Re: [Sugar-devel] SLOB meeting notes 2020-12-23
Perhaps it was not clear in the minutes but I plan to sort through the books over the holidays and report back at the next board meeting. On Fri, Dec 25, 2020, 4:54 PM Martin Guy wrote: > On 23/12/2020, Walter Bender wrote: > > MISSION > > Sugar Labs® is a volunteer-driven member project of > > Software Freedom Conservancy, a nonprofit corporation. > > Nice words, but what I see from down here is that the leading > developers are the paid ones (who not only do the work they're paid to > do but also shoulder other duties such as board membership. mentoring > and being a generous knowledge base) > > If that also seems to others to be the reality that we have, that > suggests an alternative view, to consciously use SL's funds to fund > development, with openness about what it pays to whom to do what, and > the developer's duty to itemize in public the hours spent on each > assigned task, and the progress made as a result, since that seems to > be a more effective path than simply wailing "We need more > volunteers!" > > To this end, drawing a line under the past financial accounting, > taking stock and relaunching it with greater transparency might be one > way to help SL achieve its technical goals, as well as encouraging > more and more generous donations when current or potential donors can > see how cost-effective their funds are. > > Just my 2 cents... > > Season's greetings > > M > ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] SLOB meeting notes 2020-12-23
On Fri, Dec 25, 2020 at 10:54:00PM +0100, Martin Guy wrote: > On 23/12/2020, Walter Bender wrote: > > MISSION > > Sugar Labs® is a volunteer-driven member project of > > Software Freedom Conservancy, a nonprofit corporation. > > Nice words, but what I see from down here is that the leading > developers are the paid ones (who not only do the work they're paid to > do but also shoulder other duties such as board membership. mentoring > and being a generous knowledge base) What you say is not what I understand. I'll say what I understand; Sugar Labs paid some mentors a stipend this year for Google Summer of Code. The remaining mentors did not ask for the stipend. I did not ask. The money came from Google. Sugar Labs has offered to pay Ibiam to work on some of the Python activities. Other than that, Sugar Labs hasn't been paying developers. OLPC, Inc pays me to work on OLPC OS, which contains Sugar and a few other things. > If that also seems to others to be the reality that we have, that > suggests an alternative view, to consciously use SL's funds to fund > development, with openness about what it pays to whom to do what, and > the developer's duty to itemize in public the hours spent on each > assigned task, and the progress made as a result, since that seems to > be a more effective path than simply wailing "We need more > volunteers!" > > To this end, drawing a line under the past financial accounting, > taking stock and relaunching it with greater transparency might be one > way to help SL achieve its technical goals, as well as encouraging > more and more generous donations when current or potential donors can > see how cost-effective their funds are. Yes, further transparency would be welcome. I'm no longer a member of the oversight board. Board members in particular are responsible for ensuring transparency, but all members should also demonstrate and seek it. However, it is possible to gather some of the hours spent on tasks by using GitHub to monitor specific developers. When monitoring in this way, be sure to watch the musicblocks repository, and the sugarizer repository in the llaske user account. If you don't watch these two repositories, you'll miss much of the activity at Sugar Labs. > > Just my 2 cents... > > Season's greetings > > M > ___ > IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) > i...@lists.sugarlabs.org > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep -- James Cameron https://quozl.linux.org.au/ ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] SLOB meeting notes 2020-12-23
On 23/12/2020, Walter Bender wrote: > MISSION > Sugar Labs® is a volunteer-driven member project of > Software Freedom Conservancy, a nonprofit corporation. Nice words, but what I see from down here is that the leading developers are the paid ones (who not only do the work they're paid to do but also shoulder other duties such as board membership. mentoring and being a generous knowledge base) If that also seems to others to be the reality that we have, that suggests an alternative view, to consciously use SL's funds to fund development, with openness about what it pays to whom to do what, and the developer's duty to itemize in public the hours spent on each assigned task, and the progress made as a result, since that seems to be a more effective path than simply wailing "We need more volunteers!" To this end, drawing a line under the past financial accounting, taking stock and relaunching it with greater transparency might be one way to help SL achieve its technical goals, as well as encouraging more and more generous donations when current or potential donors can see how cost-effective their funds are. Just my 2 cents... Season's greetings M ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
