Date is 2013-03-07, times are UTC+01. {{{ 23:00 <+alanc> hello 23:00 howdy! 23:00 heyo 23:01 hi 23:02 <+anholt> hi 23:02 hello 23:03 Five of us, anyhow. Missing keithp, anholt. Who else? 23:04 Bart_Massey: anholt is here 23:04 Oops. I fail reading comprehension forever 23:04 <+alanc> I saw stukreit in the hall earlier 23:04 <+alanc> oh, wait, I failed too 23:04 alan fails too 23:04 OK, I guess that's everybody but keithp? 23:04 Anyway, let's get started 23:05 <+anholt> marcoz: are you set up for accounts to get elections running? 23:05 i still have no access to anything. 23:06 <+anholt> so, I don't see email from you to sitewranglers, or a request on bugzilla 23:06 did you see the sitewranglers ticket? 23:06 sigh... 23:06 <+anholt> you also said something about "nabble", which confused me 23:06 what is the link I should be using? 23:07 <+anholt> freedesktop bugzilla? 23:07 specific URL please 23:07 <+anholt> https://bugs.freedesktop.org/ 23:07 <+alanc> every time I mail sitewranglers I get a moderation message - does someone drain the moderation queue regularly? 23:07 <+anholt> yes/no: drains, but extremely irregularly 23:08 * alanc is tempted to mail sitewranglers a "Told you so!" followup to my "please turn off wiki account creation" mail now that jrayhawk found part of the fd.o website problem is the 388 thousand moin accounts 23:09 product: freedesktop.org ? what component? 23:09 alanc: 388K active wiki editors is *awesome*! Think of how they're improving our web presence!! 23:09 <+anholt> admin or new accounts -- I don't think anyone searches based on those 23:10 <+alanc> I'm not sure "503 Guru Meditation" really counts as an improvement, but it's about the same as the usefulness of some of our web pages 23:11 * Bart_Massey pauses for a moment of Guru Meditation 23:11 marcoz: http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/AccountRequests you can probably use this as a template. just adjust the bug to request elections stuff 23:11 I need to get in touch with jrayhawk again and we need to get our web infrastructure under control 23:12 ok, ticket submitted. 23:12 <+alanc> he and keithp were talking on #freedesktop earlier today 23:13 anholt: can you check if it's in the queue? 23:13 Meanwhile: Does somebody want to send a response to Wayland Crowdsource person? It seems like the consensus of the Board is that this is something we don't really want to take on at this time? 23:13 do we need to vote on it? 23:14 We can. Any discussion before I make a motion? 23:14 I don't remember the wayland crowd source request? what was it about? 23:14 i suppose the rejection is because it is beyond our scope and definition 23:14 stukreit: I don't think so. 23:14 agd5f: email from late yesterday 23:14 <+alanc> it seems like if Wayland needed more paid programmers, Intel or someone could hire them 23:15 I'm against it just because it's more Board work than I want to take on at a time when we have other things on our plate. 23:15 <+anholt> marcoz: for asking for an account, you probably need the other information on accountrequests, like ssh pubkey and account name 23:15 <+alanc> much easier for them to add more programmers than us becoming an employer and having to deal with payroll & other HR headaches 23:15 I'm much more concerned with general X.Org Foundation funding, in particular, than funding for a specific project. 23:15 actually, link it to our bylaws: we are not an org about hiring programmers. we're an educational non profit 23:15 Yes, we definitely have a policy of not hiring developers. 23:15 so that's the reason 23:15 (Except students.) 23:16 Ah, I missed that one, reading now 23:16 evoc is not a real hiring. its an internship basically 23:16 But we certainly are an org that could do Wayland fund-raising to be administered by some Wayland group. 23:16 But as I said, if we're going to do fund-raising this year, IMHO it needs to be for plain ol' X. 23:17 so I see this as a way to put out our mission statement 23:17 <+alanc> could also link him to "The Mythical Man Month" - "adding more programmers to an already late project makes it even later" 23:17 Move to politely decline the offer of help with crowdsourcing Wayland funding, due to perceived conflicts with the role of the Board. +1? 23:17 please, i'm serious. this can be an exercise in declaring our corporate position 23:18 +1 I'd like to work with whomever writes the note. I'm willing to start it. 23:18 stukreit: Yes, I think we can make it clear what our position is in our response 23:18 which email is this? I'm not seeing one. 23:18 <+alanc> +1 23:18 <+anholt> +1 23:18 probably makes more sense to fund evoc wayland projects that some big wayland project 23:19 marcoz: subject "Would crowdfunding Wayland development make sense?" 23:19 the issue here is how we explain our rejection of his offer 23:19 <+alanc> "Would crowdfunding Wayland development make sense?" to board@x.org last night 23:20 stukreit: If you would like to draft a response to him, emphasizing our position as a Board that we don't want to directly hire developers, that would be awesome... 23:20 Hmmm, nothing. Can one of you forward that to me? 23:21 marcoz: done 23:21 thanks, got it. 23:21 yes I'll do that. Does anyone here think that the premise of his letter is valid? ie. could it happen? 23:21 stukreit: IDK. 23:22 realistically... no 23:22 <+anholt> seems quite unlikely 23:22 I guess wayland might be the wrong vehicle, because it already has much corporate sponsorship 23:22 And does anyone here take seriously the "threat" of Mir? 23:22 On a related topic: Two things about the Ubuntu Y..er..Mir Window System announcement 23:22 Yeah, me too 23:23 So, two questions: What, if anything, do we want to say publicly as a Board about it? 23:23 it's not really our decision as the board to decide whether mir or wayland or something else is "better" 23:23 agd5f: Wayland is something we have agreed is part of the X.Org umbrella; Mir definitely is not 23:23 <+alanc> the developer of FreeType has raised ~ $15k via crowdfunding, a far cry from a full time developer salary 23:23 not asking for adecision, just impressions of where things are going. 23:24 <+keithp> Bart_Massey: jrayhawk wants to meet tomorrow to talk about wikis 23:24 <+keithp> do you have time for breakfast? 23:24 I would suggest we make a highly supportive and encouraging announcement re Mir. 23:24 keithp: Yep let's do it 23:24 +1 23:24 Bart_Massey: sure, but if mir suddenly took off and there was an evoc student that had a good mir proposal... 23:24 Emphasize that we think that it would be fantastic if Canonical could replace X on desktop in 12 months. 23:25 agd5f: All I meant is that we haven't yet taken a position on Mir. 23:25 save us all so much grief 23:25 <+alanc> amazing, astounding, unbelievable 23:25 right 23:25 * alanc stops just short of "utterly impossible" 23:25 Given that Mir is a single-corporation effort, I don't think it's appropriate for us to be supporting it, but that's just my position... 23:26 I'll draft a Mir announcement for the Board to review. 23:26 would be nice to get out infront of comments by some of our beloved bloggers. 23:26 Second question: How does Mir impact our ability to raise funds for X.Org in the short term? 23:26 Is it going to hurt us? Badly? 23:27 My management won't care. 23:27 probably not much in the short term 23:27 imho it doesn't matter 23:27 Good. 23:27 how would it hurt? other than splitting already scarce resources. or is that what you are getting at? 23:27 <+alanc> would think most of our contributors wouldn't care that much - probably can't count on much from Canonical though, but I don't think they've ever given us cash 23:28 marcoz: Sometimes companies want to fund "the next big thing" rather than "same ol same ol" 23:28 Anyway, sounds like everyone is pretty sanguine. 23:28 <+anholt> I don't imagine many people seeing mir as the next big thing. 23:28 Which is good, because I think that's the next big thing. 23:28 I'm not anticipating "hurt", I'm dreamily thinking about when I'll see "the year of the *nix desktop" 23:28 Stabilizing X.Org funding, I mean 23:29 stukreit: Sadly, I doubt we'll ever see another "year of the desktop", period :-) 23:29 I mean if mir took off, we could support it as well 23:29 agd5f: I think only if it wasn't a totally Canonical-centric effort, though... 23:29 I've started nudging on my side. Keith was helping me wrestle Intel a few years ago, but it fizzled out. 23:29 sure. I mean if it took off and there were suddenly a lot of community developers behind it 23:30 We're all enjoying the year (month) of the smartphone, pad, and soon flexible screentop. 23:30 So what I need everyone to do is to do what stukreit is doing: figure out where we're going to get money from. 23:30 basically developer interest leads us 23:30 My goal is to get a recurring income of $25K-$50K for the Foundation 23:31 This should about offset our current expenses, if I understand them right. 23:31 maybe get a donate button on the website for starters? 23:31 funding: one component is a totally optional request to the membership so we can have >50% individual donations 23:31 agd5f: Yes, the dollar amount from the website donations will unlikely be large, but it's important for getting our individual donations for 501(c)3 and for letting people feel like they're participating 23:32 stukreit: I think we only need 10%, no? 23:32 I don't remember, need to look it up. 23:32 agd5f?: 10%, isn't it? 23:32 yeah, 10%, I was wrong last time 23:32 OK, we're good. 23:32 Does anyone have a contact at the Mozilla Corp they could approach? 23:33 keithp: Are you better than me at asking Google for money? 23:33 keithp: Can you poke at Intel again? 23:33 What about AMD? Even NVidia? Smaller graphics companies? 23:34 How about LTSP. They should be concerned with our viability 23:34 stukreit: I hate to try to take "secondary funds" from folks who are nonprofit already... 23:34 Would prefer to get money from commercial sponsors directly 23:34 <+anholt> agreed 23:35 ok. then let's go down the corp. list. We have contacts in AMD (Bridgeman) and Nvidia (...i forgot.) 23:36 <+alanc> Andy & Aaron 23:36 I can try at AMD 23:36 <+alanc> also, agd5f for AMD 23:36 oh yeah, sorry 23:36 What is signature authority for corps these days? $5K? 23:37 <+alanc> the corp I work for has sliding scales - each level up the org chart has higher spending authority 23:38 I guess what I'm asking is vaguely "at what level of request is it now non-trivial, so we might as well ask for a lot?" 23:38 Should we be looking for 5-7 commitments at $5K each, or 1-2 at $25K each? 23:38 Or some combination of the two? 23:39 I used to pull $10/year from Sun, so I was thinking along those lines for Oracle. I mentioned that number to my mgr last week. 23:39 I'd say a combination 23:40 OK! Well, I think it's not too early to say "let's get started". I will keep bugging all y'all every mtg (assuming I get re-elected) and we'll see how it goes. LMK if I can help in any way. 23:41 My goal is to end the year with (a) at least as much money in the bank as we started with, and (b) a plan for maintaining that 23:41 Bart_Massey: speaking of reelection. elections needs your (updated) statement. 23:41 marcoz: Yeah, I know. I'll try to get it in today. 23:41 stukreit: Speaking of "the bank"... :-) 23:41 * alanc needs to send in mine too 23:41 thanks guys 23:42 we spent around $25k last year 23:42 That's what I thought. What I was wondering about was progress changing banks... 23:42 I have 200 words blurb. guess I'll send it around. 23:42 stukreit: Awesome. Please do. 23:43 OK, one more item of business, at least. GSoC. Are we doing it? If so, who is taking point this time? 23:43 I feel like I oughta have about 10 questions to ask banks. Maybe fewer, but enough to get a solid takeaway. I fear talking to banks is like talking to the phone company. 23:44 stukreit: Let's take that conversation offline. 23:44 (jic) i'll help with evoc, but my plate is too full for gsoc 23:44 keithp: Can you summarize in an email for stukreit what we already know about banks? 23:45 I really only want to do Portland State GSoC this year, so I'm out. (I've got big plans here...) 23:45 we could request gosc help from the membership 23:45 Does somebody want to post to devel and see if any obviously-qualified non-Board-Members pop up? 23:45 see if anyone bites 23:46 * Bart_Massey jinxes agd5f 23:46 I'll email the xorg-devel list about it 23:46 agd5f: Thanks! 23:46 <+alanc> marcheu has said he doesn't have time to do it again 23:47 yes, thanks agd5f 23:47 <+alanc> but after, what, 4 years, he deserves a break 23:47 sorry to pop in, but do we even have project ideas? 23:47 Donnie Berkholz has done in the past; you might beg him, although I know he's crazy busy too 23:47 <+alanc> don't we also need to discuss XDC dates today? 23:47 mupuf: We always have project ideas, but whoever take Org Admin will definitely have to build an epic Ideas Page this time... 23:47 alanc: Yes, thanks! 23:49 keithp: Are any of those dates out for you? Because if they are, given that you and I are doing local arrangements... 23:51 It sounds like (d) 9/25-9/27 works the best for the most people. 23:51 Any objections to that date? 23:52 can't get to calendar.. 23:52 <+anholt> looks great to me 23:52 <+alanc> that seemed to be the consensus in email 23:52 yeah 23:53 OK, I am officially declaring that XDC 2013 will be 9/25-9/27 in Portland, Oregon USA. 23:53 (Declaration subject to actually securing the space. Will try today.) 23:54 We're past out of time. Any other emergency business? 23:54 <+alanc> none here 23:54 Thanks all! See you in a couple of weeks! }}}