Re: Moving foundation-list to discourse?

[Olav Vitters]

On Fri, Aug 16, 2019 at 01:06:05PM -0700, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
> Sounds good to me. As the person who pushed engagement team to move
> over, I'm fully behind moving everything to discourse!

Was there a discussion about this at GUADEC? As it's been a while and
nobody seems to object I think everything is ok with moving to
Discourse.

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Moving foundation-list to discourse?

[Olav Vitters]

Hi all,

it has been around half a year since GNOME started to host a
Discourse[0] instance, which was generally well received.

Listadmin wise (I'm NOT the admin here!), mailman is not really nice to
use. If something ends up in the moderation queue it'll take quite a bit
of effort for a moderator to look at it.

Discourse is free software (including the Javascript) and the
dependencies are also free software.

You can sign up in various ways. First of all there's regular
email+password. It also allows single-sign on systems, like Google and
Github, to authenticate yourself. Lastly (and preferred way) if you have
a GNOME LDAP account already, you're strongly encouraged to use that
method of authentication.


You can still use email to interact with Discourse, and a guide is
available[2]. The interaction is both ways (sending and receiving). It's
even possible to make Discourse behave like an mailing list.

For specific questions or feedback on Discourse, please post in the
appropriate category[3].


Do people agree to move this to Discourse? Does anyone have objections
or concerns? I didn't check with the current list admins btw.



[0]: https://discourse.gnome.org
[1]: https://discourse.gnome.org/t/interacting-with-discourse-via-email/46
[2]: https://discourse.gnome.org/c/site-feedback

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Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[Olav Vitters]

On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 04:40:29PM +0200, Benjamin Berg wrote:
> Codes of Conduct (CoC) and especially the policies surrounding them are
> a very political issue (which easily becomes emotional). Unfortunately,

I reviewed the latest CoC proposal. My feedback is below.



https://wiki.gnome.org/Diversity/CoCWorkingGroup/DraftEventsCoC/DraftPhotographyPolicy

In summary: please choose if you want pictures to be taken or not. At
the moment the rules are written in a strange way. E.g. half of them
assume that by default picture taking is ok (need a badge to show you
don't want your picture to be taken). But there's also rules where
everyone's permission needs to be asked. So why the badge?

I think this policy needs to be much clearer. Currently most people are
fine with their pictures being taken. I'd suggest to make it easy to see
which ones don't want their pictures to be taken and keep the bits where
it's not complying with this preference means you're out of the
conference/ hackfest/ similar.

I am well aware that we have attendees which do not want their picture
to be taken plus do not want to have everyone know this.

| Guidelines for attendees
| 
| If you don't want to have your picture taken, please make this known to
| event organizers before or near the beginning of the event. During some
| events, you will be issued a special badge to indicate that your picture
| should not be taken. There may be a photo-free zone where you can sit
| during talks - feel free to ask event organizers about this.

This implies that most people are fine with their picture being taken.
It also implies that some people might not be.

| Photographers should ask your permission either before or after taking
| your picture.

If most people are fine with having their picture taken, why should
permission be asked? I think this is too much of a burden (asking and
being asked) and not practical.

|   If this doesn't happen, you should feel free to ask them
| to stop or to delete any pictures they have taken. If you don't feel
| comfortable doing this, just ask an event organizer and they will assist
| you.

The bit about being entirely comfortable and it being ok to ask for
deletion of a picture seems reasonable.

| There are some cases where all attendees should expect to have their
| picture taken. This includes if you participate in a group photograph,
| or if you give a talk.

This seems odd, either permission should be asked or it shouldn't be. I
think it's too much of a burden. But if you want permission to be asked
then it should be asked _every_single_time_. The exceptions are basically
the ones which are difficult for the organizers of an event. However,
it's also a heavy burden for all participants taking pictures.

It seems way easier to assume that by default picture taking is ok while
at the same time it's mandatory to adhere that some people do NOT want
their pictures to be taken. Much easier!

| Guidelines for photographers

I use my phone for taking pictures and I'm an attendee, not a
photographer I think.

| If you are taking photographs at a GNOME event, make yourself available
| to those you are taking pictures of. Ensure that you get permission from

I don't understand what's meant with 'make yourself available'. I could
imagine that after a picture I need to hang around for 5 minutes or
something? Usually people don't notice that I take their pictures. The
best pictures are when people are not noticing their picture being
taken.

| your subjects either before or after you have taken their picture.

That's not practical and I'm going to break that rule. I've been to
Germany last weekend and observed (at least in Cologne) that most people
actually wait for a traffic light. It's not practical nor reasonable
request to ask a hundred times/day if you can take someones picture.
Especially if you take a lot of pictures it'll be impossible. If someone
would actually follow these rules it's a huge burden.

Imagine coding where for every line someone interrupts you with a
question. You'll not be able to concentrate nor get anything done. While
taking pictures it's unreasonable to do a lot of red tape just for the
sake of it (IMO).

Another practical bit: I've taken pictures of a big group. E.g. in
Manchester where people were sitting on the stairs. You cannot really
make anyone out or anything. According to this rule I'd need to spend
time to track them around and ask permission? It seems impractical. Same
for e.g. the 20 year party even, I have various pictures with around 50
people on there.

| Permission from parents or guardians should be requested for all minors.

Is the "should be" like an RFC? Meaning I can just ignore it? If so, why
even have it in there?

| If someone asks you not to take their picture, don't. If someone asks
| you to delete or unpublish a picture you have taken of them, politely
| comply.

This seems great.

| Don't harass people by repeatedly taking their picture without
| per

Re: Code of Conduct Adoption Process

[Olav Vitters]

On Thu, Sep 15, 2016 at 08:29:50PM -0400, Richard Stallman wrote:
> We should judge proposals based on what they say and their effects,
> not based on personalities.

FYI: Those messages were moderated (IIRC Lefty is), there's nobody
really actively looking at moderated emails (various reasons). Once
something is in a moderation queue please ensure that your
comment/remark is worthy to be let through. 

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Re: Memberships needing renewal (2016-8)

[Olav Vitters]

On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 11:59:14PM +, GNOME Foundation Membership Committee 
wrote:
> Olav Vitters, 2014-08-05

Didn't notice any earlier email, but did get one around this time. Sent
a request.

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Re: [Builder] Developer experience (DX) hackfest 2016

[Olav Vitters]

On Mon, Dec 28, 2015 at 10:03:55AM -0300, Hugo Alejandro wrote:
> http://rtcquickstart.org/
> 
> Daniel Pocock Daniel has always offered their help in creating and improving
> communications through opensource protocols.

That's pretty far off from what we're looking for. Above describes how
to setup an extensive infrastructure to do pretty much everything
related to communications. That such an extensive document is called
"quickstart" gives me the shivers!

Is there an existing (hosted) solution alternative to hangouts? Pretty
much as simple as: "go to this URL"?

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Re: code of conduct question for Board candidates

[Olav Vitters]

On Sat, May 23, 2015 at 10:06:49AM -0700, Josh Triplett wrote:
> I'm entirely in favor of an improved code of conduct, both for events
> and in general.  And thank you for raising this issue.
> 
> Some searching turned up https://wiki.gnome.org/Foundation/CodeOfConduct
> , but that's definitely insufficient.  (It's a nice set of sentiments,
> but not a functional code of conduct.)  By contrast, the GUADEC 2014
> code of conduct you linked to sets the higher standard I would expect,
> and that I've come to expect from other conferences as well.  I'm in
> favor of improving the general code of conduct to the same standard.

Why and how is it "definitely insufficient"?

I quite like the Code of Conduct and I've signed it. By contrast, the
2014 GUADEC one is a very long statement specifically about a
conference, not about a community. I don't see how the board has _any_
influence on the GNOME community. This while the conference one assumes
you're attending a conference and that someone can "expel" you, can
possibility contact law enforcement, etc.

I don't follow why I'd sign something can cause legal issues for me if I
could do without that.

I think in the question the GNOME community vs foundation members are
mixed up. Those are not the same thing.

I'm a bit surprised that people see a Code of Conduct as something new.
See e.g. https://mail.gnome.org/; we already expect people to follow the
Code of Conduct.

And before someone misunderstands, I have enforced the Code of Conduct,
I've signed the existing one and agree to the thoughts behind both.

This maybe my annoyance with volunteering and then getting too much "do
this or else".. that takes the fun out of it. I prefer "assume people
mean well".



For lurkers:
https://2014.guadec.org/conduct/
https://wiki.gnome.org/Foundation/CodeOfConduct
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Re: GUADEC 2015 when?

[Olav Vitters]

On Thu, Feb 19, 2015 at 04:55:07PM +, Ekaterina Gerasimova wrote:
> On 23/01/2015, Olav Vitters  wrote:
> > On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 06:14:16PM +0100, Andreas Nilsson wrote:
> >> We've been planning to run the conference between August 7-9, with a
> >> flexible hackfest schedule after that. That might changedepending on the
> >> final venue, but hopefully it helps with planning!
> >
> > Thanks for the update! I cannot take vacation after 9 August, so
> > hopefully no delays. Ideally one week earlier, but alas.
> 
> In case you haven't heard, the dates are 7-9th August for the
> conference, with hackfests most likely afterwards.

Thanks and noticed!

I took 7th off :-D

Seems airplane ticket is 215 EUR atm (AMS->GOT) and hotels aren't the
cheapest. Bit unfortunate though not surprising. Wondering about airbnb.

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Re: foundation application..

[Olav Vitters]

On Thu, Feb 19, 2015 at 12:44:19PM +, Magdalen Berns wrote:
> This is something I believe could happen if an amendment were to be
> proposed with compelling evidence to support it so we are able to take an
> informed vote on it. At the moment the issue is that a decision which
> overrides the bylaws has already been made in the establishment of this
> policy, which means members are put in a position where we have to defend
> the bylaws but that the policy decision somehow doesn't seem to have to be
> defended with compelling evidence - which is the wrong way round.

I believe the bylaws are followed. As such, I don't think any amendment
is needed. Further, it seems though there should be improvement, it is
quite clear. Andrea showed the bit where bylaws state that actual
discretion is for membership committee.

For various things the foundation delegates responsibility to the
various teams. These teams have then additional rules in place. That
these are in the bylaws or not is not IMO unimportant. I think the rules
per team (delegated area) should be clear.

> IMO if there's a valid concern then it really
> > doesn't matter to spend so much time on if they're allowed or not.
> 
> Therein lies the core difference in how we perceive this: I believe the
> concern may be valid enough to investigate, but I do not believe the
> "problem" has been quantified and therefore I do not believe the argument
> for this policy is substantiated and hence I do not believe it is a waste
> of time to spend so much time on if they're allowed to act on the
> assumptions that have been made about it. Moreover, we have no idea whether
> this approach is actually causing more harm than good. It could actually be
> making more interns unwelcome and unappreciated and deterring them from
> continuing to contribute to the project. We are generally acting on an
> awful lot of assumptions by taking action to address a perceived problem
> which we really haven't analysed concrete data for.

The problem was highlighted many years ago on various occasions: Mentors
spend a lot of time, to only have the person vanish after the period.
This partly due to wrong perception. You're not going to have 100% of
the people stay. IMO 1 in 5 is more realistic. I guess we should track
these people.

I forgot when GNOME started participating in GSoC. Wikipedia shows this
started in 2005. The discussions around this are nothing new.

In another message regarding this I noticed people are mostly talking
about the outreach program. I know little about that. I'm mostly talking
about GSoC.

I have noticed way more people whose names I don't recognize at all, but
doing cool things. Unfortunately no clue where they're from.

> > Those following, might have noticed that this was done in the opening part
> > > of the discussion and it seemed to be generally agreed that some interns
> > do
> > > make non-trivial contributions. At least, nobody seems to have disagreed
> > > with that idea, anyway.
> >
> > Most interns seem to vanish quite quickly after their internship is
> > over. Maybe not true at all anymore, there are a few exceptions, but
> > that has been a topic of discussion for various years.
> 
> The question is not just about whether they most of them vanish, although I
> agree that's clearly part of it. We need to be able to compare their
> behaviour to other kinds of contributors statistically, accounting for all
> our sources of error, before we can begin to make any assumptions
> or predictions about this model. Let's see the raw data and analyse it
> first.

For the various programs out there (I mostly followed GSoC) people not
staying with GNOME is IMO something was clearly a problem. If it still
is, no clue.

Doing investigations, cool. But IMO there was enough concern regarding
this.

Anyway, this is too much theoretical talk so I'm going to switch to a
proposal instead. Getting more concrete:
  I think in the "guidelines" for applying, there should be a mention
  that membership committee has seen that interns (GSoC, etc) often
  leave so it is highly preferred that the intern waits two months
  before applying. At the same time, it should clearly state that 1) the
  participation was already enough 2) it is not encouraged, but they can
  apply anyway.


Above makes it clear that it is something soft. At the same time, you
cannot guarantee that their membership would be accepted, but IMO it
should state that it is highly likely it will. IMO this addresses all
concerns: amount of participation needed, ability to become a member
immediately for those who feel very strongly, avoiding impression of not
being welcome, plus handling concern if people stay or not.

There's still maybe that there is no concern at all anymore. I think
that takes more time to figure out.

If the people who have a concern here see my proposal as acceptable, we
can get membership committee to agree, etc (one step at a time).

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Re: foundation application..

[Olav Vitters]

On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 06:30:51PM +, Magdalen Berns wrote:
> > > If you have a concrete reason why it does help to continue to ignore
> > bylaws
> > > that are inconvenient for whatever is more convenient, then you are free
> > to
> > > make a case for that. California law probably would probably override
> > that
> > > idea, though.
> >
> > I tried to nicest way to let you see a different point of view, taking
> > into account the previous failure to have any discussion with you.
> >
> > It seems you're not open in understanding what I mean.
> >
> > > This is not a complicated process, it is fairly clear and transparent
> > > (especially when compared with the alternative). What is the problem with
> > > using It?
> >
> > Yeah, just focus on whatever the bylaws might or not might take. Did you
> > read my email? Did you make any effort to grasp what I'm trying to say?
> >
> > Your questions indicate you did not.
> >
> 
> The effort I made was to I ask what you were on about and that is still not
> very clear.

I'll try in a different way:
- there's apparently a different criteria being applied
- you seem to focus on what the bylaws state

This IMO skips an important part of trying to figure out why a different
criteria is being applied. For instance, you mention that according to
the bylaws it is not allowed to make a distinction. Further, it is not
allowed by some court. I don't think you're right in asserting that. I
might totally agree with you that having the distinction is wrong, but
regarding this point I don't see it the same way. Especially regarding
assumptions on what a judge would rule and so on. There's more to it
than just bylaws. IMO you have too much of a programmers view on this.
Could even be that standard practice trumps bylaws.

IMO it is better to first focus on *why* a different criteria is applied
and then figure out what to do, rather than ignoring the why and going
for *if* they can do that. IMO if there's a valid concern then it really
doesn't matter to spend so much time on if they're allowed or not.

> Those following, might have noticed that this was done in the opening part
> of the discussion and it seemed to be generally agreed that some interns do
> make non-trivial contributions. At least, nobody seems to have disagreed
> with that idea, anyway.

Most interns seem to vanish quite quickly after their internship is
over. Maybe not true at all anymore, there are a few exceptions, but
that has been a topic of discussion for various years.

I think more concretely specifying what membership committee expects is
helpful.

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Re: foundation application..

[Olav Vitters]

On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 12:52:32PM +, Magdalen Berns wrote:
> If you have a concrete reason why it does help to continue to ignore bylaws
> that are inconvenient for whatever is more convenient, then you are free to
> make a case for that. California law probably would probably override that
> idea, though.

I tried to nicest way to let you see a different point of view, taking
into account the previous failure to have any discussion with you.

It seems you're not open in understanding what I mean.

> This is not a complicated process, it is fairly clear and transparent
> (especially when compared with the alternative). What is the problem with
> using It?

Yeah, just focus on whatever the bylaws might or not might take. Did you
read my email? Did you make any effort to grasp what I'm trying to say?

Your questions indicate you did not.

> Various people have stayed after GSoC (+ anything similar). On other
> > hand: some you don't hear about at all once they leave. For some
> > internship, the person has a mentor assigned to them. That eases the
> > "stickyness" vs someone who sends patches on his own. I'd wonder about
> > why someone applies, is it real interest in GNOME and free software, or
> > just good for resume and finding work?
> >
> 
> As Meg seems to have pointed out already in her question, the same could be
> said for any sponsored contributor. The bylaws are explicit in not
> discriminating against sponsored/paid contributors compared with any other
> kind of contributor. There is a concrete process for anyone who disagrees
> with bylaws to suggest an amendment to them.

I've asked you to consider chasing the meaning of bylaws. "Non-trivial
effort" is open to interpretation.

> For foundation membership (IIRC) to have to specify a few people to
> > vouch for you. I have never been a mentor. I'm wonder if the mentor
> > could guess if the person would stay or not.
> >
> > I think detailing the expectations would help a lot.
> >
> 
> At the moment we are talking about whether it is justifiable to tell all
> successful interns that they are not eligible for membership not how the
> membership committee make their decisions. The bylaws give the membership
> committee the overriding decision but says all applications are to be
> considered on a case-by-case basis.

The way you're holding discussions on foundation-list, you think you're
doing the best for those members. That's great, but having some slight
respect for comments from people who have been around for quite a while
would be appreciated.

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Re: foundation application..

[Olav Vitters]

On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 11:20:21AM +, Magdalen Berns wrote:
> It doesn't make a difference. The bylaws are the rules which regulate the
> GNOME Foundation. GNOME's bylaws state the rules on membership eligibility
> by defining what a contributor is and who is illegible for membership (i.e.

IMO: It almost feels like GNOME is paying someone to become a member of
the foundation. Arguing a lot about what the current rules state will
not help with the concerns people have raised.

Let's focus on why there's any difference, see if can reach a conclusion
on that. "Because the rules" state so leads IMO to too much nitpicking
on the rules, instead of focussing on the concerns.

Various people have stayed after GSoC (+ anything similar). On other
hand: some you don't hear about at all once they leave. For some
internship, the person has a mentor assigned to them. That eases the
"stickyness" vs someone who sends patches on his own. I'd wonder about
why someone applies, is it real interest in GNOME and free software, or
just good for resume and finding work?

For foundation membership (IIRC) to have to specify a few people to
vouch for you. I have never been a mentor. I'm wonder if the mentor
could guess if the person would stay or not.

I think detailing the expectations would help a lot.

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Re: OUTAGE: bugzilla.gnome.org, 09th February (09:00 CET) - 10th February (22:00 CET)

[Olav Vitters]

On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 09:58:49AM +0100, Alexandre Franke wrote:
> As I already told Sri on IRC yesterday, if anything is wrong with our
> current bugzilla, you should start by filing bugs. Then we can start
> looking for solutions and someone to implement them. Otherwise we
> can't guess what you guys think the problem is.

As well: This is almost the default Bugzilla UI, and yeah, it is that
terrible by default. Read
http://blogs.gnome.org/aklapper/2015/02/10/gnome-bugzilla-upgraded-to-4-4/
for the list of things. Loads of overlapping functionality. We've been
using Bugzilla for so long while the UI has not improved much, nor the
way that it works (just received more options or made it less easy to
remove the unneeded functionality). Andre raised it various times, but
they're not really getting it.

Just to classify bugs into various lists you have:
Classifications, Products, Components, Hardware, OS, Keywords, Tags,
Flags, Target Milestone. That's wayyy too many.

During FOSDEM a Mozilla Bugzilla hacker reached out to see if assistance
was needed. We didn't contact yet, but maybe this is better.

BTW: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/ is a heavily customized Bugzilla.
Upstream Bugzilla should just work by default IMO.

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Re: foundation application..

[Olav Vitters]

On Mon, Feb 09, 2015 at 05:01:42PM -0800, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
> Yes, I've had other anecdotes where people relate the same thing.  As
> I said, I'm intimidated too when go through it.  Maybe if there are
> interested people we could work on it together?

I sometimes just hand out bugzilla permissions and/or tell people to get
git accounts without them asking for it. Often difficult to judge until
you have the experience. I try to watch out for beginners + try to make
it easier to join. E.g. a while ago Bugzilla permissions changed so that
any developer can hand out editbugs+canconfirm.

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GNOME support for fixmydocument.eu

[Olav Vitters]

There's a website to encourage support for open standards, so ODF usage
within European Union. On http://fixmydocuments.eu/?page_id=27 I see
LibreOffice supporting this. KDE is also mentioned. It would be nice if
we were listed as well I think.

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Re: GUADEC 2015 when?

[Olav Vitters]

On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 06:14:16PM +0100, Andreas Nilsson wrote:
> We've been planning to run the conference between August 7-9, with a
> flexible hackfest schedule after that. That might changedepending on the
> final venue, but hopefully it helps with planning!

Thanks for the update! I cannot take vacation after 9 August, so
hopefully no delays. Ideally one week earlier, but alas.


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GUADEC 2015 when?

[Olav Vitters]

Hi,

Any idea on when GUADEC 2015 will be? I need to coordinate my vacation
with colleagues and those colleagues aren't as flexible as me.

Thanks.
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Re: Linking to non-free websites from gnome.org

[Olav Vitters]

On Wed, Jan 07, 2015 at 02:47:00PM +, Magdalen Berns wrote:
> So the GNOME infrastructure can't figure that one out but Christian, an
> already overburdened volunteer who is trying to scape funds for his
> project, somehow can do it all by himself?  That makes absolutely no sense.

>From your response it seems you haven't tried to understand anything I
said. You come across as trying to give ridicule what I've stated. RMS
has an issue with non-free javascript and usage of IndieGoGo for this
campaign. In some of the responses you seem to actually agree, while
thinking I mean something totally different.

Good luck, I am out of this.

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Re: Linking to non-free websites from gnome.org

[Olav Vitters]

On Tue, Jan 06, 2015 at 10:28:02PM +, Magdalen Berns wrote:
> >
> > > The point about that really is that the recent campaign seems to have
> > > demonstrated that in principle, GNOME already has the infrastructure
> > which
> > > could allow them to accept money for any given crowdfunding campaign on
> > > behalf of community driven projects (and any general fundraising too, of
> > > course). Assuming that this infrastructure is based on free software and
> > > that it comes without the same kinds of fees as all the crowdfunding
> > sites
> > > do.
> >
> > It might be possible to create something like this, but at the moment
> > GNOME doesn't have the same setup.
> 
> The same set up as what?

Something similar to IndieGoGo.

> > AFAIK there's a difference between accepting money yourself and an
> > organization on your behalf. It might not be as easy as it appears.
> 
> Tax wise it is a different form of expense. Whoever the treasurer is would
> have to clarify. With that said it seems that the treasurer for a charity
> of this size would have to be used to managing large sums of money from
> donations as well as paying salaries, freelancers and expenses as they
> already have to fill in tax forms every year.

I don't want to be harsh, but there's a known working solution vs
something that "probably will work".

> Instead of talking about what should not be done, I'd prefer if we
> > encourage something to be done.
> 
> 
> I will assume you are not talking to me here, since that is exactly what I
> am doing already.

I mean that instead of having a list of:
- don't link to Facebook
- don't link to Google+
- don't use IndieGoGo
- don't link to Twitter

I rather see how people can improve on spreading the idea and usage of
free software. It seems FSF is too much about first restricting
ourselves to a group who pretty much only uses free software. Seems too
much "preaching to the choir".

In this case there wasn't anything available, a decision was taken that
is not ideal, but best at that time.

If you look at e.g. GNOME applications, loads of new applications have
been written over the years. The number of commits and authors have
stayed relatively the same. Looking at that per application the
maintenance is decreasing.

Builder is just one item to attract people to work on free software. I
think too much burden is put on this. The person wanting to make Builder
should also figure out a free software version to raise funds. I rather
go for an imperfect solution, acknowledge that, put that on a list of
things to solve and move on.

Then this list of things to solve might read:
- convince Google+ to use free software license in their javascript
- convince IndieGoGo to use free software license in their javascript
- create an alternative to IndieGoGo just for GNOME
- create an alternative to IndieGoGo for everyone

Above list can be worked upon by multiple people and maybe entire teams.

> I don't see how having a banner which endorses an campaign automatically
> > leads to endorsing something else (the company making the campaign
> > possible). Maybe sometimes, but at the moment we link to Facebook,
> > Twitter and Google+ for IMO entirely logical and practical reasons.
> >
> 
>  Social links are indeed, a tough call in a question like this. Off hand.
> twitter does not seem so terrible, but does GNOME actually gain anything
> from being on facebook to make it worth that, though?

I don't think it is a tough call at all. I agree with the idea of free
software. I don't like that turning into a list of things you cannot do.
With free software I still have non-free software running on my machine.

There's multiple ways to support and stand by the way of supporting free
software. 

Regarding gaining anything: How would more people ever know about free
software if the only people we reach out to is free software people?

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Re: Linking to non-free websites from gnome.org

[Olav Vitters]

On Tue, Jan 06, 2015 at 06:41:23PM +, Magdalen Berns wrote:
> The point about that really is that the recent campaign seems to have
> demonstrated that in principle, GNOME already has the infrastructure which
> could allow them to accept money for any given crowdfunding campaign on
> behalf of community driven projects (and any general fundraising too, of
> course). Assuming that this infrastructure is based on free software and
> that it comes without the same kinds of fees as all the crowdfunding sites
> do.

It might be possible to create something like this, but at the moment
GNOME doesn't have the same setup. AFAIK there's a difference between
accepting money yourself and an organization on your behalf. It might
not be as easy as it appears.

Instead of talking about what should not be done, I'd prefer if we
encourage something to be done. E.g. either talking to IndieGoGo, above
make specific GNOME infra, or something else. This way someone can step
up.

> Second, linking to a web site is not an automatic endorsement of its script
> > licensing or the practices of its operator.  Lacking semantic operators for
> > hyperlinks, context is everything.  Personally, I trust my readers to
> > understand this.
> >
> 
> I think I would have to agree with you when it comes to arbitrary links. If
> for no other reason than that it would be practically impossible to
> regulate. See my most recent for discussion on that though. In particular
> the comment on banners. I do think it is fair to concede that a banner is
> an endorsement. If it wasn't, then banner advertisement would not have
> become the billion dollar market that it undeniably is.

I don't see how having a banner which endorses an campaign automatically
leads to endorsing something else (the company making the campaign
possible). Maybe sometimes, but at the moment we link to Facebook,
Twitter and Google+ for IMO entirely logical and practical reasons.

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Re: Builder crowdsourcing banner on PGO

[Olav Vitters]

On Wed, Dec 31, 2014 at 06:18:03PM +, Alberto Ruiz wrote:
> Is anyone against placing a banner on PGO to support Builder's campaign on
> IndieGoGo? The campaign is going alright but I think it's in our best
> interest as a community that we push to make sure he gets the 100K and can
> work on this full time for the whole year.

Please proceed. I'm in favour of promoting free software. I'm in favour
of promoting free whenever possible. The javascript not being open is
unfortunate, but there's no realistic way around that. It would be nice
if someone takes the time to make a case with IndieGoGo.

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Re: OPW; Where does the 500$ for each GSoC goes?

[Olav Vitters]

On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 07:50:50AM -0500, Michael Catanzaro wrote:
> On Tue, 2014-09-16 at 14:01 +0200, Olav Vitters wrote:
> > Having 40k USD doesn't mean you get to spend that all on a developer.
> > At least in Europe there is a huge amount of overhead (factor of
> > 2.0-2.5 IIRC for .nl).
> 
> It's a reasonable pre-tax salary for an American. :) (We almost always
> think of pre-tax salary.) Like I said, it's not competitive for a
> developer, and I don't think hiring a developer is really a good idea,
> but it's a reasonable salary.

I'm talking about that when a company gives someone a salary of 40k USD,
the amount it costs the company is (at least in Europe) significantly
higher than 40k USD. After that you have what you mentioned: taxes (for
employee), etc.


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Re: OPW; Where does the 500$ for each GSoC goes?

[Olav Vitters]

On Sun, Sep 14, 2014 at 06:45:47PM -0500, Michael Catanzaro wrote:
> On Sun, 2014-09-14 at 16:41 +0100, Emmanuele Bassi wrote:
> > we
> > raised 40 thousand dollars on a part time system administrator, and
> > that's a fraction of the cost of a full time developer.
> 
> $40,000 is a reasonable salary for a full-time American developer, as
> long as he's not located someplace with a stupid cost of living like San
> Francisco or New York or LA. Of course it's not a competitive salary,
> but we're a nonprofit and it would be wasteful for us to pay a
> competitive salary. It's not like we're competing for talent

Having 40k USD doesn't mean you get to spend that all on a developer. At
least in Europe there is a huge amount of overhead (factor of 2.0-2.5
IIRC for .nl).

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Re: OPW; Where does the 500$ for each GSoC goes?

[Olav Vitters]

On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 01:17:04PM +0200, Fabiano Fidêncio wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 1:03 PM, Olav Vitters  wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 12:54:44PM +0200, Fabiano Fidêncio wrote:
> > > I do believe GNOME Foundation should have a clear (and well documented)
> > way
> > > for people raising their questions wrt how the GNOME Foundation's money
> > is
> > > spent.
> >
> > I prefer stuff out in the open. So nothing wrong with foundation-list.
> > There's also bo...@gnome.org. Starting off with private messages is IMO
> > not the right approach.
> 
> These things are quite sensible. You may be curious asking for info and end
> up being accused to accuse GNOME Foundation of corruption (what was exactly
> what happened to me). So, that's the reason I'd prefer direct contact with

I had to read up on what happened. I think the misunderstanding would've
happened anyway.

In the theoretical case: if people prefer stuff to be private by
default, then I'm ok with them being slightly uncomfortable ;-)

> the board (as you suggested then, by the mailing list) and then, once the
> person who asked for it has suggestions based on real data, contact the
> board (to make sure that the topic won't leak any personal details) and
> then, just after that, start the discussion here in the Foundation List.

The people can tell you it is confidential and suggest to move to
another form of communication. Starts out in the open, then moves
elsewhere.

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Re: OPW; Where does the 500$ for each GSoC goes?

[Olav Vitters]

On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 12:54:44PM +0200, Fabiano Fidêncio wrote:
> I do believe GNOME Foundation should have a clear (and well documented) way
> for people raising their questions wrt how the GNOME Foundation's money is
> spent.

I prefer stuff out in the open. So nothing wrong with foundation-list.
There's also bo...@gnome.org. Starting off with private messages is IMO
not the right approach.

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Re: Mission Statement

[Olav Vitters]

On Wed, Aug 06, 2014 at 10:05:45PM -0700, Germán Poo-Caamaño wrote:
> 
> The order of magnitudes are different.  For OPW (40 interns), GNOME has
> to allocate $220,000 to be able to pay the interns. For a hackfest,
> GNOME has to allocate between $1,000 to $15,000.
> 
> For OPW there are contracts that states with an exact date of payment.
> For hackfests/travel assistance just good intentions on when (likely)
> there would be a reimbursement.
> 
> From the advisory board, GF likely receives less than $200,000 a year on
> fees.  Maybe less than $150,000. And possibly less if they don't pay on
> time.  Therefore, I hardly see how a hackfest/travel
> assistance/conference could freeze GF funds.
> 
> To increase the number of interns in OPW will depend on how good the
> GF's finances are to back it up, regardless of how many sponsor would be
> willing to pay... because it's a matter of cash flow.  In that sense,
> the size GF can play against OPW itself.

IMO this a good summary why OPW should be in a different legal entity.

Repeating: I'm all for OPW, I think it is great that GNOME foundation
does this.
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Re: Mission Statement

[Olav Vitters]

On Wed, Aug 06, 2014 at 06:15:22PM +0100, Allan Day wrote:
> Again speaking as a member of the Engagement Team, I would say that
> OPW has made it easier for us to talk about what GNOME does in a
> coherent manner, rather than making it more difficult.

The general consensus that I see is that GNOME is without funds due to
OPW. A status update from the board would be welcome. During AGM it was
mentioned that it was decided that no status update would be given atm.
I think such a status update is overdue.

I think OPW is great. Having it ran by GNOME is great as well. Lack of
status update is bad. Having OPW funds under the same legal entity is
IMO questionable. I think it should be a separate legal entity. For as
it already caused risks, and I don't see how this is aligned with
mission statement. Meaning: A lot of money is being moved via GNOME.
GNOME has special status (the donate for free bit), IMO legal entity
would be needed.

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Groupon @ Phoronix

[Olav Vitters]

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTc1MjI

| Hopefully the GNOME Foundation and others will be able to extrude
| their forces in clearing up this odd and unfortunate situation. 
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Re: Current state of Foundation finances

[Olav Vitters]

On Sat, Apr 12, 2014 at 12:32:12AM +0100, Ekaterina Gerasimova wrote:
> The board expects that you may have some questions or would like to
> know more details about the problem, please read
> https://wiki.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/CurrentBudgetFAQ and contact
> the board at board-l...@gnome.org if you have any further questions.

Could you slightly change this and clarify what "cash flow" means?

It seems a lot of people are reading this and assuming that we ran out
of money due to spending all our money on OPW. While in practice, it is
just the financial boring bit that the money on the bank account is
lower because the money hasn't been coming in as quickly as handing it
out. But that'll resolve once we focus upon it.

Or in brief: we are not the best with sticking with financial followup.

I think changing the wording would help a lot in changing the impression
that we spent too much money. A lot of people don't know about "cash
flow", etc.

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Re: Hello from a new member

[Olav Vitters]

On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 10:29:26PM +0002, Yosef Or Boczko wrote:
> Thank you for accepting me as a member.


Welcome!
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Re: Happy to be a member of the gnome foundation

[Olav Vitters]

On Thu, Jan 02, 2014 at 10:14:23PM +0100, Mario Wenzel wrote:
> as a new member of the foundation you are, so says the welcome-email,
> highly encouraged to write to this mailing list in order to introduce
> yourself.

Welcome! Very nice that you're helping out. Also nice to see that
gnome-shell inspired you.

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Re: Mass Reboot: Wednesday 18th, 09:00 - 10:30 AM GMT+2

[Olav Vitters]

On Wed, Sep 18, 2013 at 12:56:21PM +0200, Andrea Veri wrote:
> Everything went fine, all the systems were updated and rebooted
> successfully.

Thanks for the amount of effort you put in. Even more so because I've
been slacking for quite a while.

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Re: Announcing GNOME's official GitHub mirror

[Olav Vitters]

On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 05:08:06PM +0200, Mathieu Stumpf wrote:
> Le 2013-08-18 23:13, Olav Vitters a écrit :
> >On Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 01:14:47PM -0400, Super Bisquit wrote:
> >>Since when did you become a "Dr" without having an actual doctorate-
> >>honorary ones don't mean shit?
> >
> >Since when is such behaviour socially acceptable? Anyway, you're
> >banned
> >from both lists, bye.
> 
> Seriously, having harsh personal discourses is a pity, but
> escalading to
> bare censorship is a shame. Hiding symptom don't help to resolve
> problems.
> 
> Freedom come with the ability to make mistakes, including saying
> non-constructive things.

He's totally free to go personal with someone via private email. It is
offtopic for this list, totally inappropriate and socially unacceptable.
Suggest to read the descriptions for these mailing lists. Note that
mailman is free software and anyone is also free to host their own
mailing list.

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Re: Announcing GNOME's official GitHub mirror

[Olav Vitters]

On Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 01:14:47PM -0400, Super Bisquit wrote:
> Since when did you become a "Dr" without having an actual doctorate-
> honorary ones don't mean shit?

Since when is such behaviour socially acceptable? Anyway, you're banned
from both lists, bye.

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Re: GNOME Love flyer and help

[Olav Vitters]

On Thu, Apr 04, 2013 at 02:55:58PM -0400, Marina Zhurakhinskaya wrote:
> Thanks to design and edits by Fabiana Simões and Andreas Nilsson and
> edits by Flavia Weisghizzi, Karen Sandler, and me, we now have a GNOME
> Love flyer! Please bring it to any conference or event where you can
> encourage people to join GNOME, especially if there is a GNOME booth
> at the event.
> 
> https://live.gnome.org/GnomeMarketing/ConferenceMaterial#Flyer
> 
> Also, it would be really great to have more people helping out
> newcomers on #gnome-love IRC channel and
> https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-love mailing list. There
> are often questions there and help answering them would be really
> appreciated!

When replying, please change foundation-list-bounces into
foundation-list.

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Re: jabber.gnome.org: a proposal

[Olav Vitters]

On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 09:26:33AM +0100, Bastien Nocera wrote:
> to maintain the OpenFire Jabber server. First, as Olav mentioned,
> there's no SSL support for a service where you would expect privacy.

There is SSL. Just that:
1) they broke it in a newer version and never fixed it in any
reasonable timeframe (3 months)
2) getting the certificate installed was a complete mess. Had to convert
the standard certificate in some terrible format and took a lot of
effort to figure out.

Current server does SSL IIRC. Though maybe by now it expired again.


What I had to go through for SSL:
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=592836#c8

Couldn't quickly see the bug about openfire messing up their SSL
support. 'Fix' was easy though, downgrading.

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Re: jabber.gnome.org: a proposal

[Olav Vitters]

On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 10:03:33AM -0400, Shaun McCance wrote:
> I think it's clear from the recent thread that most people had
> no idea we had a Jabber server, or that they could get accounts
> on it, or how to go about doing so.

That is because we do not have a nice accounts system. I don't expect
that to change soon.

Note that the service behind jabber.gnome.org is atrocious. We're not
running the latest version because that version plainly does not work
with SSL. Does not really inspire confidence in the software / release
management.

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Re: New mail archive script

[Olav Vitters]

On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 11:11:28AM +0100, Andreas Nilsson wrote:
> On 2013-02-13 10:15, Olav Vitters wrote:
> >
> >In the new script I changed the layout. You can see it at:
> >https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-bugsquad/
> >though it'll be overwritten as soon as a new email is sent to that
> >mailing list.
> This looks excellent!

The new script is live as per yesterday. I've recreated all the main
overview pages (the links like above). Furthermore, the script that
creates https://mail.gnome.org/archives/ now shows the top 15 mailing
list (on subscriber count) in bold. Additionally, the mail archive
script does UTF-8 without needing LANG=en_US.UTF-8.

I found some additional (existing) problems that I want to fix before
re-archiving all our mailing lists. If people have issues with the
current layout, please reply/file bugs (websites/mail.gnome.org or
sysadmin/Mailman).

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Re: NFS OUTAGE: 15th Feb, 14:00 - 16:30 GMT+1

[Olav Vitters]

On Fri, Feb 15, 2013 at 07:22:45PM +0100, Andrea Veri wrote:
> Everything went fine, please let me know if you notice anything strange
> either for /home/users directories and for /ftp on master.gnome.org.

Fyi, this means yet another very old and unsupported machine has been
replaced by the new hardware we actually already had. Not all the new
hardware was always more stable than the stuff it replaced (talking
about the database server drawable), but when stuff is supported we can
just have new hardware sent to the NOC.

Aside from that we actually ran out of disk space on ftp.gnome.org, so
pretty timely replacement ☺

Current machines that are now ready to be killed:
- container (obsoleted yesterday)
- button (hardware died, old database machine)
- menubar (previous mail machine)

Still to go:
- label (LDAP)
- fixed (build machine, not a very old machine, but not under support
  IIRC)
- window (used to host websites, now still has art.gnome.org and
  www-old.gnome.org (which CSS is used by various other sites still),
  people.gnome.org, project.gnome.org and anjuta.org)

Also Andrea replaced 'signal.gnome.org' with something new. That's a VM
that monitors our services, sponsored by OSU OSL.

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New mail archive script

[Olav Vitters]

[ Regarding the new mail.gnome.org ]

On Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 04:10:52PM +0100, Andrea Veri wrote:
> All the services should be up and running again. The migration took a bit
> more than we expected cause of a failing script.

That was a Perl script which failed because of a missing module. It
didn't print any error message. Instead it just used 100% and that
took Andrea+Owen a long time to figure out (script has not changed since
2002 or so :).

I've rewritten the script in Python. It is not live yet, but over the
coming days I'll be testing it. This script handles the URLs below:
https://mail.gnome.org/archives/$LISTNAME/
(so not https://mail.gnome.org/archives/, just every link beneath it)

In the new script I changed the layout. You can see it at:
https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-bugsquad/
though it'll be overwritten as soon as a new email is sent to that
mailing list.

If you notice errors please file a bug at:
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=sysadmin

If you want to see the old+new script:
http://git.gnome.org/browse/mhonarc/tree/ (archive.pl and archive.py)


UTF-8 archive problem:
Note: there is another problem in where the archives are not in UTF-8.
That is due to upstart (RHEL6) not starting Postfix with
LANG=en_US.UTF-8. Proper way to configure that is welcome. Note that
postfix is just a sysvinit service in RHEL6, so the job configuration
does not apply AFAIK.
See https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=693433 if you have ideas.


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Re: Mail OUTAGE: 29 Jan, 21.00 - 23.00 GMT+1

[Olav Vitters]

On Mon, Jan 28, 2013 at 08:33:55PM +0100, Andrea Veri wrote:
> I'm currently in the middle of migrating our mail server to a different
> host and I'll take care of updating the relevant details (MX Records etc.)
> tomorrow.

Cool!

Info for the rest: the current machine handling mail is really old and
support contract has ended quite some time ago. We had a new VM for
moving this over, but never made time to actually do so. Is good that we
move stuff over before the hardware dies ;)

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Re: Andrea Veri - GNOME's new part-time sysadmin hire!

[Olav Vitters]

On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 11:29:10PM -0500, Karen Sandler wrote:
> In the spirit of the below email from last week, I'm extremely pleased to
> announce that the Foundation is hiring Andrea to work as our new sysadmin
> contractor. We've been without someone in this position since Christer
> stepped down last year, and Andrea has really been sensational as a
> volunteer and done a great deal of the work in the meantime.

Yay!

Too bad he won't be at FOSDEM! :-(

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Re: Setting moderation bit for members who consistently hijack topics

[Olav Vitters]

On Wed, Jan 09, 2013 at 06:37:41PM -0500, Karen Sandler wrote:
> Moreover, it's probably more polite to make requests about changes to
> moderation policy off-list to the admins,

I'm set as one of the listadmins for this mailing list.

Suggest at minimum the following:
* decide what is on topic and what is off topic for this list
  I assume GNU is ontopic, as long as the GNOME website says we are part
  of it.
* contact the person off list, pointing towards previous discussion on
  what is ontopic and what is not
* if this does not help, maybe contact Code of Conduct mediator
* as last resort, contact a listadmin

Personally, I heavily disagree with the way things are done in GNU
(actions, not the ideas). Mostly due to the attitude which to me seems
like an extreme version of "us vs them". The 'Ubuntu' thing however was
made clear that such behaviour is not acceptable which IMO is also good
to make clear. But personal opinion aside, please first define if GNU
matters should be ontopic or not.

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Re: Fwd: Re: Commit & push do gnome-calculator

[Olav Vitters]

On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 12:21:38PM -0200, Enrico Nicoletto wrote:
> I and my collegue Rafael Ferreira are facing problems in push the
> catalog pt_BR.po in Gnome Calculator´s module in Git.
> 
> We, from the Brazilian Portuguese Translation Team, believe that
> this error is caused by a permission setting.
> 
> Please, someone may help us ?

There was a sysadmin bug filed and I fixed it on Dec 28. If not, reopen
the bug or file a new one.

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Re: Bugzilla upgrade work

[Olav Vitters]

On Sat, Dec 15, 2012 at 11:06:03AM -0800, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
> Is there some way we could make these extensions and patches we can put in
> a puppet install?  I realize the database portion is going to be the manual
> stuff, but it seems that it would be easier to be able to automate it.  Of
> course, this is just my observation and I have not looked at the process.

That is just deploying. The major problem is the changes to the code
(doing development). What is minor is installing all the Bugzilla
dependencies, this is already in Puppet.

Not sure if the bzr setup is in Puppet, but that is minor effort. Feel
free to help out with that, I think it'll need changes anyway as likely
the current Puppet config is not right for Bugzilla 4.2/4.4.


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Bugzilla upgrade work

[Olav Vitters]

If anyone wants to join, I'll work on Bugzilla during Dec 22 - Dec 30
together with Andrea.

Recommended to know:
 - Bugzilla
 - GNOME Bugzilla (it is not standard :P)
   see https://launchpad.net/bugzilla.gnome.org for the code and
   instructions to see the diff vs vanilla 3.4)
 - Perl
 - read up on Bugzilla extensions
 - understand the various extensions I've written
   (http://bzr.mozilla.org/bugzilla/extensions/: Browse, DescribeUser,
   Developers, GNOME, PatchReport, ProductInterests, StockAnswers,
   WeeklyBugSummary)

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Re: Bugzilla upgrade? [was: Re: GNOME Bugmail: Gmail threading finally working!]

[Olav Vitters]

On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 06:33:17PM +0100, Andre Klapper wrote:
> On Wed, 2012-12-12 at 18:10 +0100, Olav Vitters wrote:
> > That is why there is a GNOME extension as well.
> 
> Then there's likely missing documentation about dependencies. 
> Currently no README file in the "Browse" extension would even tell you
> that it comes from "GNOME". Hence non-insiders wouldn't know that the
> "GNOME extension" is needed.

There were 3+ months between writing these extensions and getting my
Mozilla bzr account reactivated. I lost interest somewhere in those 3
months. Eventually I wanted to go at it again, but my machine at home is
not quick enough to handle a full GNOME Bugzilla database conversion
from 3.4 to 4.2 (OOM after 24+ hours; from previous upgrades I know I'll
test the conversion many many times). Coupled with the various lack of
RHEL licenses to create VMs @ GNOME, inability to create VMs myself,
etc.

My main focus with these extensions was bugzilla.gnome.org. That they
might not work on other installations is on the todo list, but patches
welcome.. should not be difficult.

Bugzilla 4.4 meanwhile is either out or almost out, so more work to see
what changed for extensions.

I'm planning to buy a new machine with loads more memory, but to be
honest there are so many things which go wrong every time, it is not
something which I often thing as something nice.

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Re: Bugzilla upgrade? [was: Re: GNOME Bugmail: Gmail threading finally working!]

[Olav Vitters]

On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 05:42:16PM +0100, Andre Klapper wrote:
> On Wed, 2012-12-12 at 17:24 +0100, Olav Vitters wrote:
> > > Would be helpful if Olav could outline that, yes. There's a raw codedump
> > > of some stuff at http://bzr.mozilla.org/bugzilla/extensions/ which is
> > > untested and non-working in its current state.
> > 
> > Sure? It does work and I did do loads of testing.. but been a long time
> > since I worked on it.
> 
> Maybe it works on the GNOME Bugzilla *database*, true.

I tested it on a clean database.

> I only tested on a clean Bugzilla with default fields (as there are no
> dumps of GNOME Bugzilla data so nobody could test anyway, right?). 
> On a clean BZ I get lots of issues due to GNOME-specific implementations
> like expecting the existence of the "GNOME Target" custom field etc.

That is why there is a GNOME extension as well.

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Re: Bugzilla upgrade? [was: Re: GNOME Bugmail: Gmail threading finally working!]

[Olav Vitters]

On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 05:17:54PM +0100, Andre Klapper wrote:
> On Wed, 2012-12-12 at 16:48 +0100, Andrea Veri wrote:
> > Thanks for bringing this up Andre. I can try to work on the upgrade
> > but I never touched Bugzilla before since Olav was used to manage it.
> > I've searched around for the upgrade documentation [1] and it doesn't
> > look like an hard operation.
> 
> It will be hard. GNOME Bugzilla is heavily customized (e.g. patch status
> dropdown) and some changes need to be converted to proper extensions
> (like Browse, PatchReview, WeeklyBugSummary, StockAnswers).

I did that already.

> > We should probably wait for Olav to provide some more details about
> > the modifications that GNOME made to customize our installation, that
> > might be the only bottleneck for a possible upgrade.
> 
> Would be helpful if Olav could outline that, yes. There's a raw codedump
> of some stuff at http://bzr.mozilla.org/bugzilla/extensions/ which is
> untested and non-working in its current state.

Sure? It does work and I did do loads of testing.. but been a long time
since I worked on it.

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Re: Bugzilla upgrade? [was: Re: GNOME Bugmail: Gmail threading finally working!]

[Olav Vitters]

On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 04:58:48PM +0100, Olav Vitters wrote:
> Do *NOT* touch Bugzilla. As mentioned before, there are *load* and

with the not touching I meant in case of an intended action of just
upgrading to a new vanilla upstream version.

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Re: Bugzilla upgrade? [was: Re: GNOME Bugmail: Gmail threading finally working!]

[Olav Vitters]

On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 04:48:43PM +0100, Andrea Veri wrote:
> Thanks for bringing this up Andre. I can try to work on the upgrade but I
> never touched Bugzilla before since Olav was used to manage it. I've
> searched around for the upgrade documentation [1] and it doesn't look like
> an hard operation. We should probably wait for Olav to provide some more
> details about the modifications that GNOME made to customize our
> installation, that might be the only bottleneck for a possible upgrade.

Those modifications is the sole reason we're running 3.4.

> But let's keep all the ports open, having someone to assist me during the
> operations will definitely speed everything up for this matter.

Do *NOT* touch Bugzilla. As mentioned before, there are *load* and
*loads* of customizations and I don't mind anyone taking over
maintenance. However, there is a real big difference between taking over
maintainer role and installing a pristine new upstream version on
bugzilla.gnome.org.

> 2012/12/12 Andre Klapper 
> 
> > On Wed, 2012-12-12 at 16:06 +0100, Andrea Veri wrote:
> > > This was just a temporary measure until we upgrade our Bugzilla to the
> > 4.2
> > > release.

The change you made was not communicated to the people maintaining it,
furthermore although you say the change is upstream, the change you
applied is not what is upstream, nor similar. It broke my filtering and
I wonder what other impact it had.

I not want to turn this into stop energy, but please communicate a
little bit.

> > Which brings us to the bigger question how to get GNOME Bugzilla from
> > 3.4 to 4.2. I don't even know if somebody cares to check and backports
> > security upgrades to GNOME Bugzilla.
> > IIRC, when upgrading from 2.20 to 3.4 we received gracious sponsoring by
> > Canonical to pay Max for this task.
> > If nobody has plans to try, this might be something to defer to the
> > foundation board in order to organize sponsoring?

I'm not backporting any security fixes. Only did that while 3.4 was
still maintained upstream.

> > I guess I don't need to copy and paste all improvements from the last
> > three upstream release notes to explain why I push for upgrading.

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Re: GNOME now

[Olav Vitters]

On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 02:33:56PM +, Emmanuele Bassi wrote:
> as opposed to the days of GNOME 2.x, the tweak UI tool is actually
> maintained, hosted on git.gnome.org, released along with the rest of
> GNOME, and designed by the GNOME design team. but, obviously, having
> three maintained UIs for settings, an extension mechanism that blows
> out of the water anything that was ever available in GNOME 2.x, is a
> clear regression for whosoever decides to tinker with GNOME. oh, no,

The common thing I see in various articles is that there is a GNOME
design team and they're against any form of customization. Especially
extensions.

Clearly this mindset is not real. So suggest to constructively change
that, e.g.:
- article on gnome.org "simple by default, crazily extensible by design"
- interview with some journalist
- some blogposts

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Re: GNOME now

[Olav Vitters]

On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 10:26:22AM -0500, Emily Gonyer wrote:
> Exactly. This is what most browsers do now as well - they have a
> 'preferences' with very basic, standard things (much as we have in
> settings currently). Then theres a little button for "advanced" - and
> then you get all sorts of settings for all manner of things. Why can't
> we integrate much of whats in dconf & tweak-tool into settings in
> 'advanced' or 'custom' sections?

There has been a decision on advanced buttons many years ago (I think
2.0 time). Since it has been raised and discussed various times.

A few of the reasons:
- advanced button will always be clicked, resulting in always performing
  extra steps (it is a bit more than 'user defined')
- increased complexity
- increased support+QA (e.g. focus-follow-mouse is partly broken atm, if
  you show it by default it'll better work!)
- more translation work (damned lies counts gschema stuff differently)
- goes against 'should work by default'

and so on.
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Re: Change in affiliation

[Olav Vitters]

On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 07:16:09PM +0100, Emmanuele Bassi wrote:
> starting on June 25, my new affiliation will be the Mozilla Foundation.

Probably bad, but my first thought was "wtf will happen with clutter" :P

Congrats and so on :)

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Re: Database's machine DOWN

[Olav Vitters]

On Mon, Jun 04, 2012 at 08:46:50AM +0100, Richard Hughes wrote:
> On 4 June 2012 08:02, Vincent Untz  wrote:
> > Is the sql database for the elections impacted by this? If yes, is there
> > a risk that some votes got lost?
> 
> Some bugs appear to have been lost, e.g.
> https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=677387

Sorry, forgot to put that in the announcement. We backup once per day,
so indeed all changes after that are gone. We might at one point get
that back, but reintegrating this is pretty difficult.

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Re: Database's machine DOWN

[Olav Vitters]

On Sun, Jun 03, 2012 at 09:19:43PM +0200, Olav Vitters wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 03, 2012 at 06:02:38PM +0200, Andrea Veri wrote:
> > we applied today a few updates on our main Mysql host (drawable) and a 
> > faulty reboot prevents the machine to get up again.
> > 
> > We've contacted the Red Hat IT already and hopefully the issue will be 
> > fixed anytime soon. (no ETA though)
> 
> Hardware (RAID) problems. This is going to take a while. Meaning:
> setting up mysql and restoring backups. People are still working on it.

Back up:
* bugzilla.gnome.org
* extensions.gnome.org
* blogs.gnome.org

I haven't looked into the other databases that were running on the
affected machine (drawable).

To be clear:
- I just changed some easy settings
- Andrea Veri got various people involved, etc
- Stephen Smoogen from Fedora sysadmin team assisted
- Owen Taylor assisted in the 10min he had between flights

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Re: Database's machine DOWN

[Olav Vitters]

On Mon, Jun 04, 2012 at 09:02:13AM +0200, Vincent Untz wrote:
> Le dimanche 03 juin 2012, à 21:19 +0200, Olav Vitters a écrit :
> > On Sun, Jun 03, 2012 at 06:02:38PM +0200, Andrea Veri wrote:
> > > we applied today a few updates on our main Mysql host (drawable) and a 
> > > faulty reboot prevents the machine to get up again.
> > > 
> > > We've contacted the Red Hat IT already and hopefully the issue will be 
> > > fixed anytime soon. (no ETA though)
> > 
> > Hardware (RAID) problems. This is going to take a while. Meaning:
> > setting up mysql and restoring backups. People are still working on it.
> 
> Is the sql database for the elections impacted by this? If yes, is there
> a risk that some votes got lost?

Took a while to figure out, but it is using a database on
button.gnome.org. One of the various machines without any service plan
in place, though more reliable than drawable (the machine that went down
for 2nd time due to hardware problems).

So no, not affected.

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Re: Database's machine DOWN

[Olav Vitters]

On Sun, Jun 03, 2012 at 06:02:38PM +0200, Andrea Veri wrote:
> we applied today a few updates on our main Mysql host (drawable) and a 
> faulty reboot prevents the machine to get up again.
> 
> We've contacted the Red Hat IT already and hopefully the issue will be 
> fixed anytime soon. (no ETA though)

Hardware (RAID) problems. This is going to take a while. Meaning:
setting up mysql and restoring backups. People are still working on it.

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Re: live.gnome.org Maintenance

[Olav Vitters]

On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 09:58:58AM +0200, Andrea Veri wrote:
> live.gnome.org will go under MAINTENANCE in a few minutes while I 
> migrate the content to the new host I finished setting up yesterday 
> night.
> 
> Another mail will follow as soon as everything got migrated.

Awesome!

It is still weird that it had so much problems just by forcing SSL /
https on. Guessing outgoing bandwidth problem, let's see.

FYI, I plan to break another site (force SSL) so you can fix it again :P

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Re: The GNOME Foundation has a new home

[Olav Vitters]

On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 12:15:35AM +0100, Andrea Veri wrote:
> It's an honour for me to announce that the Foundation's website has 
> been completely migrated to gnome.org. We've been working on this for 
> a few months now, but the result is simply awesome.

Cool!

FYI, you could also change api.gnome.org (see api-web) for fetching the
foundation members (add json ability). Then you can do away with the old
website more easily.

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Re: FOSDEM stand

[Olav Vitters]

On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 08:58:03AM +0100, Tobias Mueller wrote:
> Let me draw your attention at the wiki:
> . It'd be awesome
> if you could add yourself to the list of people helping out at the
> FOSDEM stand. So far, it's only a couple of people willing to help.

I'll do like last time: generally always around once at FOSDEM. This
year slightly different, as I'll hang out at Mageia as well.

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Re: Could a few influential GNOME develoers join gnu-prog-disc...@gnu.org?

[Olav Vitters]

On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 06:07:07PM +, Bastien Nocera wrote:
> And I was hoping to steer the discussion towards the fact that 1) it's a
> piece of freedesktop.org software that does this, so 2) the discussion
> should take place neither on GNU mailing-lists, nor on GNOME ones, but
> on freedesktop.org ones (in this case, the xdg list).

I've started the subscription process[1] for gnu-prog-discuss. I'll just
lurk and direct stuff to appropriate places.

To be very clear: I don't see myself as a developer.

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1. I usually do a post-only and another real subscription. List is
configured to require confirmation by a moderator, so guess it is going
to take a while.
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Re: FOG contact

[Olav Vitters]

On Wed, Jan 04, 2012 at 07:56:00PM +0800, Frederic Muller wrote:
> Maybe having a FOG alias going to several people would still make
> sense and make FOG donors feel like there is 'support contact' to
> get in touch with without the need to subscribe to a GNOME mailing
> list or dig up contacts.

If all agree, just file a bug and say the alias + members.

Noticed we have friends@ and friends-eu@. No idea what it is for.
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Re: FOG contact

[Olav Vitters]

On Tue, Jan 03, 2012 at 02:32:43PM +0800, Frederic Muller wrote:
> Is there an alias for such a request that would be the right place
> to ask questions?

Tried the generic bo...@gnome.org?

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Re: Desktop Summit Planning

[Olav Vitters]

On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 09:42:28PM -0600, Brian Cameron wrote:
> The biggest complaints about the Desktop Summit seem to be:

I don't want to miss out on GUADEC. And a Desktop Summit is not a
GUADEC.

> In discussion, the following options have been suggested as ways to
> improve the event.
> 
> 1. To not have a large combined GNOME+KDE event, and to instead have
>a smaller Desktop Summit or focused hackfest(s) with a more clear
>agenda to work on specific and measurable collaborative tasks.
>GUADEC and Akademy would continue as separate events.

I favour this strongly.

> 2. To arrange the Desktop Summit so that it is more of a co-located
>event.  The GNOME and KDE events are separate but overlap on
>certain days.  For example, GUADEC could happen first and continue
>for several days, then a few combined days of Desktop Summit
>followed by several days of Akademy.  This setup would likely be
>more complicated for bidding, since it would likely require a
>more dynamic space to accommodate the shifting needs.
> 
> 3. The GNOME community has been having trouble finding volunteers to
>help make events successful lately.  Some people like Dave Neary,

Before, or during the event? Before: yes (board asked gnome-nl for The
Hague). During: IMO, goes well. Lots of people help when asked.

> majority were supportive of the current format, we want to want to

I don' see the point in giving up GUADEC just to meet KDE people. If
that is needed, do it separate. Hackfests, another event, FOSDEM, etc.




Political bla bla: I don't care at all if someone is from KDE, GNOME,
something else. I likely going to GUADEC as I can meet *only* GNOME
focussed people. With not having a GUADEC each year, I only meet GNOME
people every other year (having 1/3 = GNOME is a totally different
atmosphere.. plus just not a GUADEC).
I did have discussions about KDE release procedure, KDE sysadmin stuff,
etc. Those conversations happened by chance. Also had loads of
conversations where e.g. someone says they're working on Plasma, and my
only reply is "uhuh" (I know it exists, I am not interested to know
more).
If I meet someone, it is cutesy to say "nice to meet you". To me, I am
lying (no clue if it is nice to meet the person, I don't know yet!).

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Re: Desktop Summit Planning

[Olav Vitters]

On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 08:02:32PM +0100, Olav Vitters wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 11:20:18AM +0100, Andy Wingo wrote:
> > You mention that we had a problem with this in the last Desktop Summit.
> > Has this been a problem in other events as well?
> 
> The board specifically requested GNOME-NL to hold GUADEC.

PS: Talking about the one in The Hague, so past, not future.

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Re: Desktop Summit Planning

[Olav Vitters]

On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 11:20:18AM +0100, Andy Wingo wrote:
> You mention that we had a problem with this in the last Desktop Summit.
> Has this been a problem in other events as well?

The board specifically requested GNOME-NL to hold GUADEC.

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Re: FOSDEM stand

[Olav Vitters]

On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 02:17:08PM +0100, Lionel Dricot wrote:
> Living not far from Brussels, the box could be sent to my place. I can
> bring it on Saturday morning and take it back on Sunday afternoon.

Cool and thanks! I'll check how to send the box to you.
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FOSDEM stand

[Olav Vitters]

Heard that we didn't register a FOSDEM stand yet, so I did it on behalf
of GNOME. I'll likely only be there in the afternoon.

Not sure who normally registers the stand or is an early bird. In any
case, if someone could reply and say the event box will be there + usual
t-shirts and so on: would be nice :)

I'll 99% likely will go by train, so event box for me would be a bit
annoying.
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Re: Meeting Minutes Published - October 4th, 2011

[Olav Vitters]

On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 03:15:34PM +0100, Emmanuele Bassi wrote:
>* Desktop Summit
>  * What to do with the survey results?
>  * Stormy asked for a breakdown of the data, received a full data dump of 
> the results in csv format. Asked for database format.
>  * Some data mining required.
>  * '''ACTION''': Shaun - To help out extracting the GNOME respondents of 
> the Desktop Summit survey.

Interesting! Any results already?
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Re: new member, introduction

[Olav Vitters]

On Thu, Oct 06, 2011 at 10:21:27AM +0200, Antoine Jacoutot wrote:
> Part of my day job is to support several hundred users running GNOME on 
> OpenBSD for big corporations around the globe.

Ohh.. nice! Do you also blog about that support? Always nice to see such
things on planet gnome. (hint hint :P )
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Re: On git.gnome.org and gitorious

[Olav Vitters]

On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 11:32:22AM +0200, Gil Forcada wrote:
> I would love to have it too. From a installation PoV it's not that
> difficult to set up, I done it once on my laptop for testing purposes,
> but do we have enough disk space and admins who can do the installation?
> Any sysadmin on the list? :)

Server stuff (CPU, disk space) should not be a problem. No idea who can
install it; not me.
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Candidates question: Contributor agreement

[Olav Vitters]

Given that we already have a policy on copyright assignments[1], I
wondered what is your position regarding contributor agreements[2]?
Should the board do something with contributor agreements and if so,
what should be done?

[1] https://live.gnome.org/CopyrightAssignment
[2] e.g. http://lwn.net/Articles/442782/ and
http://www.harmonyagreements.org/
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Re: Candidacy: Lionel Dricot

[Olav Vitters]

On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 11:00:45AM +0200, Lionel Dricot wrote:
> I want to achieve to make obvious to anybody that all the GNOME
> technologies (including GTK+) are technologies adapted to a commercial
> product and that high quality commercial support exist for them. I hope
> this will help GNOME to become a flourishing market and a source of job
> opportunities for many hackers. 

Just wondering: Do you think there is something lacking in the current
board? Or is running for the board more about that having a contact in
the board is better to ensure the current state (option for commercial
support + importance of small companies) is more obvious?

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Re: orphaned GNOME Foundnation web site

[Olav Vitters]

On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 01:02:41PM -0700, Andre Klapper wrote:
> On Sun, 2011-05-22 at 11:21 -0700, Andy Tai wrote:
> > FYI, there is an old site at http://gnome-foundation.org/ which shows
> > information from about 2001.
> > 
> > Maybe the URL should be auto-forward to the current site.
> 
> This is not an official GNOME website hence not much that can be done.
> You could contact the registrant (see output of "whois
> gnome-foundation.org").

It is infected with spam links (see source).

Think we could do something about that. First ask nicely, then ISP.

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Re: Candidacy: Rodrigo Moya

[Olav Vitters]

On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 10:23:47AM +0200, Rodrigo Moya wrote:
> Also, based on recent discussions, I would like to help define the
> message we give to 3rd parties about what GNOME is, so there is no
> confusion as to what those 3rd parties should expect from GNOME.

Do you think GNOME means GNOME shell or not?
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Re: Meeting Minutes Published - March 29th, 2011

[Olav Vitters]

On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 09:29:09AM -0500, Brian Cameron wrote:
> For example, there have been several occasions where organizations
> have approached The GNOME Foundation wanting to donate funds with the
> idea of doing a link exchange.  We have turned away such offers in

That were real contacts with organizations that *really* wanted to
support GNOME?

I also see loads of link exchange emails for gnome.org and regard all as
spam.

Emails are usually very generic and obvious that
1) they haven't visited the site
2) they're spamming every address they can find (secur...@gnome.org and
so on)

e.g. last one cc'ed c...@gnome.org send sent it to secur...@gnome.org and
so on + sites which classify all our software as 'best ever' and 'please
link to us'

hrm.. maybe I am a bit offtopic :)

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Re: Meeting Minutes Published - March 29th, 2011

[Olav Vitters]

On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 09:00:06PM -0500, Brian Cameron wrote:
> * There has also been discussion about whether GNOME projects
>   should be allowed to join Conservancy.
>   o Andreas, Bastien, Paul: -1
>   o Emily, German, Og, Paul: 0
[..]
> * CiviCRM Improvements
>   o The board decided to approve $1,000 (USD) to improve the
> CiviCRM, as Rosanna requested.
>   o ACTION: Og - Will notify Rosanna that $1,000 (USD) to
> improve CiviCRM has been approved.

This concerns stuff that goes upstream or more like a fork (aka local
improvements)? Local changes quickly become a problem (example:
Bugzilla), also difficult when security updates are made (example:
Bugzilla.. sometimes updates have conflicts).

> * Improve news.gnome.org
>   o ACTION: Andreas - Will look into planet.gnome.org header to
> see if we can add a link to see news.gnome.org. This will
> help more readers to hopefully notice IRC meeting.

This used to be the case. Maybe the 'banner' which is on gnome.org
should show all GNOME hosted planets? (ux, news, people/planet, 2 others
as well.. see planet-web git module for details).

> Status of action items
[..]
> * Andreas - To ask Kat if she can reach out to the
>   gnome...@gnome.org mailing list about finding local German
>   volunteers to help with the Desktop Summit 2011. (will ping again)

Some of the The Hague volunteers mentioned (remember William from Texas
saying this) during the GNOME 3 party that they'd be willing to assist
this year. But that would not be local.

> * Paul & Andreas - Will raise their concerns regarding allowing
>   GNOME projects joining the Conservancy.

Seems outcome is -1. What's bad/concern?

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Re: desktopsummit registration forces gnome users to have a kde identity

[Olav Vitters]

On Fri, Mar 11, 2011 at 07:57:53AM +1300, Ben Cooksley wrote:
> Due to the way the application is built, a entirely seperate copy of
> the application would have to be set up, and it would administer the
> same data.

Ok, seems too much effort.

> >  * guarantee that my details are only used for Desktop Summit (e.g.
> >   hidden field which stores this only for identity.desktopsummit.org so
> >   details can be deleted afterwards)
> >  * some kind of privacy policy explanation + guarantee (from KDE towards
> >   Desktop Summit -- I mean this in a legal sense, no problems trusting
> >   KDE... but you could theoretically have legal issues. Usually you
> >   cannot just share privacy related information with another
> >   organisation)
> 
> The privacy policy for KDE Identity is summarised as such here -
> http://community.kde.org/Sysadmin/IdentityFAQ
> In terms of user data, it is never shared with outside organisations.
> The only time information is shared outside of Identity itself is when
> you login to applications such as desktopsummit.org, then your name,
> username and email address are provided.
> 
> Implementing such a checkbox for further privacy is not feasible (due
> to the fact that accounts can never be deleted and your details will
> never be shared assuming you never login anywhere again)

I somewhat dislike always having a lingering account @ KDE that I never
use, check or do anything with

Could you add the privacy link on identity.kde.org? I'm sure everyone at
KDE knows what it does and what it is for. But for me, it feels weird
(as in: assume it would be an error to go from desktopsummit.org site to
a KDE site).

If I read
http://community.kde.org/Sysadmin/IdentityFAQ

I see something about ' breaking this when used in your password. You're
escaping everything going to SQL/LDAP I assume? Gets me a bit paranoid.

On the privacy policy, it mentions under 'You are a user':
  Full name (incl.titles): d
  Email address d
  Username d 

Where 'd' stands for: 
  'You will see this info from developers'.

I don't really understand this, as there is another 'You are a
developer' option. So if I am a GNOME person, I'll fall under 'user'.
But why have a user section and mention that full name/email address and
username is shared if you're a developer? Doesn't seem logical
especially as you mention that details wont be shared:)


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Re: desktopsummit registration forces gnome users to have a kde identity

[Olav Vitters]

On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 04:47:28PM +0800, Frederic Muller wrote:
> What a nice answer... The problem is not about growing up but about
> preserving the GNOME identity.

What is the problem exactly? I'd feel weird registering at an KDE site,
because I'd only register for Desktop Summit (which I view as a
different organization than KDE or GNOME, even if it consists of people
from both). I have 0 interest in my details being used for anything
else. Additionally, I don't want my details to be stored in some site
I'll never visit.

If the identify.kde.org could have:
 * another 'frontend' with a desktopsummit.org layout (a theme)
 * call it identity.desktopsummit.org (serveralias + theme only)
 * guarantee that my details are only used for Desktop Summit (e.g.
   hidden field which stores this only for identity.desktopsummit.org so
   details can be deleted afterwards)
 * some kind of privacy policy explanation + guarantee (from KDE towards
   Desktop Summit -- I mean this in a legal sense, no problems trusting
   KDE... but you could theoretically have legal issues. Usually you
   cannot just share privacy related information with another
   organisation)
then IMO whomever does the work (KDE sysadmins) decides, no?

Could DS team comment if above is feasible?

Thanks

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Re: CENATIC Report on the International Status of Open Source Software 2010

[Olav Vitters]

On Sat, Dec 25, 2010 at 07:55:33AM -0800, Lefty wrote:
> I agree. In fact, I'd like to see the full text of Mr. Stallman's
> essay on why software should be free included as well, so that readers
> will not be misled in any way, but will understand the full import of
> this distinction.
> 
> I especially enjoy the discussion of how software developers are
> grossly overpaid and should be satisfied with making a "mere living"
> so as to recapture the joy of accomplishment inherent in their work.

I don't like such a discussion on foundation-list. Consider your
foundation-list moderation bit to be set as a result[1].

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[1] Recommended behaviour (aside from moderators) is to sometimes ignore
or reply privately.
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Re: GUADEC Feedback (we want it!)

[Olav Vitters]

On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 11:56:55AM +0530, Arun Raghavan wrote:
> On 12 October 2010 06:51, Paul Cutler  wrote:
> [...]
> > Thank you to everyone for the feedback.  We've organized and collected
> > it and published it here:
> >
> > http://live.gnome.org/GUADEC/Guadec2010Feedback
> >
> > Thanks for helping make future GUADECs better!
> 
> I see "You are not allowed to view this page." when I try to open that URL.

Made it public.

(message indicated it should be public + the wiki logs mention
 the same so assume this is ok)

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Re: [guadec-list] Dates & format for Desktop Summit 2011 announced

[Olav Vitters]

On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 09:30:49AM +0200, Dave Neary wrote:
> Hi Gil,
> 
> Gil Forcada wrote:
> > So criticism was expected? I understood as a set-in-stone decision :)
> 
> Feedback was expected... some of this *is* set in stone, but I
> definitely prefer hearing concerns now, so that we can try to address them.

2 points:

1. Conflicts with the schedule for GNOME 3.2 (feature, API, docs are @
Aug 15, UI one week later). Basically the proposed freezes are right
after the desktop summit. There is not much that we can do regarding
scheduling GNOME as GUADEC has consistently been later and later in the
year.
We need a shorter release cycle for GNOME 3.2 (release date is proposed
for Sep 28), so not sure what can be done. Generally there is almost no
development activity during GUADEC.
Note that above dates are still not final.

2. Conference start on a Saturday is I think unusual for GUADEC? I
thought it always was a weekday. Not sure if everything can be ready in
such a short timeframe.

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Re: GNOME Foundation Hires a System Administrator

[Olav Vitters]

On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 10:01:02PM -0500, Paul Cutler wrote:
> Welcome aboard Christer!

Congratulations!

Note that the message didn't say, but Christer was already a volunteer
sysadmin.

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Re: Question for Bastian Nocera

[Olav Vitters]

On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 11:53:17PM +0200, guido iodice wrote:
> Excuse me,  I was unclear. That is no matter of quantity, but matter

Some of these posts (the one I'm replying to) hit the moderation queue.
Just FYI: I won't approve any of such posts anymore. Find another list
to discuss GNU vs GNU/Linux. I don't see what this still has to do with
the purpose of this mailing list.

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Re: Some notes on GNOME Shell

[Olav Vitters]

On Wed, Jun 02, 2010 at 11:57:49AM +0200, Patryk Zawadzki wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 2:11 AM, Owen Taylor  wrote:
> > "The secret master plan"
> >
> >  Boy do I wish I had a secret master plan tucked in a drawer
> >  somewhere! It would be really useful
> >
> >  To the extent we have a master plan, it's in two documents
> >  that everybody has seen:
> >
> > http://www.gnome.org/~mccann/shell/design/GNOME_Shell-20091114.pdf
> > http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/RoadmapTwoThirtyOne
> 
> I think the community would love to see some more "why" behind the "how" :)
> 
> For example I'd like to know why shell reinvents the graphical toolkit
> and comes with a (hardcoded?) theme which in turn makes it look out of
> place. Or why JS and not LUA or Python. I'm sure there was some
> evaluation behind these decisions but I'm not even sure where to dig.

http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell links to a blogpost explaining the
rationale

> It's details like this that make the project look more like OpenOffice
> than a GNOME app ("here's the resulting code" versus "here are the
> plans and the rationale, please discuss").

Seems very open to me.

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Re: Candidacy: Seif Lotfy

[Olav Vitters]

Hello Seif,

Reading your motivation I think I understand what you mean, but would
like to know for sure. As such, I'd appreciate if you could expand some
more on your motivation. Further, though I think I understand, I'm
purposely asking very open ended questions (to avoid suggestive ones).

My goal is not to have a discussion on this with you or others, purely
to better understand your motivation.


On Tue, May 25, 2010 at 10:59:35AM +0200, Seif Lotfy wrote:
> Motivation:
> 
>  My reasons for running for GNOME board are as follows:


>  • Encourage more cooperation on design between RH and Canonical.

What do you mean concretely (design of what)? Why RH and Canonical
specifically?

>  • Avoid fragmentation by helping to build consensus around a unified
> vision for GNOME's future to prevent a GNOME divergence into 2.30 -and
> GNOME 3 base.

What do you think is lacking now?

>  • Bring up and fix issues with GNOME that are being ignored or
>     shunned.

Can you list these?

>  • Work on letting GNOME shell be lead by the community.

Can you expand on what you want changed?

>  • I stand for innovation in GNOME.

What is lacking now, and what do want to do when being part of the
board?

> Don't hesitate to ask me questions when the lines are open.

done

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Re: GNOME Board of Directors Foundation Elections Spring 2010 - The candidates

[Olav Vitters]

On Wed, May 26, 2010 at 01:55:01PM +0100, Tobias Mueller wrote:
> I am pleased to announce that the following people are running for the
> Board of Directors:
>  * Germán Póo-Caamaño

is not listed on below URL

> Please see 
> for details.

Probably said somewhere, but how many people will be in the board? 7?

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Re: Meeting Minutes Published - May 13, 2010

[Olav Vitters]

On Tue, May 25, 2010 at 11:49:19AM -0700, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
> On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 7:53 PM, Brian Cameron 
> wrote:
> >* Sysadmin job
> >  o An Interview Team has been established
> >+ The Interview Team is composed of 3 people: Jonathan
> >  Blandford, Bradley Kuhn and Brad Taylor
> >+ Once hired, the sysadmin will report to Stormy.
> >+ Paul had an action to touch base with legal. The
> >  email has been sent, but no response yet.
> >+ ACTION: Stormy will contact legal.
> 
> So curious, how come Olav is not part of the interview team since he's the
> most experience in the GNOME infrastructure sysadmining stuff?

I have no hiring experience. Jrb has this, and still has root access.

I've been trying to file bugs for everything which should be done within
the GNOME infrastructure (sysadmin product, only a few bugs are hidden),
so that should give a good overview of what needs to be done.

> If you want interview questions I can provide some being a sysadmin for
> these past 15 years in an enterprise environment.


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Re: Reboot: Strategic goals for GNOME

[Olav Vitters]

On Fri, Mar 05, 2010 at 01:32:01AM -0500, Liam R E Quin wrote:
> I didn't really want to make a thread out of this, but I think it's
> important enough (even though I do not live in the US) that people do
> need to understand it.  I don't really want to single out facebook; for
> me the primary issues are both about privacy and about owning one's own
> data: geocities closed down recently, and I expect that many people's
> personal photographs and memories went away.  If facebook deletes your
> account, or (worse) refuses to delete it, you also lose out.

I do not see the relation with foundation-list. Please stop.

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Re: GNOME: lack of strategic roadmap

[Olav Vitters]

Closing the thread.

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Re: pvanhoof issue (was: GNOME: lack of strategic roadmap)

[Olav Vitters]

Take this stuff off list please.

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Re: Foundation IRC Meeting on Saturday, February 27th

[Olav Vitters]

On Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 02:01:21PM +0100, Vincent Untz wrote:
> As discussed during the last IRC meeting of the Foundation, we're going
> to hold another IRC meeting next Saturday:

Please send this to foundation-announce instead. It is meant for
announcements. I am going to unsubscribe from foundation-list, so will
not see such messages otherwise.

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Re: Oracle takeover and GNOME accessibility

[Olav Vitters]

On Sun, Feb 07, 2010 at 06:14:01PM +0100, Fernando Herrera wrote:
> So, I would like to ask the board to take this issue very seriously
> and try to contact SUN/Oracle representatives in the advisory board
> regarding this issue.

Fyi, this was also raised as a major concern during a release team
meeting held at FOSDEM.

Also: This was not an official release team meeting (unplanned, not
announced to whole team), though we still had the majority around (5 out
of 9 people).

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Re: "Private Foundation-List" Petition for referendum

[Olav Vitters]

On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 05:02:15PM +1000, brendan edmonds wrote:
> I used the term 'open source' to refer to the following criteria of
> the definition for a project to be open source
> (http://opensource.org/docs/osd).

I approved this non-member email.

However, from http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list

"This is a forum for discussion relating to the GNOME Foundation"

This discussion is getting way offtopic, there is no reason why these
posts should be approved when they hit the moderator queue. Suggest to
move it where it is ontopic.

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Administrivia: Subscription policy

[Olav Vitters]

In order to slow down people subscribing without reading the archives as
a quick fix I've *temporarily* changed the subscription policy to
require approval from a moderator.

This is NOT a change in policy, everyone will be approved. It is just to
avoid lots of new threads about GNU and so on (slow it down) without
having to change the moderation bit of everyone.

Better fix is to perhaps change the welcome message after joining
foundation-list or to change the webpage.

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END OF THREAD PLEASE (was: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership)

[Olav Vitters]

On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 12:48:45PM +, Lucas Rocha wrote:
> Before deciding on this, we thought it would be useful to get some
> feedback from the community.

Seems thread is becoming
1) heated
2) repeating

So, see subject.

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Re: June Status Report

[Olav Vitters]

On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 11:06:32PM -0500, Paul Cutler wrote:
> Please let me know if this is something you find valuable, or if you have
> any questions or feedback.

Suggest to to summarize it on your docs blog, just include the entire
contents.


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Re: What do you think of the foundation?

[Olav Vitters]

On Tue, Jun 02, 2009 at 05:13:44PM -0400, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
> On 06/02/2009 05:56 AM, Olav Vitters wrote:
>> - just doing something (infrastructure) is*way*  better than trying to
>>discuss it on d-d-l. No idea why, maybe because I explain it badly,
>>but I view discussing things on d-d-l as a waste of time.
>
> Which is not quite surprising.  You wouldn't get a better response if you 

Not surprising as d-d-l is useless, but not because of the topic. IMO
things should be discussed beforehand to get consensus.

> go the main town market on a weekend and ask people what color you should 
> paint your house.  The trick to asking questions in any forum is to 
> filter informative, insightful, and relevant responses from the noise and 
> act accordingly.  You *don't* need to make everyone happy or answer to 
> everyone.

If you mean that d-d-l is basically a town hall where everyone is
shouting, yes I agree. However, the signal to noise ratio I see is loads
of noise, almost no signal. Really, I am never going to try and discuss
things anymore. It is pointless and makes me sad.
Yes, perhaps in the avalanche of messages there are a few useful ones.
Not worth the effort. Plus, there is no consensus (or not that I see).
Better to just skip the whole consensus part and force things through.

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Re: What do you think of the foundation?

[Olav Vitters]

On Tue, Jun 02, 2009 at 07:59:47AM +0200, Dave Neary wrote:
> reasons why they might happen.

Ignoring the rest, I'll just share my thoughts on ability to discuss
things on mailing lists.

> Let me be as clear as possible:
>
> There are people in our community who are losing faith in the  
> community's ability to have reasoned technical debate and design  
> discussions because of vacuous 100 mail threads, and IRC being dominated  
> by half a dozen people whose principal contribution to GNOME is to be on  
> IRC all the time. Others are being driven away from the community for  
> our tolerance of "he who shouts loudest" politics, flame wars and  
> provocative and offensive blog posts.

I am not a developer, so my view is a bit different, anyway:
- just doing something (infrastructure) is *way* better than trying to
  discuss it on d-d-l. No idea why, maybe because I explain it badly,
  but I view discussing things on d-d-l as a waste of time. Especially
  so if you start a topic and afterwards you're busy for a few days.
  Suddenly a huge thread about something that was just misinterpreted.
- having doap files (mandatory due to a hook) is somewhat ironic to me
  Please don't reply on this specific point though.
- people complaining about the speed of Bugzilla is again 'interesting'
  Again, don't reply on this specific item.
- having a CodeOfConduct is nice to avoid some back and forth
  'warnings'. Meaning: discussion should be focussed around the
  behaviour, not whether the behaviour should've been acceptable or not,
  the CoC defines what is acceptable. Further, the CoC is vague enough
  that if someone doesn't abide by this, it should be easy to tell.
- I like how the CoC is stated on mail.gnome.org ('expected to know and
  follow').
- feels sometimes that discussion on d-d-l is about winning arguments
  and focussing on minor things instead of finding the best solution /
  outcome
- I respond way too often in bike shed topics...
- being on release-team is nice, you read back a thread and make a
  decision about something preferably you didn't participate in, then
  just try to see the real consensus (means ignoring some parts)
- end of thread calls sometimes help

> I believe that these people should have a group that they can turn to,  
> argue their points, and ask for that group to do something about it. I  
> believe that the task is the role of the foundation, and the board is  
> well placed to assume that role now.

For someone to be listened to, they have to be respected IMO. I find it
interesting there is no effort in trying to make something productive
(within the thread). IMO you do(should) not need the board as a start to
change things.

> When I say "do something about it", that may be simply to point out to  
> the people involved that they're not being productive. It may be to  
> publicly shame people for antisocial behaviour. It may be to tell the  

Antisocial seems really strong to me. Further, it doesn't feel like
people are not behaving according to the CoC (every message seems ok,
maybe just the amount of messages). Eventhough I do agree that
discussing things on d-d-l is useless.
Maybe CoC needs to have a 'keep a discussion productive and focussed on
an outcome' or something.

> complainer that they're making a big deal about nothing. But right now  
> if you are being driven away from GNOME forums or from the GNOME project  
> in general, you have no-where to turn. How is that red tape? How is it  
> draconian censorship?

What is meant with GNOME forums? Things like IRC and mailing lists?


PS: Perhaps I overstated things a bit, etc.

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