply[1]. We have begun to write our
> application, and  that means that our Ideas page needs to be filled NOW,
> because that is the prime consideration for the GSoC team once the Org
> Applications deadline has passed.
>
> The quality of our ideas and the guidance they give our students are the
> most important part of our application. Please begin filling in your ideas
> now if you have not already, and ensure that that page is comprehensive,
> accurate and attractive. Including screenshots and other images is allowed,
> if it enriches the idea for a project. *Please ensure complete information
> about how to contact the team*; this is crucial.
>
> Also, take a look at the landing page https://community.kde.org/GSoC.
> Experienced mentors agree that:
>
> 1. commits must be made before the student proposal is submitted, and
> linked on that proposal, and
>
> 2. that regular communication from the student must be initiated by the
> student at least weekly, and we expect daily or nearly daily communication
> with the team in a more informal way.
>
> Be sure to point students to that information, as this should lower the
> number of proposals, while raising the quality.
>
> 1. https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/timeline
>
> PS: If your team has an Idea, ensure that you have mentors for it, and
> that those mentors are subscribe to KDE-Soc-Mentor list. Remove any ideas
> without mentors available, please. Now, before you forget!
>
> Valorie
>


-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Re: Please help us push the fundraiser with a blog post about your work in 2017

[Valorie Zimmerman]

One blog post:
http://linuxgrandma.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-power-we-have-as-bystanders.html

On Wed, Dec 27, 2017 at 3:39 AM, Lays Rodrigues <
laysrodriguessi...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Ah the file missing is styles.css, it makes easier to find out when
> inspecting.
>
> On Wed, Dec 27, 2017 at 9:35 AM, Lays Rodrigues <
> laysrodriguessi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 27, 2017 at 9:27 AM, Lydia Pintscher  wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, Dec 26, 2017 at 5:29 PM, Clemens Toennies
>>>  wrote:
>>> > I think it has been mentioned before, but the white text on parts of
>>> the
>>> > background image makes it hardly readable. Is there someone who can fix
>>> > this?
>>>
>>> Lays: Can you have a look at this?
>>>
>> ​Hello guys =D
>> That bug happened to a few people, and I wasn't able to replicate in both
>> navigators here(chrome and firefox quantum).
>> Apparently the css isn't loaded correctly, you can try to inspect the
>> page and see what's happening.
>>
>> If you provide for me a screenshot of the
>>  console and style tab it
>> would be helpful.
>>
>>
>> Happy Holidays to all.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>>
>>> > Happy holidays, Clemens.
>>>
>>> Same to you!
>>>
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>> Lydia
>>>
>>> --
>>> Lydia Pintscher - http://about.me/lydia.pintscher
>>> KDE e.V. Board of Directors
>>> http://kde.org - http://open-advice.org
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> *Lays Rodrigues*
>> *Intern at Rede Globo*
>> *Software Developer at KDE*
>> *Information Systems student at Federal Fluminense University*
>> *http://lays.space *
>> *Telegram: @lays147*
>> *IRC: lays147*
>>
>
>
>
> --
>
> *Lays Rodrigues*
> *Intern at Rede Globo*
> *Software Developer at KDE*
> *Information Systems student at Federal Fluminense University*
> *http://lays.space *
> *Telegram: @lays147*
> *IRC: lays147*
>



-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Google Summer of Code -- now!

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Hello folks, I know that some of you are just beginning to mentor your
Season of KDE students. However, Google has made the prep phase for GSoC
even earlier this year, so it is time to start NOW.

For more information: https://g.co/gsoc/faq
More: http://write.flossmanuals.net/gsoc-mentoring/about-this-manual/ and
https://google.github.io/gsocguides/mentor

I would strongly suggest talking with your team and finding out who can
mentor this year, and what your team would like to propose for the Ideas
page. The sooner we get our ducks in a row, the better. *The strength of
our Ideas page is the most important part of our organization application.*

If you will be mentoring GSoC this year, please ensure that you are
subscribed to KDE-Soc-Mentor list. You'll need to ping one of us admins if
you aren't soon accepted. We don't allow any students on that list, and
sometimes can't tell who is who. I can't stress strongly enough -- every
mentor must be subscribed. You will be invited to the GSoC app after (if!)
we are accepted. Once again this year we'd like two mentors per student.

People interested in helping to administer this year should join
#kde-soc-admin (IRC or matrix-only) and the KDE-Soc-Management ml after
discussing how you can contribute with the present admins.

All the best,

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Re: End of year fundraising campaign is now live

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Nothing on KDE.org? or the Dot? -v

On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 1:49 AM, Paul Brown  wrote:

> Hello Everyone,
>
> The website for the end of year fundraising campaign is now live:
>
> https://www.kde.org/fundraisers/yearend2017/
>
> We need your help to give it some coverage. We have already posted to the
> official Twitter, Facebook, Mastodon, G+ and also to Reddit.
>
> Twitter:
> https://twitter.com/kdecommunity/status/941601027874312192
>
> Mastodon:
> https://mastodon.technology/@kde/99177624080490539
>
> Facebook:
> https://www.facebook.com/kde/posts/10155422236813918
>
> G+:
> https://plus.google.com/b/105126786256705328374/+KdeOrg/posts/Feg1RykLD7n
>
> Reddit
> https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/7jypnv/
> kde_launches_end_of_year_fundraising_campaign_to/
>
> https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/7jypcu/
> contribute_to_the_advancement_of_free_software/
>
> We would need re-tweets, shares, upvotes, etc. Also, anybody that would
> like
> to comment on their blogs on the campaign, say, within a "looking back at
> 2017" kind of post, we would be very happy to promote it too. Also if you
> can
> think of any sites we should be posting this to, suggestions are very
> welcome.
>
> Let's push to make this a successful campaign!
>
> Cheers
>
> Paul
> --
> Promotion & Communication
>
> www: http://kde.org
> Mastodon: https://mastodon.technology/@kde
> Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kde/
> Twitter: https://twitter.com/kdecommunity
>
>


-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Re: Add your tasks to the Idea page for GCI

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Yes, as I said in a previous mail, since no experienced admin stepped
up to take the lead, we'll not participate in GCi this year. We would
like to have a Season of KDE however.

So admins and mentors, please ensure you are on KDE-Soc-admin (this
includes former GSoC students!) and ping one of us admins if your
subscription request doesn't get accepted.

Valorie

On Sun, Oct 22, 2017 at 9:59 AM, JAZEIX Johnny  wrote:
> Hi,
>
> In the page, there are less than 20 tasks, does this mean KDE does not
> participate this year?
>
> Johnny
>
>
> On 10/17/17 04:44, vijay krishnavanshi wrote:
>>
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> I have added few tasks on the GCI page and would like to ask other
>> interested mentors to add their ideas to the idea page.
>>
>> I have also reused some of the ideas from the last year GCI. We need
>> minimum 25 tasks for participation before the date 21st October so that time
>> for doing the required things for applying as an organization is reserved.
>> More ideas can be added later.
>>
>> Any sort of task can be added to the idea page if they are doable by
>> students of age group 13-17. It can include any type of tasks like design,
>> outreach, documentation, user interface, or code.
>>
>> I will continue adding ideas to the idea page.
>> Link: https://community.kde.org/GoogleCodeIn/2017/Ideas
>> Some ideas on the idea page added by me are not clear and need some
>> refactoring. I will do it later today.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Vijay Krishnavanshi
>
>
>



-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Re: Happy Birthday, KDE!

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Sat, Oct 14, 2017 at 7:54 AM, Lydia Pintscher  wrote:
> Hey everyone :)
>
> Today KDE is turning 21. Happy Birthday, KDE!
> I wanted to take the opportunity to say thank you to all of you for
> being around and helping to bring our software to millions of people
> all around the world. I am very happy about the work we have been
> doing on defining goals for the coming years. What was your highlight
> of the past year?
>
>
> Cheers
> Lydia

Yes, happy birthday to US! In the USA, we would say that the KDE
community becomes an adult. :-)

Thank all of you who have helped me to become a contributor! It is one
of the joys of my life, along with watching my grandson grow up.

It's hard to pick on a highlight, but Akademy sort of wrapped all that
up for me this year. So much fun, and so much work! The success of
neon, the continued success of the Plasma team, now blossoming onto
the Purism phone and so many other successful and growing projects and
teams. And yes, the goal-setting has been really great. Touching base
with Franklin from Taiwan and the Munich team, seeing old friends and
making new ones, digging deep into good and
terrible-but-will-be-improved websites, and more.

What began this year for me was KDE.conf.in. I was so honored to
keynote the conf, and be able to work with the students the next day.
Our meals and travels together were so overwhelmingly awesome --
pictures and words can only begin to describe what a monumental
experience this was.

Thank you so much, community, for all your hugs, your encouragement,
your gentle teaching and terrible puns.

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Re: Is there interest in participating in Google Code-in this year?

[Valorie Zimmerman]

We don't need one mentor though, we need up to 50, and probably 400
tasks by January. We also need admins, and tasks NOW.

Thanks for offering, and of course you are good enough! -v

On Thu, Oct 12, 2017 at 3:40 PM, Lays Rodrigues
<laysrodriguessi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Valorie,
> I feel sorry to hear that.
> I could give it a try on the mentorship. I just don't know if I'm good
> enough to fill the purpose.
> Cheers
>
> On Thu, Oct 12, 2017 at 6:15 PM, Valorie Zimmerman
> <valorie.zimmer...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hello folks, when I've written about GCi before this, I got few to no
>> replies. My feeling is that previous enthusiastic mentors are without
>> the energy and time to participate this year.
>>
>> Org applications are open, but unless I hear a swell of enthusiasm
>> here, I'm inclined to not apply.
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>> Valorie, for Student Programs admin team
> --
> Lays Rodrigues

Is there interest in participating in Google Code-in this year?

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Hello folks, when I've written about GCi before this, I got few to no
replies. My feeling is that previous enthusiastic mentors are without
the energy and time to participate this year.

Org applications are open, but unless I hear a swell of enthusiasm
here, I'm inclined to not apply.

Thoughts?

Valorie, for Student Programs admin team

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Re: time to review the goal proposals

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Wow, this is a GREAT lineup of possible goals. It will be difficult to
choose just one. On the other hand, we will have this list as a
resource when it's time to choose the next goal.

Great work!

On Mon, Oct 2, 2017 at 11:58 AM, Lydia Pintscher  wrote:
> Hey folks :)
>
> A little over a month ago I asked KDE contributors to submit proposals
> for goals that KDE should focus on over the next 3 to 4 years
> (http://blog.lydiapintscher.de/2017/08/20/evolving-kde-lets-set-some-goals/).
> I am very happy with the proposals that were submitted from different
> parts of the community. A lot of work and thought went into them and
> they all would make great focus areas for KDE over the coming years.
>
> From today until the end of October we will go into the next phase and
> refine these proposals. You can help make them ready for the vote in
> November. Read them and add your thoughts and ideas as a comment to
> the proposal. What do you like about the proposal? What can you add to
> the proposal? What isn’t ideal or worth pursuing? Are they ambitious
> but achievable? Is now the right time to push them forward? Are they
> specific enough so we know what everyone needs to do to move them
> forward? Are they bringing us closer to our vision of a world in which
> everyone has control over their digital life and enjoys freedom and
> privacy? Those are just some of the questions you should ask yourself
> and comments about. Then if you are interested in seeing the goal
> pursued add your name to the list of interested people. Even better,
> if you are willing to put work into a particular goal add your name to
> the list of people who want to work on the goal.
>
> Head over to the list of all submitted goal proposals and start
> reading: https://phabricator.kde.org/project/board/244/  ;-)
>
>
> Cheers
> Lydia
>
> --
> Lydia Pintscher - http://about.me/lydia.pintscher
> KDE e.V. Board of Directors / KDE Community Working Group
> http://kde.org - http://open-advice.org



-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Re: [Update] Big Hairy Audacious Goal: Privacy Software

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Sorry for the empty reply!

On Fri, Sep 22, 2017 at 5:48 AM, Sebastian Kügler  wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> ~One month ago, I asked for input and inspiration for the KDE Goal
> "Privacy Software", see
> https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-community/2017q3/003892.html
>
> I've put some more time, brainpower and patience into that, and put
> together a fairly comprehensible goal proposal, which can be found here:
>
> https://phabricator.kde.org/T7050
>
> TL;DR:
>
> "In 5 years, KDE software enables and promotes privacy"
>
> I think this is a goal which is engaging, measurable and most
> importantly worthwhile.
>
> What I need now:
>
> * Review: Please look over the proposal, make trivial fixes right
>   there, propose more comprehensible or possibly goal-altering changes
>   in the comments of that page or in this email thread
> * If you believe this goal is worthwhile for KDE and you support it,
>   please add your name under it
> * If you intend to actively support this goal in whatever way, please
>   also indicate this on the phab page
>
> Special thanks so far for the help with this go out to: Umberto,
> Martin, Volker, Alexander, Agustin, Christoph, Clemens and of course to
> Bhushan and Lydia. \o/
>
> Cheers,
> --
> sebas
>
> http://www.kde.org | http://vizZzion.org

Hey Sebas, thanks for catching the Zeitgeist -- not just of the world,
but in the world of software, and especially in the world of FOSS.

I think if the KDE community puts our backs into this, we can make
some great progress in a few months time. And once this ball gets
rolling, we'll keep it going and make it fundamental to how we build
our software.

I've added my name on Phab as being willing to work on this as I'm
able; mostly writing and promotion. Please join me there.

All the best,

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Re: [Update] Big Hairy Audacious Goal: Privacy Software

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Fri, Sep 22, 2017 at 5:48 AM, Sebastian Kügler  wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> ~One month ago, I asked for input and inspiration for the KDE Goal
> "Privacy Software", see
> https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-community/2017q3/003892.html
>
> I've put some more time, brainpower and patience into that, and put
> together a fairly comprehensible goal proposal, which can be found here:
>
> https://phabricator.kde.org/T7050
>
> TL;DR:
>
> "In 5 years, KDE software enables and promotes privacy"
>
> I think this is a goal which is engaging, measurable and most
> importantly worthwhile.
>
> What I need now:
>
> * Review: Please look over the proposal, make trivial fixes right
>   there, propose more comprehensible or possibly goal-altering changes
>   in the comments of that page or in this email thread
> * If you believe this goal is worthwhile for KDE and you support it,
>   please add your name under it
> * If you intend to actively support this goal in whatever way, please
>   also indicate this on the phab page
>
> Special thanks so far for the help with this go out to: Umberto,
> Martin, Volker, Alexander, Agustin, Christoph, Clemens and of course to
> Bhushan and Lydia. \o/
>
> Cheers,
> --
> sebas
>
> http://www.kde.org | http://vizZzion.org



-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Re: new here, and bug question

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Hi Fred, welcome!

On Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 6:02 PM,   wrote:
> I am seeking guidance here, RE: 
> 
> (1) am I writing to the right list?, If not, where might I turn?

KDE bugs are on bugs.kde.org. That is a Mageia bug for KDM, which as
far as I know is no longer supported by the KDE community, although
our bug-tracker might show the same/similar bug. If so however, you
would think it would be linked on that Mageia BR.

I imagine that Mageia has an IRC channel, mail list or forum where
their bug squashing team discusses things, if such discussion does not
take place right there in the BR.

> (2) what might I be able to do to help with this bug?  Or has it already 
> being dealt with, has been dealt with?
> Thank you in advance for any suggestions/guidance you may be able to offer
> Regards
> Fred James
>
> Background:  18 years in sysadmin and DBadmin, on small Unix machines (i.e., 
> I am familiar with C and Bourne, but by no means a pro).
> Unisys and SGI, and a touch of HP and Sun
> Currently "retired" and running Linux at home (Mageia5 64 bit, KDE4)

It's tough to say where to go beyond Mageia. KDM is no longer
developed; SDDM is now preferred.

This list, KDE-Community, is for discussion of community issues.
KDE-devel is where general programming issues are dealt with, and then
there are lists for teams like KDE-Edu, KDEPIM, Frameworks, and lots
of the applications. See https://www.kde.org/support/mailinglists/ for
more information.

All the best,

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Fwd: [GCI-mentors] Google Code-in 2017 is on!

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Hello folks, GCi is on! All teams need to begin assembling tasks now,
if we want to participate. October 9 is just around the corner, and
that is when organization applications open.

More details about where we will collect those tasks to follow. For
now, if you will mentor at least one task, please subscribe to
KDE-Soc-Mentor and ping one of the admins about that. We especially
welcome all GSoC students to mentor some tasks for GCi!

Valorie

-- Forwarded message --
From: 'Stephanie Taylor' via Google Code-in Mentors

Date: Mon, Sep 18, 2017 at 9:49 AM
Subject: [GCI-mentors] Google Code-in 2017 is on!
To: Google Code-in Mentors 

Hello,

We are pleased to announce Google Code-in 2017, the 8th straight year
of the program for pre-university students ages 13-17.

The GCI timeline, FAQs, Rules and flyers have been updated on the contest site.

https://opensource.googleblog.com/2017/09/announcing-google-code-in-2017.html

Organizations -- If you would like to apply for the 2017 program
please start thinking about the tasks you would like students to work
on and also reach out to your community members to ask if they would
like to be mentors for the program. Applications open for GCI orgs
very soon - on October 9th, and close 2 weeks later on October 24th.
We will announce organizations on Thursday, October 26th giving orgs
over a month to create their tasks before the contest begins on
November 28th.

...

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Re: RFC: Small change to KDE Manifesto Commitments

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Thu, Sep 14, 2017 at 4:17 PM, Albert Astals Cid  wrote:
> El divendres, 15 de setembre de 2017, a les 1:10:32 CEST, Boudhayan Gupta va
> escriure:
>> While we're at it, might I suggest also changing the first line to
>> "[Respect/Abide by] the KDE Code of Conduct" instead of "Support"?
>
> Any linguist on the room?
>
> Can you explain why you think it matters?
>
> Cheers,
>   Albert

I'm not a linguist, but if we are making other changes, then I support
making the change from "support" to "respect and abide by" which is
stronger and more specific.

The suggestion to add "Support the KDE Vision and Mission" is a good
one, so I support both changes.

Valorie

>> Freundliche Grüße
>> Boudhayan Gupta
>> KDE e.V. - Community Working Group
>> +49 151 71032970
>>
>> On 14 September 2017 at 21:03, Albert Astals Cid  wrote:
>> > I am suggesting to add
>> >
>> >  * Support the KDE Vision and Mission
>> >
>> > as second point of
>> >
>> >   https://manifesto.kde.org/commitments.html
>> >
>> > Anyone against it?
>> >
>> > If no one disagrees I'll make the change in two weeks.
>> >
>> > Cheers,
>> >
>> >   Albert

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez

Re: Goal: Making KDE software the #1 choice for science and academia

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Tue, Aug 29, 2017 at 4:34 PM, Thomas Pfeiffer
 wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> here is my proposal for a Big Hairy Audacious Goal:
> Making KDE software the #1 choice for science and academia
>
> I think that here is a lot of yet-untapped potential for the usage of KDE
> products in the research and academic sector, and we should fix that, for 
> their
> sake and ours.
>
> See all the details here: https://phabricator.kde.org/T6895
>
> Feedback and contributions very welcome!
> Cheers,
> Thomas

Very cool idea, Thomas. I think Wikitolearn is a natural part of KDE
leadership here, and we could perhaps partner with
http://openscience.org/ - some of whom got their beginning in KDE. In
addition, while searching for Open Science, I saw https://osf.io/,
which is Open Science Framework: A scholarly commons to connect the
entire research cycle. I can't tell if they have an FOSS connections
or not, but that orientation to openness and sharing is built into the
scientific process and the academy.

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez