Re: Question to candidates - Minutes of the board meeting
Hi Max, On Tue, 2019-06-04 at 08:42 +0800, Max via foundation-list wrote: > Hi all, > > Thanks for running for the board. > > Thanks everyone who want take times to make GNOME better. > Just a simple question about Minutes of the board meeting. > > Data and information might be different. > For me - a GNOME foundation member > > Data - Get "Minutes of the board meeting" after 1 month or 2 weeks after. > Because maybe the event is already close or over. Thanks for expressing your concern about getting timely reports from the board, I understand that this is important for transparency and helps people to feel confident and well represented. In the past, I can recall going without any updates for many months and this can be frustrating, and I think the last few years have been much better by comparison. I would love to be able to promise to do better if elected, but as I have never served on the GNOME board before I am honestly not familiar with the obstacles to getting the minutes out in a timely manner. On the other hand, I am very familiar with circumstance of being suddenly swamped with urgent responsibilities, and I can understand that situations arise which cause one to fall behind on reporting ones activities. I think the most that we can expect of any board is that they do their best, and I am thankful that in times when their efforts as volunteers has been stretched thin, they have been able to prioritize on getting things done, even if we do not always get timely reports as a result. In all honesty I can only promise that we will do our best to be transparent and report in a timely manner, as I am sure other boards have made efforts, and have not always been as successful in this as recent boards have. Best Regards, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Question to candidates: eco-friendliness
Hi Philip, On Mon, 2019-06-03 at 18:10 +0100, Philip Withnall wrote: > Hi all, > > Thanks for running for the board! > > What steps do you think the Foundation could take to reduce its > environmental impact, and the environmental impact of the project as a > whole? > Thanks for raising this interesting and unexpected question. I do think that the limited resources we have at our disposal, such as compute resources for our infrastructure and CI and travel to conferences and hackfests are quite crucial to our mission, and it is probably in our interest as an organization to increase rather than decrease. However, we could see more efforts in being conscientious about how we use the resources we do use, and in our choices in terms of travel options and compute resources. Unfortunately having a limited budget implies reduced freedom of choice, it might make more environmental sense for attendees to a conference who live on the same continent to travel by train, but if that is more expensive, this would mean that we sponsor less contributors overall. Asides from how we use our own resources, we may be able to make some impact as a publicly visible organization with sponsors. For instance, if there were some way for us to commend or endorse some of our more environmentally friendly sponsors via the friends of GNOME programme (or similar), it may at least contribute to a trend of incentivizing companies to be more environmentally friendly, at the same time as being good publicity for sponsors who may choose to participate in such a "clean computing" campaign for instance. Of course a campaign like this would require a lot more thinking and work than my brief brainstorm reply here, just trying to throw something creative out there to chew on. Perhaps this could be material for a focus group to consider too, I'm sure that if some volunteers were to create such a group to focus on this, the GNOME board will be happy to discuss and support initiatives they come up with for environmental friendliness. Cheers, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Board of Directors Elections 2019 - Candidacy - Tristan Van Berkom
Name: Tristan Van Berkom E-Mail: t...@gnome.org Corporate affiliation: Codethink IRC: tristan Dear foundation, I would like to announce my candidacy for the GNOME Foundation board of directors in this election. I have been a GNOME contributor for well over 15 years now in the capacity of a developer, and have been a maintainer and core developer on various projects including Glade, GTK, Evolution and now BuildStream. I have spent the larger part of my career in startup companies and have some entrepreneurial experience, as such I hope that my spirit of ambition and experience starting initiatives from the ground up can be a useful addition to the board. I do not have the experience of serving on a board for any non profit organization, so if I am elected, I expect to lean on current and previous board members for assistance in getting familiar with the tasks and duties expected of me. I'd like to thank our previous boards for putting their efforts into ironing out the necessary policies and ensuring that we are a strong and healthy organization. Their efforts have allowed us to thrive as a community, and to focus on the fun part of making software that works very well and is a pleasure to use. While I have been happy with others filling this role, after many years working within and around GNOME I cannot help but be emotionally invested in the overall success of the project, and would like to do my part in every way I can to help GNOME continue as a successful project. In my vision of GNOME, I believe that we need to recognize that while our community remains volunteer driven, we need to maintain strong ties with the rest of the software industry. I believe that Free Software thrives when individuals and corporations alike converge on a common set of goals and realize that we can create something more resilient and powerful when working in collaboration and in the open. We need the participation of companies who embrace our software stack to build their own interesting products, and help us to push our software to the limits of perfection, by both providing more engineering work and also by providing use case scenarios we had not considered ourselves. If I am elected, I hope to further this vision by ensuring GNOME is perceived as a safe place to contribute for individuals and companies, work towards building strong ties in the software industry, and hopefully further diversify our contributor base. Thanks, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Highlight individual project fundraisings
On Fri, 2017-09-29 at 11:51 +0200, Sébastien Wilmet wrote: > Hi, > > There are a number of GNOME or GNOME-related project fundraisings: > > For GIMP: > https://www.gimp.org/donating/ > https://www.patreon.com/pippin > http://film.zemarmot.net/en/ > > PulseAudio: https://www.patreon.com/tanuk > GTK+, Corebird, ...: https://www.patreon.com/baedert > And now GtkSourceView: https://liberapay.com/GtkSourceView/ > > (Are there others?) > > Those projects are useful to GNOME. But none of them have reached > their > funding goals. GNOME has a nice website, it would be nice to > highlight > the above fundraisings on the website, and/or writing a news article, > talking about them on social media, etc. > > But… when someone donates to one of the above fundraisings, the GNOME > Foundation doesn't receive any money. So there would be in some way a > "competiton" with https://www.gnome.org/support-gnome/ . So maybe the > GNOME Foundation doesn't want to highlight other fundraisings on the > website. But this would come in conflict with the goal of the GNOME > Foundation which is to "further the goals of the GNOME Project". > > Any thoughts? Hi Sébastien, I think that the sponsorship for development, especially for otherwise entirely volunteer driven projects, is certainly an important topic that I wish we had solved many years ago. Indeed, I might have had more incentive to attempt to fundraise for Glade in the past had the foundation been more supportive, even to the point of offering infrastructure or at least endorsement and guidance to assist us in setting up successful fundraising. Regarding competition of fundraising for the *development* of individual projects - I don't think competition with foundation fundraising is an issue; as there is no conflict of interest. When people sponsor the foundation, they expect to be paying for infrastructure, operational overhead, occasional legal advice, conference and hackfest budget, etc. The problem here I think, is as soon as there is overlap, a conflict of interest does arise (e.g. we should not be endorsing sponsorship of GIMP specific conferences and hackfests running independently of GNOME). This would be particularly dangerous because it could invite factionalism within a community which draws strength in unity (the foundation would be weakened by any other "sub-foundations" assuming foundation-like roles, we should not encourage this). So, I would love to see a solution for public funding of developer hours, but we should be careful of the dangers surrounding this. Regarding Philip's concerns about competition between projects under the GNOME umbrella, I whole heartedly disagree that this is an issue, rather a competitive environment is one where talent is fostered and projects thrive; let's encourage a healthy and competitive environment. Equal opportunity, diversity and non-discrimination are great values, and they are by no means in conflict with a healthy and competitive environment, we shouldn't be getting these wires crossed. I can see your concern with user-visible vs. non-visible projects, e.g. libraries vs. user visible apps, but I feel this is also a non issue because in fact; we have always had an easier time to find funding for the development of our platform - and as long as we continue to produce a platform that is competitive and remains useful to a wide variety of applications outside of just the "GNOME Desktop" use cases, this will remain true. It would seem to me at least, it is the user visible apps within GNOME which have been left behind in funding, and need to resort to public fundraising, because (almost) nobody is building products and generating revenue with these highly GNOME Desktop specific user facing Apps. Best Regards, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: foundation application..
On Mon, 2015-02-23 at 21:15 +, Magdalen Berns wrote: [...] > Further to that, on looking at some of the recent membership data > gathered so far with specific regard to the interns, I have to say, it > does seem like a few interns have been significantly undervaluing > their own contributions by waiting much longer to apply than seems > appropriate for active contributors to be doing with some seeming to > have waited as long as two years actually, which is of course, > absolutely ridiculous. Why would you think this is ridiculous, or has anything to do with undervaluing ones contributions ? To be perfectly frank, granting commit access to GNOME revision control repositories is already a huge token of trust, it normally takes at least some months (reasonable number anywhere between 3 to 6 months after the initial encounter ?) before a project maintainer can vouch for someone to be a committer in full confidence. I had commit access and my own shell account before considering becoming a foundation member - not being a foundation member was not a 'bad thing', it's not like I had no right to discuss the direction of the project on d-d-l with many other contributors and maintainers, before becoming a foundation member. You are not a 'less valuable' contributor for not being a foundation member. Becoming a foundation member was just where I drew the line between being a project contributer and maintainer, and decided that I wanted to have some kind of a say in how the foundation itself was run (and even this is IMO still of much lesser importance than having a voice in the direction and development of the projects housed in the GNOME umbrella, for which, again, a foundation membership is not required). In any case, you may think that 2 years is a long time, I certainly think that 2 months is an extremely short time - my personal view on the thing is that the foundation should be comprised of those who actually really give a damn, I find it hard to conceive how the MC could possibly judge the commitment of such a short term contributor. Best, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
GNOME, Bounties and paid development [Was: Re: OPW; Where does the 500$ for each GSoC goes?]
Changing topic as this thread has branched in many directions (as others later in this thread pointed out). On Wed, 2014-09-17 at 15:16 +0200, Bastien Nocera wrote: > On Wed, 2014-09-17 at 13:58 +0200, Sébastien Wilmet wrote: > > On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 09:51:15AM +0100, Ekaterina Gerasimova wrote: > > > The approach to budgeting is similar in that the Foundation and Google > > > both have a budget, but our budgets are quite different. Any spending > > > in any area means that that money cannot be spent in another area. > > > > What if the Foundation decides to just organize OPW, which is already a > > good contribution, but doesn't sponsor itself interns? By doing that, > > the saving permits to spend the $10k or $5k on something else, like > > sponsoring an experienced member of the Foundation instead of sponsoring > > newcomers. > > > > For example when a Friends of Gnome campaign (like for the accessibility > > or security) is finished, the Gnome Foundation could add $5k to it. > > What exactly do you hope to achieve by saving $5k? > > One of the problems for the Friends Of GNOME campaigns is that we have > trouble finding interested parties to work so cheaply to implement the > goals we set out. When I was on the board, I put together 2 call of bids > for those campaigns, and I constantly heard from consultancies that the > amount was so low that the only reason that they would be interested in > it was to help GNOME. I doubt that the amount is significant enough to > pay the people necessary to achieve the goals we set out. I just wanted to lend a little insight into this as someone who was faced with what probably was one of your bounties. I hope I can help to clarify the situation to other readers (as I suspect Bastien already understands this pretty well) from the point of view of a consultant. At Openismus we did briefly consider submitting a bid for what if I recall correctly was a $50,000 bid which had to do with improving the onscreen keyboard with regards to localization (things are a bit fuzzy, it was a long time ago and I don't recall all the details). The problem I perceive here is that we submit detailed proposals all the time, things that we work very hard on, which does incur risk that needs to be mitigated somehow or covered in the operational budget of the consultancy. In my opinion, submitting a less than professional bid is not an option, and can even be severely damaging to your reputation as an individual or a company. My rough estimation is that the cost of the work involved simply in preparing a bid for this bounty is anywhere between $5,000 to $10,000, I could be underestimating that as I did not have intimate knowledge of what operational overhead this would incur on top of the analysis and work which must go into preparing an acceptable bid. I know that these bounties were presented with the best intentions and really appreciated to see movement on that front, however I don't really see how that can work well unless we, the foundation can really afford it. In another light, if there was a way to sweep all of the bidding overhead under the rug, then it might have been alright to work on that bounty even if 50K might have been considerably lower than what we might have normally asked for that work (as you mention, it would be a sort of favor to GNOME). Of course without a proper bidding process then it would be unfair, the whole thing is very complex and as such, I'm not sure that it's the best option for the foundation's spending. I think perhaps, if we organized bounties which clearly and definitely improve software that industry is going to use, and not only for the singular purpose of the GNOME Desktop Environment, then perhaps we would be able to get some real backers in the industry to come together with us and put together a bounty that is worth bidding for. Best Regards, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Travel assistance applications to attend to GUADEC
On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 8:23 AM, Germán Póo-Caamaño wrote: > On Mon, 2013-05-27 at 14:47 -0700, Germán Póo-Caamaño wrote: >> The GNOME Foundation provides travel sponsorships to individuals >> that want to attend GUADEC and need financial assistance. >> >> We are happy to announce that the Travel Committee is ready to >> receive applications for sponsorships to attend to GUADEC 2013. >> >> The instructions are detailed at http://live.gnome.org/Travel >> Please read them carefully. >> >> Deadline: May 31, 2013, 19:00 UTC. You can start sending >> your applications now! > > After further consideration the new deadline is: June 3, 2013, 19:00 > UTC. Hi ! I'm a little confused, or perhaps just unfamiliar with this process. How can the deadline to request sponsorship be on June 3rd when the deadline for speakers to confirm their attendance is already June 2nd ? Cheers, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Proposal: DNS change irc.gnome.org becomes A record and irc.gimpnet.org starts getting phased out.
On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 5:47 AM, Michael Hill wrote: > On Fri, May 10, 2013 at 2:50 PM, Tristan Van Berkom wrote: > >> People have common sense, they know that since we are at the zoo, >> there actually are monkeys to go see. > > Tristan, your analogy should have been based on a word whose > legitimate use did *not* precede its use as an epithet. If the > original authors of the software knew the meaning of the word and > chose it anyway, who am I to excuse the name as anything better than > an unfortunate choice? > > I agree with you about not getting carried away. However, in light of > the fact that the target group of the slur is one of the target groups > for GNOME, your defense seems misplaced. Alright, I suppose I can afford to write one last email. Many may look at my arguments and think that I am somehow promoting bigotry (although I doubt that most of you do see it this way)... this seems to always be the case whenever someone stands up for freedom of expression. So let me explain just a little, I did not jump into this debate to defend the term "GIMPNet" itself, but rather in an attempt to defend our position regarding freedom of expression, a defence which is always risky and racy, and an argument that is too seldom made. What the people who make up the GNOME community have in common is a beautiful thing, Free Software. Whether we do it for the freedom of users, or whether it be for the sake of writing software in public, sharing knowledge and consequently producing better, more stable/reliable software than software written in the confines of a lab/company, we are in this way forward/radical thinkers. What I'm getting at here, is that the very thing which brings us all together is an idea which goes against the grain. In a way, we are all revolutionaries of sorts to be partaking in this venture. Over the past decade, I've seen this community grow more stiff, more rigid and more conservative in what we deem 'acceptable' in public. This saddens me greatly. It is very difficult to express radical thinking, forward thinking in ways which are perfectly politically correct (possible, but difficult), and what I think is so beautiful about our community is exactly this forward radical thinking, this rebellious ideal of Free Software which brings us all together is what makes our community so vibrant and great. I just think that, in general, if we want our community to flourish and grow and thrive, we need to be more accepting, not more restrictive, about what we think is acceptable in public. Imagine how many radical/racy/forward thinking blog posts we've missed out on, just because the author thought it might be too difficult to express their ideas in a way that is perfectly "politically correct" ? Best Regards, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Proposal: DNS change irc.gnome.org becomes A record and irc.gimpnet.org starts getting phased out.
On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 2:47 AM, Hashem Nasarat wrote: > On 05/10/2013 12:27 PM, Tristan Van Berkom wrote: >> On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 12:24 AM, Sumana Harihareswara >> wrote: >>> On 05/10/2013 10:17 AM, Rui Tiago Cação Matos wrote: >>>> Seriously, can everyone relax and not take every little detail so >>>> seriously? I'm all for advertising irc.gnome.org in our websites etc. >>>> But there's really no need to take down DNS entries and whatnot. >>> It's sort of odd for a member of a software organization to advocate >>> being less serious about details. We have a bug tracker because details >>> matter. >>> >>> Asking others to "relax" implies that other people are working too hard >>> or caring too much about an issue, as though it is unimportant. >>> Different issues are important to different people and it's a bit >>> annoying to be told to "relax" about what matters to you. >>> >>>> On 10 May 2013 15:55, meg ford wrote: >>>>> I'm saying that it's an I18n issue. I recently read that the GNOME foot is >>>>> insulting in Thailand so we are trying not to use it there. >>>> And this why you can't ever win. There will always be something that's >>>> offensive for someone in this planet so yeah just don't bother too >>>> much. >>> If by "win" you mean "get a special permanent I AM NOT OFFENSIVE >>> designation from the United Nations," no, you can't "win". However, as >>> a person deciding where to spend my time and what organizations to take >>> seriously, I will say that organizations that make some efforts to act >>> sensitively "win" my time and attention. >> See here is a very interesting conflict. >> >> Some of us think that we should be very careful about what words we >> choose to represent GNOME, to the point of even renaming things in >> GNOME because "someone might be offended". > It's not just because there might exist one who is offended, it's about > not being improper. But how do you define "improper" ? Below you make the argument that there is a 'spectrum' of what 'is' or 'is not' proper. Defining a spectrum for what is 'proper' or not, based on content alone, is going to leave little room for grey area, and little room for any expression at all. Saying anything at all becomes like walking in a mine field (maybe political leaders have to stoop to this level of political correctness, but I don't think an open community of free software enthusiasts signed up for this). I hope you recognize at least that this expectation from our contributors is something that seriously raises the bar of entry (as specially since we can't expect that most contributors even speak english as a first language, or that people will just 'know' what content is 'proper' or not). My opinion is only that 'properness' of content (be it something that someone expressed, or the name of something) should be judged for it's intent and in context, not just for the content itself. Example: when we are a the zoo in South America... I can say "let's go see the monkeys", even though in parts of South America the term 'monkey' can be a harsh racist term. People have common sense, they know that since we are at the zoo, there actually are monkeys to go see. Best Regards, -Tristan >> Like it or not, the decisions we make at this scope has an undertone, >> what is appropriate for an IRC network name, eventually becomes what >> is appropriate for a program name, or even a program's release name, >> and eventually what is appropriate to write in emails on our mailing lists >> and what is appropriate to post in our blogs. > Already there is a spectrum of what is and is not appropriate. It's not > appropriate, for example, to name projects in ways that allude to > abortion, the holocaust, slavery etc. GNOME is a Free Software > community, and should stick to that. >> One the one hand, you have the theory that "being very careful" is >> an attitude which makes GNOME appear more welcoming, and on >> the other hand, "being very careful" is exactly the opposite. > It makes GNOME more welcoming to some people, while simultaneously > asking more of others. >> Would you like to join a community where everything you say is >> under strict scrutiny ? where you cannot freely express yourself >> in your blog without being really careful to make all of your comments >> &qu
Re: Proposal: DNS change irc.gnome.org becomes A record and irc.gimpnet.org starts getting phased out.
On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 2:07 AM, Liam R E Quin wrote: > On Sat, 2013-05-11 at 01:27 +0900, Tristan Van Berkom wrote: > >> Would you like to join a community where everything you say is >> under strict scrutiny ? where you cannot freely express yourself >> in your blog without being really careful to make all of your comments >> "gender neutral" and politically correct ? > > Or would you prefer to join a community where you're made fun of on a > routine basis, mocked, ridiculed, made to feel like shit, because you > were born with one leg shorter than the other, or you were in a bomb > blast and got injured? I think you are exaggerating, to the extreme, even. You are suggesting that people should take things out of context, misinterpret the GIMP acronym, and be offended. You seem to even suggest that the name GIMP is intentionally offensive. The GIMP, is, and always has been to my knowledge, the "GNU Image Manipulation Program": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIMP > What if we start jabber.gnomefags.com? or a message that says, "It's > gone Dutch" when a device can't be mounted? Because some undergraduate > thought it was funny in their dorm room to throw stones out of the > window at the people who have to walk slowly. > > You can express yourself in your blog as freely as you like, subject to > local laws, but if you claim to -- or are seen to -- represent the GNOME > project as a whole then yes, you have a responsibility to be respectful > of others in that context. And the plot thickens. If your blog is aggregated on planet.gnome.org, one could say that you are representing GNOME. One could even say that referring to the GNU Image Manipulation Program in your blog is offensive... just because some people might misinterpret what you said as something they understand as offensive. This is going a bit far, I think. To be clear, I do think that we should try not to offend each other, I just don't think that we should expect that others will misconstrue what we've said as something offensive, and I don't think that we should scare off our contributors, those who would represent GNOME in public, by holding them/us to such strict standards. Cheers, -Tristan > > The problem is the way labels are used in some cultures as a way to > exclude and discriminate against people - a practice that's so > entrenched in US (and UK) culture (for example) that there are laws > about it. This may be a cultural difference itself that doesn't > translate into all other languages, I'm not sure. > > Liam > > -- > Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/ > Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/ > Ankh: irc.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org freenode/#xml > ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Proposal: DNS change irc.gnome.org becomes A record and irc.gimpnet.org starts getting phased out.
On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 12:24 AM, Sumana Harihareswara wrote: > On 05/10/2013 10:17 AM, Rui Tiago Cação Matos wrote: >> Seriously, can everyone relax and not take every little detail so >> seriously? I'm all for advertising irc.gnome.org in our websites etc. >> But there's really no need to take down DNS entries and whatnot. > > It's sort of odd for a member of a software organization to advocate > being less serious about details. We have a bug tracker because details > matter. > > Asking others to "relax" implies that other people are working too hard > or caring too much about an issue, as though it is unimportant. > Different issues are important to different people and it's a bit > annoying to be told to "relax" about what matters to you. > >> On 10 May 2013 15:55, meg ford wrote: >>> I'm saying that it's an I18n issue. I recently read that the GNOME foot is >>> insulting in Thailand so we are trying not to use it there. >> >> And this why you can't ever win. There will always be something that's >> offensive for someone in this planet so yeah just don't bother too >> much. > > If by "win" you mean "get a special permanent I AM NOT OFFENSIVE > designation from the United Nations," no, you can't "win". However, as > a person deciding where to spend my time and what organizations to take > seriously, I will say that organizations that make some efforts to act > sensitively "win" my time and attention. See here is a very interesting conflict. Some of us think that we should be very careful about what words we choose to represent GNOME, to the point of even renaming things in GNOME because "someone might be offended". Like it or not, the decisions we make at this scope has an undertone, what is appropriate for an IRC network name, eventually becomes what is appropriate for a program name, or even a program's release name, and eventually what is appropriate to write in emails on our mailing lists and what is appropriate to post in our blogs. One the one hand, you have the theory that "being very careful" is an attitude which makes GNOME appear more welcoming, and on the other hand, "being very careful" is exactly the opposite. Would you like to join a community where everything you say is under strict scrutiny ? where you cannot freely express yourself in your blog without being really careful to make all of your comments "gender neutral" and politically correct ? Or would you rather be a part of a community where people are a bit more "relaxed" and laid back, where you can just be yourself, express yourself freely, assume that people mean well and not be afraid that you will be accused for expressing yourself in a way that might be misconstrued ? If one were to say that irc.gimp.net refers to 'gimp' and is intentionally rude, that would definitely count as misconstrued, do we really want to set an example to gnome contributors that anything they say in our public infrastructure might be frowned upon, just because it could be taken out of context in some way ? Personally I am (obviously) of the camp which would rather have a "relaxed" and laid back attitude. Cheers, -Tristan > And communities that act as > though one person complaining deserves exactly the same amount of effort > as lots of people backing a reasonable proposal -- that is, zero effort > -- do lose my willingness to help out. > >> If someone you're speaking to takes it offensively you can certainly >> explain why the name is how it is. People aren't stupid and will >> understand. > > You are presuming that the only time "the GIMP" comes up is in > one-on-one conversations where the other person feels totally > comfortable saying "I don't like that name" to one of us, who will take > all the time necessary to help the other person feel comfortable. > That's a pretty rare use case. Usually it's in signage, the IRC network > name, and other places where the other person may just make the very > understandable choice to just walk away. Or it's in a group, or a > conference, or something like that where - instead of making a fuss - > some of our potential users and community members just make a mental > note not to bother even trying to use our software or help out. > > Does that help you see why it's not enough to just be willing to explain > "this is why our software and IRC network seem to be named after the > slur bullies call your brother in school, on the street, and while > rejecting him for jobs"? > >> And btw, if you have to speak about the GIMP you can also pronounce it >> as /ʒɪmp/ instead of /gɪmp/ or just spell it out G I M P. > > I will probably use that pronunciation when possible. Thanks for the idea. > >> Cheers, >> Rui > > best, > Sumana > > -- > Sumana Harihareswara > http://www.harihareswara.net/ > ___ > foundation-list mailing list > foundation-list@gnome.org > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list __
Re: "Boston" Summit 2013?
On Wed, May 1, 2013 at 2:21 AM, James wrote: > On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 11:38 AM, Karen Sandler wrote: >> On Fri, April 26, 2013 4:51 am, Alberto Ruiz wrote: >>> I'd love to visit Portland! >>> >>> However we might want to take into account that doing it in the west >>> coast will have an impact on the travel budget since a lot of people >>> live in Europe and the east coast. >> >> I know Sri is working hard to look into organizing this in Portland, but I >> think there are a number of obstacles. If Portland isn't the right choice >> for this year, are there folks who want to organize in Montreal? > > I previously mentioned that I'm based in Montreal, and happy to help > organize this if people are interested. > HTH, > James I don't know if I'll be in Montreal around then, but just a suggestion, if you do organize it in Montreal, it would be great to have it at Concordia, McGill, or at UQAM, the Universite de Montreal location is so... far from everything ;-) Also, I think there are decently priced hotels on Rene-Levesque west, which is nice and close to Concordia, and also close to the pubs... Cheers, -Tristan > >> >> karen >> >> ___ >> foundation-list mailing list >> foundation-list@gnome.org >> https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list > ___ > foundation-list mailing list > foundation-list@gnome.org > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Feature proposal process?
On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 5:03 AM, Dave Neary wrote: > Hi, > > According to the calendar, with the upcoming 3.8 release, we will soon be in > feature proposal again. For what it's worth, "Feature Proposals" in the open doesn't really work as a concept. GNOME is comprised of hundreds of modules, much of the software is getting new features every release cycle. We've added a lot of new features to Evolution Data Server in 3.8 for example, should we have to discuss this with all of GNOME ? I really don't think that unrelated module maintainers would have been interested in discussing that. So, I'm perfectly comfortable in trusting that the maintainer(s) of said module is responsible enough to know where to draw the line in accepting/refusing new features. I'm sure the same goes for any module, like GNOME Shell for example, has maintainers, and features should be proposed and discussed with those maintainers just like any module in GNOME. I do miss module proposals though, that part of the release cycle was an integral part in bringing many maintainers and contributors together in meaningful discussion every year, despite the "bike shed" nay sayers opinions, module proposals helped to bring unification to our projects. > I was recently asked how to propose a feature for GNOME, and my first > instinct was to point them to https://live.gnome.org/ReleasePlanning - the > "Proposing new modules" page is out of date, and has not been updated with > the process for feature proposal. > > I did find https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointNine/Features but this page > contains instructions warning people against modifying it, and provides no > indication of where the features are being discussed. > > So I looked through the archives of foundation-list, release-team and > desktop-devel-list for last September and October to see where the > discussions for 3.8 feature additions (listed here: > https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointSeven/Features) happened. Unfortunately, I > did not find any discussions, except one contentious one related to fallback > mode which mclasen brought to d-d-l. This is obviously the kind of discussion we would have had, with or without the "Feature Proposals". As it's one detail that effects many modules, it needs to be discussed in the open (as should any detail that might effect compatibility across multiple modules). > > I know that there were discussions about this around the 2.28/2.30 timeframe > but I have not found the discussions with an (admittedly brief) search. > > Can someone point me to where discussion of new features happens, please, > and help me help this person propose a new feature? I would suggest that you address the maintainers of the module(s) for which this new feature would relate to, test the waters and see if they would agree to accept contributions to implement such a feature. Cheers, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!
On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 4:08 AM, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote: > The wrong idea of course is that people think we're just removing features > for no apparent reason even though for instance fallback mode was never > guarantee. We need to correct those misconceptions. Are you saying that a fallback mode was never guaranteed ? As I recall, providing a fallback was indeed a blocker for GNOME 3 initial release... it was also around then that somehow gnome-shell was included in gnome releases without the regular module proposal period. Actually a non-negligible number of desktops as I understand running gnome based desktops just don't have the graphics hardware needed to run the shell (from my personal experience, in south america many, if not even most of the public desktops found in hostels etc, used by travelers... were actually running gnome). What has changed since the initial GNOME 3 release and now ? Is gnome-shell now optimized and usable on said, older hardware ? Perhaps what we need is not a person/group of people working for 'good press' and telling people that we have their best interests at heart, but rather a bit more transparency in how we make our decisions... reinstating our module proposals might be a good first step towards including the whole community and getting them more involved in decision making again. Best, -Tristan > > Having a good relationship with the general public is more important now > than it was in the past thanks to social media. For example, with Ubuntu > (who holds the largest share of users right now), GNOME is no longer the > default and so it takes a conscious effort to change to GNOME. If they do > the research, I don't want them to see a pile of ridiculous blog postings > that aren't challenged by calm and simple rhetoric. > > Regarding, Emily's post. You need to look at the overall message there. > Not everyone is on the same page, and the fact that we are having this > discussion with other people who clearly have the same concerns is > indicative that we do have a problem. If you think there is no problem, we > an drop this whole thing. > > Community enthusiasts won't go out there using the 'royal we' without some > training. This stuff isn't easy, and it is important that our volunteers > understand how to engage in both the GNOME community and the community at > large. They will need training on GNOME's vision and purpose. That means, > release team, designers, and relevant parties will need to help these > volunteers in understanding it before going out there and speaking in our > name. I'm having Karen be in charge of us. > > The end goal is to reduce the signal to noise ratio and get real feedback > without hyperbole and let developers and designers be able to produce > awesome stuff without feeling buried in undue negativity. The only thing I > ask in return is that you consider the feedback that is being provided to > you. If the feedback is negative, help us engage with the community with > the right approach. If the feedback is positive, then I hope you will take > that as encourage and motivation to keep doing it. > > sri > > > > On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 2:38 AM, Bastien Nocera wrote: >> >> Hey Sri, >> >> On Tue, 2012-11-13 at 16:07 -0800, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote: >> > >> > I'm looking for some charismatic, happy GNOME folks who can help >> > engage with our community. >> > >> > We've had a bad run of late with a lot of folks getting the wrong idea >> > of what we're trying to do. >> >> Which is? >> >> > I'm looking for some talented folks who can help us engage with the >> > press, on blogs, on mailing lists and explain our vision. >> >> I hope it's slightly better handled than Emily last 2 posts, which >> managed to say that the removal of fallback was badly communicated (!) >> without details of what was done wrong, and used a blog post by a troll >> to make false assertions about GTK+ 3.x's API stability. >> >> You might want to vouch for your community managers before you let them >> loose... >> > > > ___ > foundation-list mailing list > foundation-list@gnome.org > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list > ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: A few observations about GIMPNET
On Tue, Oct 16, 2012 at 11:21 AM, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote: > > > On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 4:54 AM, Sebastian Keller > wrote: >> >> >> >> I have seen people on #gnome on freenode asking for the official >> channels of gnome components, but those were very very few and almost >> all of them were asking for support and not how to contribute to >> development. (Assuming they tried #gnome after they found out #gnome-* >> does not exist) The only exception was #gtk+ but nobody was interested >> in development of gtk just development with gtk. > > > This is true. I occasionally monitor #gnome on freenode and it is primarily > about support and asking questions and we have two excellent volunteers who > are covering that and they currently administer the channel for me. > > Og and I are the ones who have admin access to the gnome-* channels on > freenode. We occasionally get requests for non gnome related channels like > #gnome-do. > >> >> This is also a general observation, most people who join the freenode >> channel are looking for support - and more people join the freenode >> #gnome channel rather than the gimpnet one when asking for support. >> (Despite there being more people on the gimpnet one most of the time, >> but that is because most of those leave after they got support) >> > > Pretty much. > >> >> If there were many more #gnome-* channels on freenode that would >> probably make it harder to provide support, because that would mean >> having to follow every of those channels. >> > > We'd still need a set of opers to administrate all the channels. We'd be > doing teh same thing, although we would have a lot of extra tools at our > disposal to administrate, but we would still still need bodies to do it > which makes us no worse or better than having our own IRC. > > For the record, I enjoy having our own IRC network. Most of you know that I > have taken full advantage over the years of spouting off without the general > public to see. > > We have our own culture in these channels and it's worth preserving. It's > not as strong as it used to be but hey such as it is. It's our own tent. > > It might be interesting to ask KDE folks what their experience has been > being on freenode. > >> >> Another useful thing about having gnome channels on a separate network >> is that LIST can actually be used to find channels. I'm not just talking >> about searching channels but also discovering them by simply browsing >> the list. >> > > I'm not sure if that's compelling. On freenode, I can pretty much guess > where I want to go if I want support for something. > >> >> That being said I also can see how it would be more convenient to have >> all free software channels on the same network. I have no strong opinion >> on either way but I just wanted to point out that the argument about >> getting more contributors is not really a strong one. >> > > I agree. > > I rather we concentrate on how to improve GimpNET. I confess that I don't > really understand the problem statement here. Are we being spammed a lot or > is there trouble that we cannot fix quickly? Are we searching for a > solution without defining the problem? As I recall the statement was: - NickServ: having ownership of your own nick - SSL, I agree it would be nice if gimpnet conversations were all encrypted and couldn't be snooped - ChanServ: Some people love to be the operator of a channel, all the time, and dont want to ask in #opers about it. Seriously, there's one point that is much more important that we should really be focusing on instead: - The abduction of Rupert Who has taken him hostage ? What will it take to get him back ? Is it a problem of hosting ? is there any reason we can't just run him from master.gnome.org (or another gnome machine) ? This is the one single most important issue about gnome irc that keeps coming back and biting at me while reading this thread... please whoever you are, give us back our beloved Rupert. Cheers, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: A few observations about GIMPNET
On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 8:55 PM, Andrea Veri wrote: > 2012/10/15 Tristan Van Berkom : > >> Again, how do you expect to achieve this hypothetical migration ? >> >> You will post a memo and people will just happily follow the >> foundation's decree ? >> >> I think you've misunderstood how things work in the real world. >> Unless you actually pull the plug on GimpNET, which would probably >> make at least a few of us sad, you will get a situation where possibly >> some projects will follow you, most will remain where they've always >> been comfortable, and you will get a situation of segregation, where >> we used to be all united in GimpNET, now half of the projects will >> be chatting on Freenode. > > That's why I've raised my concerns about the current situation and > that's why we are currently discussing it. Migrating or not migrating > will probably be a Board's decision but you may understand that the No, that's the point you don't seem to get. We are an assembly of projects, the gnome foundation is an umbrella which is there to support us, defend our copyrights and branding if and where possible (if not I suppose we go to the FSF), particularly the board is organizing our events and helping us to raise funds for those events and some programs which we agree as a foundation are to our benefit (i.e. gsoc, wop, etc). This is not a hierarchical system or a corporation, sure, it would be nice for me to get off my lazy behind and migrate the Glade mailing lists off of ximian and bring them to gnome MLs, I agree about that, but it is not a decision that comes from high above and orders me to do so. For the most part, we are all contributors. If you think you can impose these kinds of decisions on contributors, we will simply lose contributors. Best Regards, -Tristan > current situation has to be improved in some way, we don't want to > migrate? OK, but GIMPNET should act and discuss with us (the GNOME > community) a possible solution, I'm sure we can find a deal. > > cheers, > > Andrea ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: A few observations about GIMPNET
On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 8:08 PM, Andrea Veri wrote: > 2012/10/15 Emmanuele Bassi : >> hi; >> >> On 15 October 2012 11:32, Andrea Veri wrote: >>> 2012/10/15 Emmanuele Bassi : >>> have we had any indication that being on irc.gnome.org is in any way, shape, or form preventing people from contributing to GNOME - and that moving to freenode would open the floodgates to new contributors? >>> >>> Freenode has more than 8 users and I'm pretty much sure a lot of >>> new contributors willing to join the GNOME Project are looking for >>> #gnome-* channels there and not on GIMPNET which is a network with >>> less than 2000 users connected per day, it's a matter of numbers. >> >> again, that's like saying that we ought to move to GitHub or Gitorious >> because "they have more users than git.gnome.org". it's an obviously >> true statement: freenode, like GitHub, hosts a ton of projects; the >> statement above, though, forgets that there are branding reasons >> associated with having infrastructure under the *.gnome.org domain, as >> well as historical ones. >> >> plus, I have yet to see the justification for the "if you move it, >> they will come" attitude. we're already exposed to more users than the >> 80 thousands on freenode: it's not the IRC network that makes them >> contribute to our project (we'd also be self-selecting against the >> subset of users that know or use IRC); users join irc.gnome.org >> *after* they start contributing to GNOME. > > We can't predict now the number of users that will join #gnome-* > channels after the hypothetical migration Again, how do you expect to achieve this hypothetical migration ? You will post a memo and people will just happily follow the foundation's decree ? I think you've misunderstood how things work in the real world. Unless you actually pull the plug on GimpNET, which would probably make at least a few of us sad, you will get a situation where possibly some projects will follow you, most will remain where they've always been comfortable, and you will get a situation of segregation, where we used to be all united in GimpNET, now half of the projects will be chatting on Freenode. > but we can make some > previsions based on the number of users each network has. The > questions are: did the GIMPNET network grow that much during all these > years? and if not, why? how can we help newcomers to find us in a > better way? the last question is interesting, many IRC clients put > huge networks as their first choices on channel's list and that means > one thing: a completely new user that first joins IRC will probably > connect to Freenode and will probably try to find us there without > success) > > I don't agree with you with "users join irc.gnome.org *after* they > start contributing to GNOME", many people join IRC to find some help, > to increase their experience within GNOME and most of the times if > they find an helpful contributor they get their issue addressed and > they will probably be more prospicent to contribute to the project in > the future as a give-back. Right, many people join irc for help... they find our irc channels because we indicate them in our various project websites. Regards, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: A few observations about GIMPNET
On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 7:23 PM, Andrea Veri wrote: > 2012/10/15 Bastien Nocera : >> On Sun, 2012-10-14 at 15:45 +0200, Andrea Veri wrote: >>> I see many people have expressed their consensus in this, thus I'll >>> defer the decision to the Board. Thanks to anyone sending a mail about >>> this concern. >> >> 3 people agreeing with you isn't consensus. > > I said *many* people gave their consensus about a possible move but I > didn't see a *single* mail saying we should stay on GIMPNET for the X, > Y, Z reason. The rationale behind this discussion is really simple, a > lot of networks are offering an IRC hosting that has several benefits, > services and tools that will definitely improve contributor's lives > and workflows in many ways. I don't think you would stick with an > hosting that gives you one benefit when you can have another one that > offers you four benefits for the same price, it's a matter of > convenience. Ok, one very big convenience is simply that gimpnet has been around for a long time, and we already use it. It's a pretty big advantage, it means that if you move your project channel away from there, people will be confused and not immediately find you. At any rate, is this discussion about actually shutting down GimpNET ? Is that even in our power ? If not, I suggest this discussion be more reasonably focused on potentially migrating the #foundation channel to freenode, if that's what we really want (it's not like you can flip a switch and every project that hangs out on gimpnet will agree to follow you to freenode). Cheers, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: A few observations about GIMPNET
On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 11:08 PM, Andre Klapper wrote: > On Fri, 2012-10-05 at 14:25 -0400, Liam R E Quin wrote: >> On Fri, 2012-10-05 at 09:21 -0400, Allan Day wrote: >> > It would be great to be able to run something like Bip [1] for GNOME IRC. >> >> Note, it's of course NOT OK to publish public logs of IRC channels (or >> any other discussion forum) unless ALL the participants understand that >> this will happen and agree to it. > > If people enter an IRC channel they likely understand that it's a public > place, as other people are also around in that IRC channel. > Mailing lists archive all postings and make them available for public, > bugtracker comments are also visible for everybody. I think we state > this piece of information when people subscribe/get an account. > > What makes IRC different so that it's "not ok" to have public logs? > > Which actions fulfil the need to make all participants understand that > logging happens? An URL to the IRC log in the channel summary? Perhaps in the subject line ? I don't know... if you visit a logged channel you probably know it... a good example is temporary channels opened for the purpose of meetings. > Asking as I haven't seen a good argument yet against logging IRC > conversations. I think it's nice that we still have places we can feel more or less relaxed about horsing around and taking it easy. IRC is still a nice place where you can be yourself, again more-or-less at least (remember, GNOME irc is not strictly filled with professionals, companies may come and go, but GNOME remains because of the people who contribute in the long run, at least that's what I think...). If #gnome-hackers was publicly logged, I'd probably have to consider wearing a tie before entering the channel, and my conversation would probably get much more formal... I might even be at risk of spelling everything properly. Let's do protect these remaining niceties which we have left. /me cracks open a beer in #gnome-hackers and kicks his feet up on the table Cheers, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Tee-Shirt Contest & Countries Eligibility
On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 2:48 AM, Baptiste Mille-Mathias wrote: > Hello, > > I've seen the foundation will organize a contest to design a tee-shirt > for the GNOME 3 release [1], and while reading the terms of the rules > [2], I found the first part of paragraph 4 particularly unfair to > people living in some countries. > GNOME being based on people and openness, I wonder how a Free Software > & Non-profit organisation wouldcomply with such US embargo related > laws. > How it could make sense to refuse a proposal for a contest, but coding > contribution and translations are accepted everyday? > > If there's no way around such restrictions, could it be possible for > the foundation to look for some way to avoid them in the future (by > creating a delegation in another country perhaps) ? For what it's worth, motion strongly seconded. These rules sound outright offensive to residents of some countries, furthermore they make the GNOME foundation publicly appear to be actively supporting US embargo laws. If it's impossible to change the rules for the term of this contest, we should at least include a statement at http://www.gnome.org/contest/ explaining why we are bound by law etc, etc, to enforce these particular biased rules... and hopefully promising to do better the next time around. Best regards, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Reboot: Strategic goals for GNOME
2010/3/3 Andrew Cowie : > On Wed, 2010-03-03 at 10:09 +0100, Dave Neary wrote: >> Like I say, I'm not >> happy with the "vision" part of this (GNOME everywhere, and invisible) > > I'm not happy with the invisible part either. > > We *do* compete with three other desktops: Windows, Mac OS, and KDE. > Unless people know what GNOME is, > > a) people won't consciously value a choice (of distro, or by a company, > school, government, etc) including it. > > b) the GNOME skills on people's resumes won't mean anything to anyone, > thereby reducing to zero the professional development value to the > individual of contributing to our ecosystem. > My view on this is deep and complex because I personally believe the quality of free software is based on writing code-oriented code as opposed to results oriented code. That being said, GNOME as a sexy and hot technology to me means stuff like improving GObject/leverage object introspection/collapse out redundant uimanager from GTK+ for one, collapse GtkBuilder into GObjectBuilder and unify GObject serialization across the stack, make it perfect, concentrate on Clutter and take the time to make the right design choices by studying mistakes in GTK+, etc etc... this way we lay real groundwork for real innovations. In my opinion as a hacker, this is the kindof stuff you want to do when you write free software; you want to realize the project your boss would never give you the time to do, and you want to prove to the world that yours is even better by virtue of it being free - then you want to prove to your boss why his software is imperfect next to the free one... which may have costed more to develop but... its better.. etc... If the focus of GNOME is to produce visual results and satisfy press, and if the results are a bunch of demos of what we can do with existing or experimental technologies, we're gonna end up throwing out alot of code and still be at square one, with not so much in terms of real computing innovations. I understand there is some danger in losing popularity if we actually decide to do the virtuous thing and focus on writing ideal software, but I dont see how we are attracting developers to join GNOME if writing code-oriented idealistic future software is not what we're about. Dont get me wrong I really like it that GNOME is popular, but I like it much more when GNOME is getting better every day - I think if we can drop the popularity and write awesome future code - then we may have a chance to compete with the giants again, maybe even in only 2 years. Cheers, -Tristan PS: I also wanted to note how cool it is that the board is calling out to the foundation for such a general direction; I think that if we can all speak our minds here and come to some kind of agreement it will already be a great success in terms of freedom and a worthy conversation at that. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME: lack of strategic roadmap
On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 11:08 AM, Lefty (石鏡 ) wrote: [...] > I'm surprised that a suggestion that a specific site be singled out by GNOME > for extra-special treatment, including warning messages, based on what > amounts to unsourced gossip, is being treated with even a moment's serious > consideration. > > This Facebook rumor seems to be not much different from last year's equally > unsupported claim that Apple maintained a secret "back-door" in OS X, for > which an apology was extracted from the FSF, presumably on the instigation > of Apple's Legal department‹and I note, without much amusement, that the > sole citation offered in support of this latest claim regarding Facebook > leads to a non-existent web page. > > I do not believe that the GNOME Foundation should sign up to be in a > position to have to apologize to Facebook, nor do I think it should be an > official position of the GNOME Foundation that "using Facebook is a harmful > practice". With free software you would have the freedom of examining the social networking software in place, if you were not satisfied with how your personal data was being handled; then you could modify it and run your own derived version. I think its clear that GNOME is a free software community/desktop and while we dont need to throw poo at proprietary vendors or proprietary social networking softwares, we at least need to represent free software, which is the one common thing that holds us all together. Therefore no it is not rude for a free software desktop to warn or alert about times when the task you want to accomplish implies using proprietary software, its expected that we represent the ethical values that hold us together as a community. > > If the GNOME community is hoping for better engagement with Facebook and the > like, want to encourage their meaningful participation in our efforts, and > hope to cultivate some appreciation on their part of community concerns, > surely claiming that they're in the business of routinely breaking Federal > law‹without compelling supporting evidence‹isn't the way to be going about > it. Im sorry in advance but this is a little overboard. First, GNOME is not issuing any such statement or claims as far as I can see and I have been following the thread, so lets not get carried away. But more importantly, No I dont think we are in the business of changing our attitude in order to gain the favour and attention of whichever corporation "x", I think we are above that and people cooperate with us when its beneficial for everyone involved, period. Regards, -Tristan > > For my part, I don't believe that spreading defamatory gossip in the name of > "freedom" is especially "ethical". Perhaps I've misunderstood Mr. Stallman's > intention in making such an apparently irresponsible claim here. > > > ___ > foundation-list mailing list > foundation-list@gnome.org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list > ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME: lack of strategic roadmap
2010/2/25 Stormy Peters : > > > On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 11:53 AM, Juanjo Marin > wrote: >> >> This thread is about how can we set a strategic roadmap. It is more >> about innovation vs stability. We are doing pretty well on the stability >> side with our six-months cycle schedule. We are even adding some >> innovation, but we must find a way to set long term ambicious goals and >> set a plan for accomplising in all its extension. GNOME 3 looks like the >> best strategic movement since long time ago. I'm excited about it ;). We >> must go forward. >> > > I agree! We should already have an idea about what GNOME 4 will look like so > we can create a plan to get there and excite others to join us. What's our > vision? > I'm actually with you on that literally Stormy ;-) And I really appreciated the nature of the idea that Dave proposed in his last mail, we need to get some excitement in the air and IMO that means we need to act as a better umbrella to innovative hackers who want write some really excellent code. I've been trying to figure how to speak my mind here without causing flames and stuff, I guess the subject is touchy, but when I say literally above, I mean I think we should have been working on GNOME 3 for a long long time by now.. and not in a hurry to release it. Theres been alot of words tossed around about GTK+/GSEAL and needed refactoring etc, my opinion is that we've somehow turned out to be very corporate and results oriented with our 6 months release cycle and constant need to maintain api compatability. We also have to consider that any refactoring work that could have been done in a long term unstable development branch was simply not done because there was no such long term development plan, and we have to be fair: saying that we can break API a few years later is not going to call back all the hackers that had something interesting to implement or some refactoring work they had ready at times over the past years. So maybe theres a compromise we can make at an infrastructural level, maybe we can start targeting GNOME 4 right now and still maintain our 6 month release cycle for incremental releases (open branches, announce a 3 year or so release target for a new GNOME with no strings attached). This way we can try to be fair to everybody: - we can provide infrastructure and support for development of incremental and stable software releases of GNOME - we can also be fair to our contributors and allow them to plan for something truely fantastic, without too much unneeded public exposure. Well these are just some ideas that have been in my head these days, it seems we need to make GNOME a cool place to innovate new stuff; maybe we should talk about how to achieve that, I think a good place to start is by reexamining our release cycles and inventing something a little new. Cheers, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: New GNOME Foundation Members
On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 7:54 AM, Vincent Untz wrote: > Le vendredi 12 février 2010, à 13:43 +0100, Philip Van Hoof a écrit : >> On Fri, 2010-02-12 at 13:37 +0100, Pascal Terjan wrote: >> > I'm for suggesting it in the welcome email, not for enforcing it >> >> The problem is that without any such enforcement, the rule is pointless >> and will lead to the current situation where some new guys do and a lot >> of others don't introduce themselves. > > I really hope we don't need rules for this. It's not really a good way > to welcome people to first tell them "hey, if you don't do this, we kick > you out". > I'm with you on this Vincent, although I'm the last one to want to throw this thread into another argument about rules... I would compare this to, for instance; when you read the guidelines for wrapping a release of your module, it doesnt say we'll burn you if you ever forget to tell i18n-list or something, but I think people generally want to collaborate and want to know their work is appreciated. Personally I think that years ago when I joined it would have made me feel like GNOME was a warmer place if the introduction was politely required, otherwise to some it might come across like nobody cares that somebody took such an interest in GNOME. Not to mention it would be very interesting to me at least; to know why new members have taken an interest in GNOME. Cheers, -Tristan > Vincent > > -- > Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. > ___ > foundation-list mailing list > foundation-list@gnome.org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list > ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership
On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 4:15 PM, Philip Van Hoof wrote: > On Wed, 2009-11-25 at 12:13 -0600, Jason D. Clinton wrote: >> On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 11:20 AM, Philip Van Hoof >> wrote: >> I (fully) agree with John here. >> >> The lawyer-talk proposal of Jason is a no for me personally. >> >> It's also not the document that I've put my name under when I >> signed the >> Code of Conduct any longer if that amendment is indeed added. >> >> We would put any such official CoC up for a vote; that seems like the >> only reasonable course of action. > > Yes > Please dont make it go that far, from my short experience around here this topic comes up every time something offensive is said on planet. Its already very hard on all of us because alot of us have strong feelings about this subject. If we push it to a vote, sounds like a sure recipe to kick out the losing half of the bet, I think we should value more our potential to work as a team and deal with each others differences somehow specifically on this point, rather than risking pushing half of us away because of some silly consolidation of a policy. Alternative proposal: lets deal with the problem at hand and get our story straight about what is planet.gnome.org, what can be posted there (i.e. no porn and vulgar language etc.) and how we can help to enforce a reasonably exact policy on an exact resource which is planet.gnome.org. Cheers, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: What do you think of the foundation?
On Sun, May 31, 2009 at 10:05 AM, Philip Van Hoof wrote: [...] > > We are trying to fix a non-existing problem. > I dont know about the rest of you but for me this is a touchy emotional subject, its really painful, and we all did go through it before, it died with this Code of Conduct publication - really wish we could leave it there. To the mercy of the foundation; please dont institutionalize a code of conduct in GNOME. I understand Philip, he must feel threatened. because I feel threatened. No I have never went to a GNOME conference, but in the last years I did bleed out *alot* of code, just for GNOME, just for GTK+ and the platform, and I made this sacrifice along with a hand full of people like me, who did it because it rocked, and did not ask for a single reward for it, who were not paid to participate etc. I like to think that people like us, I know there are many, are a seriously defining aspect of GNOME. We need the right to be ourselves and what the hell, I think we even earned the right to some occasional rudeness where its due. Like it or not GNOME can be a high-stress work environment, it can be something like a warzone near release time, when things need to be done its not the time to be fragile and point fingers and "Im gonna tell daddy on you", thats just shameful. Im convinced that were all bigger than that, so lets save face and not stoop to the lowest common denominator. Cheers, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: What do you think of the foundation?
2009/5/30 Stormy Peters : > So my "freedom of speech" comment was not well written. > > I do think anyone has the right to say what they want, but if they want to > be heard they have to think about their tone. (I was trying to explain why > someone might want to moderate their tone even if they think it's ok.) I > don't think everyone has the right to be published in any forum. > > I think the GNOME community can take away the right to publish on GNOME > forums. So you can say anything you want on your blog but if it doesn't meet > the GNOME standards of conduct, it can be removed from Planet GNOME. This is > not anti-diversity - this is a way of encouraging a friendly, respectful > place to discuss ideas and differences of opinion. > > It's up to the GNOME community to enforce the GNOME standards of conduct. I > think the issue being discussed is whether there is an issue and who should > enforce it. > Im taking it that the majority of this discomfort is coming from the planet website as opposed to the official mailing lists or the mailing lists of important projects. If this is the case then can we stay on topic and discuss the problem we have with planet ? cause I see an obvious conflict/problem with the current scheme On the one hand planet is a blog site, which was not meant to be a technical blog - most of the content relates either to hacking, vacationing, philisophical rantings, jokes, personal journals and even cooking and poetry. - the point is when you write your blog, you are not writing an article and paying very strict attention, your just writing a blog entry. On the other hand, when speaking comfortably among friends, its always very easy to piss somebody off unintentionally, just because you didnt take extra care to take another person's opinions into account before speaking. When you are dealing with a richly multiethnic community, alot more opinions become unknowns in the equation so it all of a sudden become very easy for people to get offended. Finally, we have another dysfunction; the modern world doesnt seem to know about mailing lists, I guess they search for gnome developers on www.gnome.org or live.gnome.org... but the hackers are only officially reachable by mailing list. Is it possible that people are pre judging the whole community before even knocking on its front doors and subscribing to some lists ? Is there something we can do to better represent ourselves and better educate the public on how to communicate with us ? For example, it took me quite some time to write this email thankyou, thats because I feel accountable wearing a gnome hat, I already dont blog much... and I like to feel that there I can express what I feel and share with the community, not to feel all that accountable you know... Cheers all, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: What do you think of the foundation?
2009/5/29 Stormy Peters : > So I'm hearing Dave say we need more policing and Philip saying everything > is ok. What do others think? > Well, if anyone wants some perspective, its not like we havent been through all this before: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2006-May/thread.html [...] > I suppose the question is what is our social norm? That's what Dave and > Philip seem to be debating. I think were discussing something a little more dangerous, I think were debating whether this community is ready to accept one single social norm as the one that defines them (and forcibly rejects others who are not represented by that norm), and even more touchy - we are discussing the possibility to assign a role to a person or a group, who will be ultimately responsible for defining that social norm. Personally, I am proud of what we have achieved so far as a culturally and ethnically diverse crowd of contributors - always getting further in putting our differences aside and resolving the issues which unite us (accepting others for their own social norm and moving on is a challenging thing, it humbles us and makes us stronger in the end). Unless we have some really disturbing evidence that leaving people to their own better judgment is not working, theres no reason to disturb the beautiful community and peace that we do have. Cheers, -Tristan PS: No I dont think this is a debate about planet.gnome.org, if that site misrepresents what it is, a collective blog site of gnome hackers - then that needs to be fixed - or its purpose redefined, but thats a separate issue. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Software relicensing, how is it done ?
On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 5:13 PM, Hubert Figuiere <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [...] > Seriously, that even more reason for hoping the relicensing of > libgladeui as LGPL does not happen. Basically, what you are proposing, > is that Glade be licensed in a way that it would favor fragmenting GNOME > while removing freedom to their users. Upon reading this it became apparent to me what this is really all about. I will not tolerate watching my work being used in any kind of popularity contest a moment longer, its not ethical by my standards not to mention insulting. Juan wont stand for it either. If you think this attitude is working for us, its not - were six years down the line, builder is here, I'm still alone here and what I can do is sometimes barely enough at best. Except I had some help, and Juan, I'm making a point because in my eyes he is a true gangster, he grew up in Argentina and lived through an economical crisis, for him participating in Glade meant possible loophole in the system - now even as an Argentinian with an existent but unrecognizable education he can get a job with a European or American company, and thats not enough to be fair. In the world we live in, the poorest of Bolivians that could afford no education must be allowed to see eye to eye and compete fairly with the rest of the world, nothing less is acceptable. This is my last email on the topic. Regards, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Software relicensing, how is it done ?
On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 7:37 AM, Dave Neary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Linus decided that Bitkeeper was fine for his needs, and started using > it and publishing his repository in a public Bitkeeper repository. > Bitkeeper guy (Larry McVoy) gave free copies of the client to free > software developers. [...] Thankyou Dave that was a very insightful read for me, as far as I can see the risks at hand involve a hypothetical situation where the community gets addicted to a non-free extension of Glade, my relicensing of Glade does not go beyond LGPL, and to keep us in check, I definatly invite more freedom lovers to contribute and spread the ownership of authorial copyright thinner ;-) I was at first ambivalent about the licensing of the plugins for libgladeui use as a Gtk+ interface designer (soon libgladeui will not have a runtime dependency on gtk+ at all), after discussing it further with my main Glade colleague Juan; I am confidant that we also want them LGPL. Making non-free extensions of Glade possible does not mean that free Glade will not exist. I welcome the competition firstly, and Juan and I still strongly agree that allowing non-free extensions of Glade will help to attract a larger user base to Gtk+, which consists of free and proprietary softwares alike. I am not here to deny anyone free use of Glade, that would include any company who might need to write a proper sdk for their GNU/Linux based embedded/handheld/realtime/insert-flavour-here platform. On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 2:41 PM, Richard M. Stallman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Not to metion the fact that merely using the non-free program > sends the message that non-free software is ok. [...] Commercial software endevours as it stands are already high-risk affairs, we need people to build cathedrals out of our bazaar, these are valuable endevours that help alot with innovation and computing on a whole, cathedrals that dont have a proper bazaar as their foundation will come crashing down with security holes, careless mistakes and downright lack of public scrutiny (we've all seen it before). This is a lesson that commercial vendors will have to learn the hard way, and if free software is anywhere near as superiour as I believe it to be, commercial vendor's success will inevitably be measured by their willingness to cooperate (give and take) with the bazaar that is free software. When such an endevour is actually successful, realistically they only have a year or two until someone has come up with a free solution for their project, which is a fair lapse of time if you ask me, not more, not less. So I would have to thank them for coming up with something that we havent already thought of ourselves, and even prototyping it for us in a product. If you really think that selling any software is not OK, to the point of which using any proprietary software sends a bad message, I can only say dont use proprietary software at all, I wont stand in the way of your freedom in a consumers market to use a free or proprietary tool for your own purposes. Regards, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Software relicensing, how is it done ?
(apperently my other email just now missed the list due to mailing from my ordinary email address, here it is...) Hi Guys, Theres obviously been some scrutiny concerning our decision to finally relicense Glade or primarily, libgladeui - so I will try to do my best to address your concerns and then share a little where I'm coming from (remember I wouldn't be here in the first place if I didn't love you guys). On Fri, Oct 31, 2008 at 3:21 PM, Hubert Figuiere <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [...] > No yet another BitKeeper-like situation. We have seen what it does. > > BTW, there are already 6 IDEs that are Free Software: Anjuta, KDevelop, > CodeBlock, Eclipse, MonoDevelop and Emacs[1]. So why wasting time to > allow a 7th one that could be non-free instead of making sure the > existing one rock even more. > > I'm very skeptical about the whole process of relicensing Glade to allow > non-Free derivative of it. I'm not 100% schooled on what exactly happened with BitKeeper, but my base understanding is that the developers found ways to work around the license in order to base a new work on free work, drop the free one and only support proprietary extensions of BitKeeper ? Without jumping to conclusions about the above statement all I can say is that it deeply saddens me to think that its possible that I could be suspected of such a treasonous plan, by people I respect and have come to consider as my peers; as specially when I stand here practically single-handedly responsible for delivering you freely a Glade 3 that was little more than a prototype and a dream years ago. If these are indeed the trust issues we are faced with in our community, there's obviosly nothing I can say to put your worries at ease. On Sat, Nov 1, 2008 at 10:33 AM, Richard M. Stallman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >I dont see how I can agree that entering in direct competition >with anyone who wants to make a dollar from a software solution is >going to bring us to that long-term goal. > > The GNU Project has a history of competing successfully with > proprietary software. For instance, GCC competed directly with > non-free C compilers, and has done quite well against them. And the > GNU operating system as a whole has done pretty well against Unix. > > Any free IDE almost surely competes directly with non-free IDEs, but > that is no reason to give up developing them, and I am confident our > community will not. Richard, We obviously dont share the same goals as a big picture, so I wont try to pretend to. While "They" may be playing a game of keeping secrets in an attempt to cripple free software so that theirs is perceived as "better" - I cannot sit and play the same game. My weak attempts to get corporate users of free software to give back to the community will fall on deaf ears for my obvious hypocrisy. > While you may be most concerned with who makes how much money, I'm > more concerned with advancing our freedom. While I am sincerely greatfull that we have guys in the political sphere and the PR world as well, I've prefered to stay silently patient and write Glade, for exactly free, and so I will not indulge in a meaningless argument about the above statement. On Sat, Nov 1, 2008 at 4:48 AM, Naba Kumar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [...] Naba, I was not expecting, albeit not completely surprised by your reaction, and even a little flattered that anyone would think that Glade gave you a competitive "edge". I believe your success in Anjuta and my own with Glade is based on patiently doing things correctly and getting it right, never in a hurry to make a release for the public eye, and with closed ears to criticisms and other momentarily more popular or more successful projects. > I am fully with Richard here. LGPLing libgladeui is essentially > LGPLing 'the glade application'. Being a library doesn't change that > fact, because it's mostly a means for free IDEs to integrate glade > application, like Anjuta does. We have never seen it this way - and no matter how hard we've tried to express ourselves as a core library for the editing and serialization of GObjects, obviously nobody is catching on, for instance - how come there is *still* no Glade plugin to edit gstreamer pipelines ? (*really* no offense to the gst-editor authors, I tried using that tool a number of years ago and always asked myself, if I wrote a tool to do just that, why dont they use it ?). The plugins distributed with the full glade package *are* Gtk+ interface specific and in your terms could be considered an "application of the libgladeui library" i.e. applied usage of libgladeui in the context of Gtk+ interfaces and Gtk+ widgets, I would prefer to think of these plugins as the all important use case that libgladeui was invented for; historically. The license of those plugins dont really concern me, but I also dont see why someone would want to create a Gtk+ interface editing program using libgladeui, when such an application of the librar
Re: Software relicensing, how is it done ?
On Fri, Oct 31, 2008 at 3:30 PM, Richard M. Stallman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [...] > As free software developers we naturally feel good to see our own > programs in wider use. But what is really important is for free > software to replace proprietary software. We can achieve more for > freedom if we focus on the deeper and more important long-term goal. > Hi, I dont see how I can agree that entering in direct competition with anyone who wants to make a dollar from a software solution is going to bring us to that long-term goal. Frankly, the company I formerly worked for, chose gtk+ for its C object orented model, and it was possible because of the LGPL licence. I would never had been paid to originally work on Glade for the few months that Glade was my job assignment, I maybe would never have heard of Glade, since then I can count the number of substantialy large contributions on one hand, and half of those are from vendors, or contractors working for vendors. Writing software is hard work, people rightfully want to get paid for it, I hope that free software is the best software, and continue to believe that we need to do it together, leverage people who are paid for their work to make free software better, so that all projects can benefit, the important part is to not get effected when commercial softwares have an edge, and continue to slowly write better, free software. I dont feel offended that someone else may write a frontend that uses libgladeui and makes money on 6 years or so of my own work, I offer it freely, and don't feel comfortable myself to be denied the same freedom I would offer a user of the libgladeui library. Respectfully, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Software relicensing, how is it done ?
On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 11:55 PM, Richard M. Stallman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Why do you want to relicense Glade under the GNU Lesser GPL? > The current license, the GNU GPL, seems more appropriate since > it prevents the release of non-free extensions of Glade. Hi, Basically, the glade core is intended to serve as a library to edit glade files, making the glade core available under LGPL in my understanding will allow people to use that library in a commercial IDE, while modifying the core and redistributing it means that their modifications must also be distributed; I'm comfortable with that, and I also wouldn't mind if the project received a little more attention (since the current license bars the glade core from use in any commercial IDE), I love seeing it in Anjuta, I would love to see it all over the place :) In a utopic situation, glade being available in bleeding edge IDEs could even help draw attention to Gtk+ and GNOME. It also wasnt exactly clearly stated that glade isn't just a static application but mainly a core library with plugins. Btw Im something of a fan of your work and admittedly a little flattered to receive your mail Richard :D Cheers, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Software relicensing, how is it done ?
On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 3:19 PM, Dave Neary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [...] > You need to: > 1. Make a list of each author of Glade > 2. Contact each of them, requesting permission to relicence Glade > 3a. When all of them have sent you a written note (email is OK) then you > can go ahead. > 3b. If you can't get to 100%, you'll need to remove/rewrite all code by > authors you can't contact or who refuse permission. Ok thats pretty clear, I spoke with Paulo Borelli on irc who went through relicencing gtksourceview and they tracked it in bugzilla (for 3a, which I guess is the tricky part, to keep it well documented). So I'm thinking to go with a bugzilla report if thats valid... actually I'd do it now but I have to go to bed :) Thanks for the replies they were helpful, I'll be sure to ask if I need help with more details :) Cheers, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Software relicensing, how is it done ?
Hi, We've been talking about relicensing Glade 3 under LGPL for a few years now (other primary contributors and myself), and I'm about to try and bite the bullet and take the plunge. I have a vague idea about what things must be done and steps that must be taken for this to happen, i.e. contacting all the authors of remaining code portions in glade and having their consent, and documenting it all to a certain degree... I was hoping that the foundation could help with this, even if only a lawyer, student of law, or just an experienced guy with this kind of thing, could help enlighten me on what steps need to be taken, in what order, etc. I would really apriciate the help and guidance. Cheers, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: bounties?
On Nov 8, 2007 12:07 PM, Dr. Michael J. Chudobiak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Posting 'a beer at > > next Guadec for whoever fixes bug #7' is informal enough that I think > > we avoid the main issue which is the alienation of volunteers, > > however, it doesn't really address the big issue which is how can > > users donate and drive development of a feature they desire? > > I'm more wondering about how non-Guadec-goers can get action on > pet-peeve bugs. > > If you're going to Guadec, you've already got the expertise or influence > to make things happen. Yes I agree, I think that the corporate world is slowly waking up to the reality that stable good quality software has to be free - I think many companies are willing to pay us to make things happen, maybe without the full commitment of relocating us across the world and making us a full time employee of their company - if the program was serious and the bounties serious, I'm quite sure that people will be watching and even maintaining such a billboard so that things dont get out of date. Like it was mentioned though, lots of things like this already exist just in different infrastructure. Cheers, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: bounties?
On Nov 6, 2007 7:26 PM, Quim Gil <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 11/6/07, Dr. Michael J. Chudobiak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > I guess it's no surprise that money and free/open software have a > > delicate relationship... > > I have been putting it in this way: > > The connection between free software development and money compares to > the connection between friendship and sex: you can build a consistent > relationship starting as friends or lovers and continuing that way, > but if you jump for once to the other side you will probably mess up > everything. Interesting way of putting it, we wouldnt ever want patches to be rushed in because of cash incentives, this is indeed risky - on the other hand I dont see why there shouldnt be some external distributed firm of developers working on a bounty system that is only remotely related to gnome (and why not X, the Linux kernel as well) - a bounty hunter could be responsible for writing the code and getting it approved by the appropriate maintainer or reporting back to the firm why it wasnt accepted by a said gnome maintainer. I'm sure alot of us myself included would like to spend more time working on free software if we could only afford it... Cheers, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: bounties?
On Nov 6, 2007 7:26 PM, Quim Gil <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 11/6/07, Dr. Michael J. Chudobiak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > I guess it's no surprise that money and free/open software have a > > delicate relationship... > > I have been putting it in this way: > > The connection between free software development and money compares to > the connection between friendship and sex: you can build a consistent > relationship starting as friends or lovers and continuing that way, > but if you jump for once to the other side you will probably mess up > everything. Interesting way of putting it, we wouldnt ever want patches to be rushed in because of cash incentives, this is indeed risky - on the other hand I dont see why there shouldnt be some external distributed firm of developers working on a bounty system that is only remotely related to gnome (and why not X, the Linux kernel as well) - a bounty hunter could be responsible for writing the code and getting it approved by the appropriate maintainer or reporting back to the firm why it wasnt accepted by a said gnome maintainer. I'm sure alot of us myself included would like to spend more time working on free software if we could only afford it... Cheers, -Tristan PS: please excuse double post if you recieve twice as the first bounced from the wrong mail address ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Can we improve things?
On Wed, 2007-09-12 at 17:33 -0400, Behdad Esfahbod wrote: > On Wed, 2007-09-12 at 12:21 -0400, Tristan Van Berkom wrote: > > > > Well, gnome is people that have a choice to contribute or not - making > > those people (i.e. you me and everyone else) feel accepted and important > > is central to having a healthy project where everyone wants to be > > involved. > > But if people feel unwelcomed just because their blog is not added to > p.g.o as soon as they asked, they are asking too much IMO. It's been > customary in GNOME that people join the project, do more and more, and > other hackers recognize their effort by asking them to get commit access > etc. Same thing about p.g.o. Ok I think we're starting to split hairs here - I think we do agree for the most part. For instance, I agree that requesting p.g.o. syndication should go through similar pipelines as requesting commit access, it should be asked for (possibly also vouched for) and approved by a team (I dont even think the time it takes to get commit access/planet syndication is a really big problem). Imagine that to have commit access to svn there was one person that could approve it, no team, no followups - this would constitute not only an infrastructural problem but also a social problem. For my part, if I had anything else to argue it would be that p.g.o. should be handled by a formal team whos members could be subject to change from time to time (as I suggested before, possibly a marketing team or web team) - as opposed to "add someone else to jeff", which might speed up the process for planet syndication but still risk leaving applicants in the dark (and applicants in the dark are the ones I believe might feel unwelcome, if only because of the non-democratic nature of the process ;-)). Cheers, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Can we improve things?
On Wed, 2007-09-12 at 17:56 +0100, Bastien Nocera wrote: [...] > Planet GNOME without a strong editorial control would probably suck. > Just like maintainers vouch and check patches in each of their modules, > we need to have some control on blogs getting added to planet. And > that's Jeff's module... Disagree, planet gnome is a front for all of gnome, as such it would make sence to follow the NewAccounts process that is used for shell accounts and svn access - sure it might be a lengthly process but at least its transperent, requests are granted by a team that is comprised of other contributors like you and me. This is much different than making it the domain of a single module/maintainer. On Thu, 2007-09-13 at 04:00 +1000, Jeff Waugh wrote: [...] > It's also related to *why* people > want to be on Planet GNOME -- for instance, it sucks that some people make > blogs solely to be published on Planet GNOME. Curiously, why does that suck ? Not everybody likes to make a hobby out of writing a personal journal, some people who do not share this journaling hobby otoh do have interesting things to post to a planet with a specific audience. How are those people's blogs less valuable ? Cheers, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Can we improve things?
On Thu, 2007-09-13 at 01:14 +1000, Jeff Waugh wrote: [...] > Just so everyone knows: That is *extremely* unlikely to happen. There has > been significant support for the editorial stewardship of Planet GNOME for > ages now. When I last considered making it a free-for-all, there was a *LOT* > of pushback. Despite the occasional maintenance issues that has not changed. *sigh*, I wonder what you are basing this claim on, maybe there's an archived thread that you could reffer us to which details that ? Its really not that I dont trust your casual word that there was a lot of pushback[1], I just wonder if this pushback is comming from the community as a whole or just from a few fearful and "central" developers of gnome (underlining "central" as the offending word in that sentence). I think its important to note here that giving someone access to blog on planet gnome is like publicly aknowlaging that they are indeed a part of the gnome community - people who contribute to the project need to feel like they are part of the project. Currently it seems like there is even more sensorship in planet membership than svn access - to me that sounds backwards, the people writing the code are the people who define the backbone of our community and we need to aknowlage that (whether or not we like what they have to say on the planet). > > That way you get democracy at both ends - posting and viewing. > > GNOME is not democratic. :-) Well, gnome is people that have a choice to contribute or not - making those people (i.e. you me and everyone else) feel accepted and important is central to having a healthy project where everyone wants to be involved. Cheers, -Tristan [1]: I really hate to be the one to ask for references etc or "play hardball" so to speak - this is a real issue and IMO deserves real attention, I'm not taking offence and I hope my comments are not precieved as offensive. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Can we improve things?
On Wed, 2007-09-12 at 09:13 +1000, Jeff Waugh wrote: > > > > We have no editorial control. Get over it :) > > We absolutely *do* have editorial control at the moment. The challenge I > have at the moment is to continue that, while improving what people see to > be the drawbacks of the current process (which can almost entirely be > summarised as slow response particularly when I'm travelling). I wonder if this control in itself is a source of frustration to some people who've been contributing code to the gnome project and want to brag about it on planet gnome, when we say that "we have editorial control", who exactly should be qualifying as "we" ? I wonder if this editorial control might come across a little friendlier if it were delagated to a marketing/web team that people can freely volunteer to be a part of. Just an added idea, what if: - potential planet poster write's an email to the appropriate archived ML (something like marketing-list or web-list ?) - bonus points for having someone to vouch for you that is already on planet - 2 approvals from the " team" (kind of like freeze breaks) merits being added Cheers, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Distribution branding of GNOME
On Fri, 2005-03-11 at 21:45 -0600, Federico Mena Quintero wrote: [...] > In either of the cases above, we have to make Gnome so good, so > compelling, that people wouldn't want to use anything else. In the > first case they would say, "not powered by Gnome? I'm not using it, > then". In the second case they would say, "doesn't feel like Gnome? > I'm not using it, then". We are not at that point yet. Very good observation :) I think it goes to show that it pays to be in the bussiness of actual creativity and not the bussiness of appearences, if we work towards the object at hand and ignore any slander and critisizms we will end up being popular and have a good end result - if we waste time trying to satisfy everyone, trying to get popular and conforming to suits, we'll just dry up inside what will eventually become nothing but an empty image. Note I'm just jumping in on something that I find is just a great life lesson for everyone - this is not a part of whatever current argument is going on, I just found it to be a great observation: "We are not at that point yet" :D A quote from the I Ching that came to mind: "We should do every task for its own sake as time and place demand and not with an eye to the result. Then each task turns out well, and anything we undertake succeeds" - The second line of the 25th hexagram (Innocence), Book of changes. Just a friendly breath of fresh air for you incase your office hours are nearly as boring and monotonous as my own ;-) Cheers, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Call for invitations to be the host of GUADEC 2008
On Fri, 2007-03-23 at 01:35 +1100, Jeff Waugh wrote: > > > > That said if there is any proposal for Canada (Montreal is IMHO a better > > choice than Ottawa), count me in :-) > > Where necessary, and in this case I think it is, we should be very clear > about GNOME's geopolitical view of the world: Quebecistan is not in Europe. > Who said Quebec is in Europe ? Being one of the biggest regions in North America I'd think it would be hard to miss on the map, North America wasnt on the "excluded" list last I checked, is it ? Anyway, I dont expect to be going to any oversees FOSS related conferences but if there was one in Canada (and I must stress that Ottawa is one of the most boring places I've been to) then as hub says "count me in" :) Cheers, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Minutes of SoC meeting
On Thu, 2007-03-08 at 12:18 -0600, Shaun McCance wrote: > I saved logs of both the meetings. > > http://www.gnome.org/~shaunm/070227-soc.txt > http://www.gnome.org/~shaunm/070306-soc.txt > Embarrassing as it sounds, I have to admit that when I volunteered to be on the selection committee I was under the impression that I was volunteering to be a mentor. However, as I already volunteered I would be happy to help out although I will not be present from the 14th-19th of march (this week) and I would expect that people with a little experience in past years of GSoC would be more suitable for the task. I /would/ like to try to be a mentor this year... so I suppose it would be at least awkward if I were also on the selection committee. Cheers, -Tristan PS: Sorry for the confusion that I brought to the table. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME and the free software movement
Joachim Noreiko wrote: >>for the advance of computer users' freedom. >> >> > >What freedoms exactly? > >The computer users I know can't code. What are they >going to with the source code they have the freedom to >modify? >And free as in beer makes no difference to them: they >either got their Windows XP with their Dell, or from a >bloke they know with a CD burner. > >Freedoms that you can't exercise are meaningless. > > I know others have replied, both with solid arguments but I thought I could point to at least one practicle value of free software to the modern user as we know it. Lets just take open data formats for example - free software ensures that data formats stay open to a fine degree (since the source is always available to those who implement the format) - this gives the user a choice: a.) Commercially encrypted MS word documents that dont amount to much in a reader that you didnt pay for, either upgrade your copy of MS word (at a price) in order to read the latest flavour of .doc that landed in your inbox (read more [1])... ofcourse theres the possibility of using some software that illegally reverse engeneered the encrypted proprietary format.. but again, most probably illegally. b.) they can use an open file format and then their rights as a consumer are protected, they are free to use any tool on the market to read and modify a said format. Cheers, -Tristan [1] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html (wink) ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct final draft?
Andreas J. Guelzow wrote: >On Thu, 2006-03-08 at 00:22 +0100, Bill Haneman wrote: > > >>I think the second term in your Princeton Wordnet citation is the one we >>are aiming for: e.g. "principles". >> >>One can have principles without rules. >> >> > >Principles are rules. Check Worldnet for "principle" if you like. > > > I did suggest this one the last time this came up so... why not "gnome ethics" ? -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct final draft?
Jeff Waugh wrote: [...] > As an aside, it was never intended to be "legislation" or "rules", and every > time it's painted as such, it says more about the poster's attitude than the > CoC's intent (not that you have done so in this mail, but others have done > so recently on the list). Very interesting comment Jeff :) You say that like as if someone should feel ashamed of having an attitude against having rules, its obvious that not everyone shares the same values - but people who /have/ painted the C.o.C. as a rulebook have still made some valid points and observations. Cheers, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct final draft?
Andreas J. Guelzow wrote: > On Wed, 2006-02-08 at 20:11 +0200, Anne Østergaard wrote: > >>I think that we have most people with us now > > > How do you know? _I_ may think that most people who are opposed to this > additional legislation do not dare to speak up anymore. Keeping in mind that this is _not_ a legislation, and that the popular arguments against were about the imposing of "rules", I doubt that. Cheers, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct final draft?
Telsa Gwynne wrote: > Ar Tue, Aug 01, 2006 at 11:57:10AM +0200, ysgrifennodd Philip Van Hoof: > >>On Tue, 2006-08-01 at 11:38 +0200, Murray Cumming wrote: >> >>>The idea is to state what we consider acceptable behaviour, in order to >>>advertize to newcomers what they can expect when getting involved in >>>GNOME, and to reinforce this existing behaviour, so that bad behaviour is >>>more clearly unacceptable when it does happen. It says who we are and who >>>we want to be and how we'd like people to think of us. >> > ... > [...] For what its worth, I was one of the first people to speak up against having a rulebook attitude on any gnome web-pages, after reading Murray's last draft, I find it quite friendly and unoffensive and dont really have any objection. I dont think this is going to do anything for general "obnoxiousness" on mailing lists and irc channels though and I think that is quite ok, I think that what alot of people misinterpret as obnoxiousness is in fact somebody who feels that thier opinions have been overlooked or that they are not being properly listened to (remember the third point in Murray's draft). As the technical crowd we are, we are obstinate by definition, everybody wants to be heard and everyone should want to play fair, through this obstinacy we achieve a level of peer review that augments the quality of the software that we write and the activities that we participate in... without regards to any code, most people I argue with are very nice about it... even though I am often frustrated and find the operation very obnoxious. Anyhow, to sum up what I have to say here: o I think there has been an improvement on the code of conduct and it sounds friendly and not imposing - thanks Murray. o I protest that people find that other people in gnome are being obnoxious or unfriendly, that is not my experience in the slightest; people have strong feelings about the excelence of the software that they spend large amounts of thier own free time developing, and thus have the right to argue thier points vigorously. Cheers, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code Of Conduct
Richard Stallman wrote: So I would definitely agree that given an idea of contributing (code), women will easily ask who will pay for it where men might not. Maybe they consider open source more as "working" than as a hobby or a way social networking or even as a way to educate oneself. Perhaps this is a consequence of presenting GNOME as an "open source" activity. That term excludes the idealism of free software, and invites people to look at the matter in purely practical terms -- which is what these women then do. Perhaps they would understand better why it's worth spending time unpaid on our campaign if you tell them that this is the Free Software Movement, and that the goal of our campaign is freedom for us and for everyone. I definitly agree with this sentiment (as expressed in my earlier comment); I wouldnt volunteer all kinds of hours and donate it to some organization if I didnt believe in the cause; and ofcourse I wouldnt expect a woman to any more than a man. So upon recieving your mail, I went to the gnome.org face page and played "newcommer", I followed "What is GNOME" and found myself at http://gnome.org/about/ where it clearly states that: === GNOME is Free Software and part of the GNU project, dedicated to giving users and developers the ultimate level of control over their desktops, their software, and their data. Find out more about the GNU project and Free Software at gnu.org. === If the above statement is indeed true, I wonder where any misrepresentations are, if they can be rectified and what can be done in general to improve the overall interpretation of what the GNOME project is. What have other free software projects done to clarify this point ? Cheers, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code Of Conduct
Murray Cumming wrote: [...] The current hackers appear to be at least somewhat content with the current atmosphere. If we change it too drastically, we run the risk of pushing existing hackers away, or failing to attract new (western/male) ones. And I still haven't seen anything to make me believe that this Code of Conduct would actually attract female/asian/whatever hackers. So the downside is that a CoC might drive away the current hacker demographic AND fail to attract any new hacker demographic. Who's going to be drive away by us stating that we generally think it's a good idea not to be nasty? We agree on that so where's the drastic threat? Should our consensus say "Sometime's it's OK to flame people. That's really fun. Oh, and treat people with dismissive contempt sometimes too. They don't matter." Obviously not. Nobody will be driven away by that, people might be driven away by us stating that "you now are part of a community with a code of conduct". The drastic threat is not the ideals/morals that are expressed in the code; only the fact that its called a "code of conduct"; this title will definitly be interpreted as a rule book, and the existence of any rule book will alter the lax nature of the project. Now ofcourse, simply stating that: "we generally think it's a good idea not to be nasty" would be a great thing... and IMO doesnt need to have anything to do with putting any kind of code in place. Cheers, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code Of Conduct
I think one of the things I like most about GNOME, is its anarchistic democratic nature, this is a true example of how people get along in real life, if alot of good-natured people with productive intents gather together and form a society, GNOME is an example of how things would work out. Sure sometimes disagreements crop up, they may even at times get personel; nobody desires this... but it happens, and it happens because we all want to believe we have equal rights and freedom of speech and no dictator is around to shoot the minority that is standing in the way of progress. I think that a Code of Conduct is dangerously looming on the "Big Brother" side, completely regardless of its content; nobody wants to be told what they can and cannot do. On the other hand there may be benefits to expressing our moral values somewhere on the GNOME websites... I think GNOME would be a less exciting place with a Code of Conduct. That's precisely what it's for. It's not a list of *rules*, it's a statement of intent, of expectations. Boiled down to the very basics, the I wonder if it would satisfy both of you (and me too) if these changes were made: o Call the page something something like "GNOME Ethics", not something "rule-bound" like "code-of-conduct" o Word the statements differently... for example; dont say: "Be respectful and considerate" (... elaboration of why ...) instead say something like: "Here at GNOME we like to be considerate because" (... elaboration of why ...) or alternatively something like: "Its important to be respectfull and considerate because..." I think the same content can be presented under a slightly different banner and get the "intent" across without the threats that come with "rules". Cheers, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code Of Conduct
Baris Cicek wrote: I wanted to put my 2 cents on this women involvement issue. Me too :) Actually women in proprietary software market have a good motivation like earning money from what they do. But in free software world, they hardly have this motivation, and most of time it's volunteer work. I doubt that female enthusiasm to IT is high in the world. Therefore they need some motivation to get involved. It's something to do with the loving what you do in Free Software world, and women mostly choose other things than staying by the computer for hours. If we go deep into this gender psychology and genetic closeness to particular activities should be considered. From where I live (ie. Turkey) most women in the IT world are only there for earning money, and those I doubt they would ever touch computer at home or elsewhere from their office. Sure thing that there are some who loves to use computers. But that's really few, which won't exceed fingers of an hand. It's not easy to increase women involvement in that sense. We need to find motivation, and proprietary world does it by giving money. But nothing comes to my mind for Free Software world. Well, there must be some form of motivation for us to continue hacking on the various things we hack on, standing up to billion dollar corperations that steal freedom from software users and writers for example. it seems easy enough to convince people that they should protest and help save rain forrests and dolphins, maybe we need to work on better explaining the importance of volunteer free software hacking, and the real significance of what it is we're doing here. One very hard obstacle I can see about getting women involved in free software development, is the difficulty in taking the first few steps. Since the community is made up mostly of men; I can see why women would easily shy away from lesurly chatting with a bunch of male hackers on irc... possibly mostly talking "boy stuff". This would naturally change if there were at least a 20% female representation of the community. On the other hand; it makes no sence to say that talking "boy stuff" in gnome irc channels is "improper conduct" (this is ofcourse just an example; point being that women and men alike dont like to feel alone in their gender in any community/circle). Cheers, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME strongly supports open standards including OpenDocument Format
Andrew Sobala wrote: [...] Is it? What are we actually talking about? The original referenced e-mail (http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2005-November/msg00177.html) is a technical opinion on how to make open standards as useful as possible in providing cross-platform/cross-desktop integration. While I agree that lobbying individuals and governments to use open standards (especially in their interactions with the outside world, ie. file formats and network protocols) is a laudable one, I do not feel that was the main thrust of Federico's e-mail. Agreed. I may be alone, but I feel this thread may be in need of some clarification. Lets not split hairs here, whether Federico's e-mail in the election campaign had anything to do with lobbying individuals and governments to use open standards or not is irrelevent; Anne's original email [1] proposes that we put something up on gnome.org about GNOME's position on open standards (also possibly a press release). Personally I think that its our duty, as developers of free software; to make clear to GNOME users (corporate or private) what that position is. Regards, -Tristan [1] http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2005-December/msg00052.html ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Reducing the board size
Jeff Waugh wrote: I think that we need energetic people who are really up to the task of innovating the future of GNOME; That is not what the board - or even the foundation - is for! Innovating the future of GNOME is a *COMMUNITY* responsibility, not an organisational one. My fear is that people who've been reluctant to run but have run anyway will cripple the board from making decisions based on the assumption that they ran with a conservative attitude: "I better run for director cause if I dont; radical things will happen". This attitude is altogether defendable when we have less interested people than available seats. I think we need people who a.) we can trust and b.) who have the time and energy to consider making radical decisions as much as conservative ones. It is also my understanding that the petition for this referendum was originaly proposed by David because its hard for the board to agree on anything, like having this referendum. I would like to know what anyone on the board thinks of my fear, Are decisions on the board crippled by disinterest in particular ? (i.e. How are we supposed to have even a majority consensus when only half the members are interested in making the decision ?) Knowing how people feel about this above point will definitly effect my vote. Cheers, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Reducing the board size
Hi all; I'll put a word in, I've been thoroughly reading these threads on foundation-list and have to admit that voting on this weighs on me as a heavy responsability, that being said I will try to do my best. While for the most part I've had to agree with Anne where she says: "Reducing the size of the board without knowing what the consequences might be is a risky thing to do" But now I feel I have to be a little less conservative; the arguments put forth so far seem to suggest that there are more seats available than people who are really willing to take on the responsability, and I can definitly see how this can cripple the boards ability to make decisions. Jeff Waugh: "We've had very motivated people, to the point where some of them have run to make sure less trustworthy people would not get on the board! :-)" What this says to me is that some people are running reluctantly and dont really want to deal with the responsabilities of a board member (judging from the responsability I feel with this measly vote; I know I couldn't manage being a board member). I think that we need energetic people who are really up to the task of innovating the future of GNOME; not conservative people who are reluctantly stepping in to protect what GNOME has become so far (which addmitedly; there seems to be a need for in such a large board). I will wait a few days at least before I cast my vote, if the deadline were today; I'd be voting YES to reduce the board size. Cheers, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
