18:04:52 <jsmith> #startmeeting Fedora Board Meeting (Open office hours / general Q&A)
18:04:53 <zodbot> Meeting started Fri Oct 29 18:04:52 2010 UTC.  The chair is jsmith. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot.
18:04:53 <zodbot> Useful Commands: #action #agreed #halp #info #idea #link #topic.
18:05:03 <jsmith> #meetingname Fedora Board
18:05:03 <zodbot> The meeting name has been set to 'fedora_board'
18:05:20 <jsmith> #topic Open Q&A
18:05:56 <jsmith> Several Board members are busy/out of commission today, so it's going to be a fairly informal meeting
18:06:20 <smooge> here
18:06:26 <smooge> what can I do for you ?
18:07:17 * walters present
18:07:18 <caillon> should we do a roll call perhaps then?
18:07:21 * caillon 
18:07:23 <jsmith> Sure...
18:07:25 * jsmith is here
18:07:54 <rdieter> hola
18:07:57 <smooge> here
18:08:05 <smooge> I have a ? to start things off
18:08:23 <smooge> so question time... we are going through a "generational shift" with some old people burnt out and just pissed off.
18:08:56 <smooge> actually that should have been s/we are/are we/
18:09:21 <rdieter> I'm not sure we could characterize all the unhappy folks as old.
18:09:41 <jsmith> Yes, we have some turn-over in the project.
18:10:17 <jsmith> At some level, churn is undesirable.  At another level, it's a healthy part of any open source community.
18:10:46 <rdieter> though, a common thread is push-back about not 'getting stuff done' without hassle anymore
18:10:52 <walters> smooge: well, clearly people have always been joining and leaving; you're asking whether it's at a problematic level?
18:11:55 <walters> my response though actually regardless of the answer to that is simply that it's important to remain positive, basically.  And don't let any loud disruptive minority stop one from doing good work.
18:12:05 * nirik thinks it might be good to approach such people (probibly in private) and ask their concerns and what could be done to help them contribute and have a more positive experence. Of course that doesn't mean it can be done, but listening is good and potentially we could change things to help out.
18:12:30 <smooge> yes is it problematic where people who have large number of packages are just either giving up silently or publically
18:12:35 <rdieter> I agree about a subjective trend, it seems more folks are frustrated (and potentially leaving), though maybe it's just they're being more vocal about it of late
18:12:59 <caillon> i wonder if it would be useful to survey people with FAS accounts that have been inactive for X period of time
18:13:27 <caillon> of course then we'd have to figure out what to ask them, etc :-)
18:13:40 <walters> do we have any metrics on account activity?
18:14:17 * caillon not sure about that
18:14:19 <smooge> I only have an anecdotal memory about account activity
18:14:22 <rdieter> nirik's idea is good, I think.  it's an easy first baby-step, esp contacting high-profile (now former) contributors (as smooge suggests, those maintaining many pkgs).
18:15:01 <jsmith> nirik: I agree, and I've tried to reach out to many people (both in public and private) and ask those sorts of questions
18:15:10 <rdieter> smooge: do you have particular examples offhand?  I'd be happy to reach out to them.
18:15:21 <rdieter> hee
18:15:50 <caillon> jsmith, has it been useful?  ie, do they respond with constructive criticism?
18:15:56 <jsmith> caillon: Absolutely.
18:16:02 <rdieter> jsmith: so what's been your assesment of that contact so far, cliffs notes version?
18:16:18 <caillon> yeah, that was my next question
18:16:23 <jsmith> I'm gonna make some broad generalizations, but here goes:
18:16:51 <smooge> karanip's emails are the latest. I know that as much as say ralf gets under peoples shirts, he is also frustrated just by lack of charter, lack of people of saying what is really going on etc
18:17:01 <jsmith> 1) People are generally unhappy with the tone of communications channels (mailing lists, etc.)
18:17:57 <smooge> as in we should have said "We are delaying on saying no to the multi-spin because there was private interest in helping releng get the spin out. However that person was unable to make the meeting and we would like to get a definate answer from them"
18:18:11 <jsmith> 2) Much unhappiness seems to me to be caused by assumptions that don't play out.  (For some reason, people in open source communities tend to always assume the worst, even when there's evidence to the contrary.)
18:19:02 <jsmith> In many cases, simply having a one-on-one (preferably in person) conversation helps to solve those sorts of problems.
18:19:15 <jsmith> (It doesn't scale, but it's something that often works)
18:19:17 <smooge> I have yet to figure out if we are optimistic pessimists or pessimistic optimists at heart
18:19:37 <rdieter> smooge: ha, good one.  tough call there.
18:19:46 <jsmith> smooge: Pessimists in public, optimists in person.
18:19:59 <smooge> I know that we are more sarcastic cynics than cynical sarcasts
18:20:23 <rbergeron> lol
18:20:33 <rdieter> smooge is on a roll
18:20:52 <smooge> 2 hours of sleep and large doses of ibuprofen
18:21:10 <jsmith> In general, I think there's too much "I don't like this, so Fedora shouldn't do it" rather than "I don't like this, but I'm willing to work with Fedora to find consensus and work toward a solution."
18:21:48 <jsmith> For better or worse, individuals in open source communities tend to be pretty demanding, and pretty opinionated as well.
18:21:57 <smooge> yep.
18:22:23 * nirik nods. You can find ways to put a positive spin on most anything if you try, but many people don't
18:22:26 <smooge> we are very "judge others strongly, judge self lightly"
18:22:44 <jsmith> Right...
18:23:09 <rdieter> smooge: should be the other way around
18:23:29 <rdieter> and happy la-la fairy land anyway
18:23:32 <rdieter> in happy...
18:23:46 <smooge> well if you ask me, I am always doing it the other way round.. never the other. but people say otherwise :)
18:24:11 <jsmith> I wish we'd all take a healthy dose of Postel's law... "be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others"
18:24:26 <rdieter> amen to that
18:25:26 <smooge> Yeah... actually I think many of our most strongly opinionated people in Fedora would argue against that with all the reasons why doing that has made everything hard in computers.
18:26:22 <smooge> sadly people are not computers and we can't just define humans as simplistic spherical chickens when dealing with them
18:28:28 <nirik> Q: what does the board think about using openhatch or some site we host ourselves as a job board for jobs/roles in fedora?
18:28:57 <smooge> I think it would be a good idea.
18:29:23 <smooge> I would even be happy if we didn't host it ourselves.
18:29:40 <caillon> i'm not entirely opposed to it, but a lot of roles sort of get defined by someone doing work and setting their own roles
18:29:52 <nirik> true.
18:30:55 <caillon> so not really sure what we'd post up there.  maybe we should work on the /Join wiki area first?
18:30:59 <mizmo> somethig like openhatch wouldn't block that though it'd supplement it
18:31:22 <mizmo> caillon, generic high-level descriptions really limit how readily people sign up
18:31:32 <jsmith> My concern isn't in letting people know where to help -- it's with the job we do of mentoring people once they step up to the plate
18:31:39 <mizmo> specifically scoped-out tasks energize people who then move on to be more self-directed
18:32:00 <mizmo> right now we dont have any central place to post out those scoped out tasks
18:32:06 <jsmith> Besides FES, right?
18:32:19 <jsmith> Infrastructure has done an awesome job in that regard.
18:32:23 <mizmo> what is FES
18:32:27 <inode0> and mizmo's blog :)
18:32:29 <jsmith> Fedora Engineering Services
18:32:33 <nirik> FES stuff is for small descrete jobs... not roles.
18:32:36 <mizmo> yeh but that's not centralized
18:32:47 <mizmo> we probably all have tasks listed out across various trac instances
18:32:50 <nirik> ie, 'please fix package X to do Y' not 'maintain package X'. ;)
18:32:52 <jsmith> Essentially, a list of small, discrete jobs that Infrastructure would like done, that someone can work on and do on their own
18:33:08 <mizmo> usually they're not explained in terms of someone who isn't already involved in fedora and knows the acronyms, etc.
18:33:09 * inode0 thinks it would be nice for things that can be packaged in more concrete ways
18:33:19 <mizmo> (in general, not FES specifically since i haven't read thru those)
18:33:37 * jsmith will be right back
18:33:44 <nirik> https://fedorahosted.org/fedora-engineering-services/report/6 if folks want to look.
18:35:41 <inode0> FES always seemed to be differently oriented
18:35:53 <inode0> getting a task assigned to you by someone else
18:36:08 <mizmo> some of these tasks dont seem infra related at all which is a little confusing
18:36:15 <mizmo> like holding gaming sessions?
18:36:34 <mdomsch> FES isn't only for infrastructure tasks
18:36:56 <mdomsch> I filed a FES request to have someone rewrite a perl helper in syslinux into C, so we could drop the perl dep from syslinux
18:37:01 <nirik> right, it's fesco driven...
18:37:24 <nirik> so it could be packaging, rel-enging, whatever.
18:37:53 <mdomsch> that task came out of a Spins SIG request to not have to include perl in their package set
18:38:51 <mdomsch> I can see the value in both long-term role lists (job board), and short term task lists (FES)
18:40:21 <inode0> there are two sorts of people looking for ways to contribute
18:40:35 <inode0> those who say I have these skills, what can you give me to do?
18:40:51 <inode0> and those who just want to browse and find tasks that appeal to them
18:41:27 <inode0> the latter group I think is well-suited to a job board sort of idea
18:44:12 <smooge> actually I would say that FAMSCO has done the best job mentoring. I have been trying to ride their coattails with what mentoring I have done
18:46:14 <smooge> inode0, I would say there is a middle ground for that. I see a lot of people come onto infrastructure who say " I have these skills, what can I do?" and we have a list of problems and then we never hear from them again. I need a better way of getting them involved.
18:47:21 <mizmo> the best way is to talk to them one-on-one
18:47:42 <mizmo> nobody (well most people don't) wants to pick through an unfamiliar ticket queue
18:47:44 <inode0> right, and design bounties have clearly demonstrated that with a good layout of a task in a place it is seen people show up
18:48:06 <mizmo> well it's not just the layout, it's saying, this task is for you, and only you, we're depending on you i think
18:48:20 <mizmo> if you point people at a huge less it's a lot more impersonal
18:48:24 <mizmo> s/less/list
18:48:54 <smooge> ah ok.
18:49:08 <smooge> by the way, I thought "saying, this task is for you, and only you," was layout
18:49:34 <inode0> so maybe caillon's thought would make some sense - if we could filter to job listings relevant to interests via the wiki somehow
18:49:46 <mizmo> oh wrt layout i was thinking the funky ninja gfx and branding
18:49:52 <smooge> oh ok
18:50:01 <smooge> i was thinking words
18:50:08 <walters> pictures > words
18:50:12 <mizmo> a long time ago we designed a match making ui for mentorship
18:50:15 <smooge> i forget there are pictures there too :)
18:50:15 <mizmo> for fedora community
18:50:17 <mizmo> didt get implemented tho
18:50:21 * inode0 mean layout to just mean a well-defined task
18:50:41 <inode0> laying out the problem space clearly
18:53:29 <jsmith> Ok... we're almost at the top of the hour
18:53:34 <jsmith> #topic Any other business?
18:54:22 <smooge> not me
18:59:47 <jsmith> #endmeeting