15:01:25 <sysrich> #startmeeting openSUSE Project Meeting
15:01:25 <bugbot> Meeting started Wed Oct 29 15:01:25 2014 UTC.  The chair is sysrich. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot.
15:01:25 <bugbot> Useful Commands: #action #agreed #help #info #idea #link #topic.
15:01:31 <sysrich> #char robjo
15:01:34 <sysrich> #chair robjo
15:01:34 <bugbot> Current chairs: robjo sysrich
15:02:08 <sysrich> The current Agenda is at https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Project_meeting - not exactly jam packed, if anyone has any last minute additions, edit the wiki :)
15:02:19 <sysrich> #Topic Action Items Review
15:02:46 <robjo> There were no action items from the last meeting
15:02:48 <sysrich> I don't see any action items outstanding from the last meeting minutes, but I didn't make the meeting. Is there anything people consider 'open' from the last or recent openSUSE project meetings?
15:03:17 <sysrich> Well that makes it simple enough then.. moving on..
15:03:26 <sysrich> #topic Tumbleweed
15:03:56 <sysrich> I put this in there, because I figured there might be some discussion about the recent announcement to merge the Factory and Tumbleweed rolling release - does anyone have any questions about what's going on?
15:05:34 * mrdocs waves
15:05:50 <sysrich> mrdocs: good morning! do you have a question, or just saying hello? :)
15:06:00 <mrdocs> just saying hello :)
15:08:04 <sysrich> Okay, well, I'm judging by the broad silence and the tumbleweeds floating by, no one has any questions about the decision to rejig our rolling releases... I'll give another 30 seconds or so in case someone is just being shy and not speaking up :)
15:09:53 <henne> sysrich: I only have a couple of comments on the execution :)
15:09:54 <sysrich> Okay then..
15:10:00 <sysrich> henne: go ahead :)
15:11:32 <henne> is there a reason why this wasn't really discussed on -factory?
15:13:03 <henne> respectively I'm asking myself why this wasn't brought forward on news@
15:13:41 <tigerfoot> henne: it was no https://news.opensuse.org/2014/10/24/tumbleweed-factory-rolling-releases-to-merge/
15:13:51 <henne> that's the result yes
15:13:57 <henne> no discussion
15:14:45 <sysrich> tigerfoot: yes but henne does have a point, me and Douglas did not follow the proper procedure of actually discussing it with the news team before announcing it, and it has been kind of unconventional how this all came about in the first place
15:14:53 <sysrich> I'm happy to explain the circumstances though
15:14:59 <henne> you should
15:15:01 <ancorgs> I agree with henne, everything seemed to simply happen overnight (and sure that was not really the case)
15:15:03 <henne> :)
15:15:54 * tigerfoot okay .. the discussing internal news team part was hidden procedural part :-)
15:16:02 <sysrich> first, the not mailing news@ bit first - mea culpa - the decision to announce the merger was actually made some days before the post on news.o.o, but a lot of the final decisions, agreement from Greg, etc, came and clashed with my travel to openSUSE summit
15:17:09 <henne> It's just sad that this was pushed out without thinking about anything
15:17:16 <sysrich> so, I ended up announcing it at Summit, and then we played catch up by announcing it on news.o.o when I got back from behind the Great Firewall of China. It's not ideal, and actually I thought news@ had been involved before we pulled the trigger with the post - but I didn't double check that myself, so I'm sorry to the news team
15:17:24 <henne> it could have had a ton more impact
15:17:37 <henne> just by involving people
15:18:13 <henne> well no need to be sorry for the news team. be sorry for this announcement :)
15:18:37 <sysrich> not sorry FOR the news team, sorry to them :) they should have been more involved
15:18:48 <gmanu> Hi
15:18:56 <sysrich> gmanu: Hi
15:19:04 <gmanu> I am manugupt1 by the way
15:19:10 <henne> sysrich: next time, stick to the process
15:19:29 <gmanu> Regarding news team, I dont know if it will matter a lot or not for making announcements or discussing with the news team
15:19:39 <sysrich> henne: Yes, I intend to
15:19:51 <gmanu> because WE DO NOT review articles
15:20:06 <gmanu> We miss posting articles when someone else asks to
15:20:08 <henne> because if we would have made a propper announcement. with propoer content, proper notification to the press
15:20:12 <henne> propoer press-kit
15:20:23 <henne> proper FAQ
15:20:36 <henne> proper timing
15:20:47 <gmanu> henne: When was such stuff discussed
15:20:49 <gmanu> last
15:20:56 <gmanu> Lets get realistic over here
15:20:58 <henne> this could have easily been on of the greatest announcements we ever did
15:21:26 <gmanu> ancorgs: had to literally go on marketing and project mailing list to ask for more help with his articles
15:21:35 <gmanu> and then people came to help in
15:21:39 <ancorgs> well, I see where henne wants to go and I completely agree that the timing was really non-optimal. But I'm not sure if our current "marketing" machinery is as good as he believes
15:21:51 <gmanu> ancorgs: +1
15:22:09 <sysrich> I'm not unhappy with how well the announcement has been received, how far it's spread, how people seem to have picked up the message, but I do agree with henne we could do better, but I also see it's going to take us a little time to get there
15:22:25 <ancorgs> gmanu: yes, and all I got was an English proof read by plinnell (thanks a lot)
15:22:39 <sysrich> SUSE have hired Douglas DeMaio to help us out in that area, but he's got to learn to, so I consider henne's feedback as good 'lessons learned' from this
15:22:47 * plinnell nods
15:22:58 <gmanu> sysrich: I am not saying people should learn
15:23:16 <gmanu> I am pointing to the fact that there is something fundamentally flawed with the news and marketing team
15:23:24 <ancorgs> I wrote almost every single word of the 13.2 release announcement and, taking into account that I don't consider myself part of the marketing team, that is not optimal
15:23:25 <gmanu> We need to fix that before talking about process
15:23:28 <henne> ancorgs, gmanu: if I would have seen a mail on news@ I would have dropped everything and worked on this
15:23:48 <henne> yes we have not too many people
15:23:54 <henne> yes they are not too responsive
15:24:06 <henne> is that a reason to just ignore everyone? no
15:24:21 <ancorgs> henne: no, I agree with your main point
15:24:39 <gmanu> henne: if we had access to archives for news@oo
15:24:41 <ancorgs> all I say is that maybe you was a little bit optimistic in the expectations :-)
15:25:01 <henne> ancorgs: I'm perfect aware of how it is :)
15:25:01 <gmanu> We can easily find out how many articles we as a news team ignore
15:25:02 <henne> still
15:25:03 <ancorgs> about press kit, FAQ and all that
15:25:19 <henne> I would have worked on this immediately
15:25:24 <henne> but I didn't have the chance
15:25:45 <henne> I would have, if sysrich would have gone through the proper process
15:25:51 <sysrich> I think it's fair to say we know we have improvements to make in this area, we've got a guy who's now paid to help in this area, I think we're on the right track - but people (like me) doing stupid stuff like bypassing news@ out of convenience doesn't help, I think that's henne's point, and I agree with it
15:25:52 <henne> :-)
15:25:53 <ancorgs> and I know henne would have done a great job, as he did when we "announced" factory as rollling
15:26:29 <gmanu> sysrich: again.. having a paid guy does not solve the problem of getting people involved
15:26:35 <henne> sysrich: guess who's training Douglas BTW :-Ü
15:26:42 <henne> guess who trained Jos
15:26:51 <henne> ...
15:26:53 <henne> anyway
15:27:01 <sysrich> henne: let me guess - he's started ignoring everything I'm telling him and doing what he thinks is best...so, I guess you're spending too much time with him ;)
15:27:03 <henne> that was only one remark I had
15:27:10 <henne> what about the discussion on -factory?
15:27:49 <ancorgs> Having a person payed by SUSE is just a patch. The release is big enough for not needing "a payed guy" behind. And look what is happening this time :-(
15:28:01 <henne> ancorgs: it happened every time
15:28:19 <henne> in the end it was always me or Jos
15:28:51 <gmanu> henne: I asked news team for press support for openSUSE Asia Summit
15:28:52 <henne> and who cares who pays our salary. we don't :)
15:28:56 <gmanu> Did not get a single review
15:29:04 <gmanu> I just checked that between
15:29:19 <ancorgs> we are mixing two discussiong (mainly my fault)
15:29:36 <henne> gmanu: what has that to do with this discussion?
15:29:38 <ancorgs> let's focus on the merge and let's go back to marketing status afterward
15:30:03 <gmanu> cool..
15:30:29 <sysrich> okay, back to the merge "Why wasn't this discussed on -factory" - I could write a really long story here, but I'm going to try my best to keep it succinct. The short version is I and others realised that the roadmap for Tumbleweed was effectively a 'dead end'
15:30:37 <robjo> I thought he merge discussion was done, henne is right, sysrich knows better and will not go astray again ;)
15:33:19 <sysrich> I was really worried about 5000 users, who'd find their rolling release screeching to a halt with the release of 13.2 because GregKH has already decided that he wouldn't be continuing Tumbleweed as an add-on repo ontop of our regular rolling release. So, I got chatting with the 'key' people involved, Factory maintainers, leading contributors, GregKH, to try and find a way to bring the Tumbleweed and Factory rolling releases together to
15:33:19 <sysrich> handle the otherwise 'death of Tumbleweed' in a nice way for everyone
15:34:10 <sysrich> If we had more time before the release of 13.2, sure, I would have, and should have, probably opened up the discussion to the whole of the -factory ML, but we were short on time, and we don't always open up every major change to the distribution to those kind of broad discussions
15:35:04 <henne> well, I would like to disagree. We at least tell our peers before we make it so...
15:35:35 <sysrich> and you think we didn't do that here?
15:35:36 <ancorgs> probably the merge was out of question (and my feeling is that most people is happy about it), but I would have prefered to have a voice on the timing
15:36:06 <sysrich> ancorgs well, you still do - whats your opinion on the timing?
15:36:12 <henne> sysrich: where did you?
15:37:13 <ancorgs> making it collide with the release is making everything messy. I cannot see the downsides of doing it some weeks later
15:37:38 <ancorgs> from the communication point of view, at least
15:37:39 <sysrich> henne: the announcement and my FAQ/opening discussion post on the -factory ML which, while late, explicitly invited people to discuss, ask questions, etc
15:38:20 <henne> sysrich: the announcement says: with the tested, user-ready rolling release assuming the name Tumbleweed from Nov. 4
15:38:23 <henne> done deal
15:38:37 <sysrich> ancorgs: waiting until after the release is messy from a current-Tumbleweed user point of view, as the 13.2 Release will 'zero' their Tumbleweed repositories and never fill them again
15:38:39 <henne> and since when does our community work over announcements?
15:38:42 <henne> I mean really
15:38:50 <henne> I find this disturbing
15:39:29 <sysrich> we don't normally, true, so you think we should have drawn the thing out, discussed, acted later?
15:39:49 <henne> even if you have these time constraints
15:39:53 <ancorgs> but tumbleweed repositories are not filled everyday, isn't? I'm not a Tumbleweed user but in my understanding, getting "new things on top of the released version" only makes sense some time after that version is released
15:40:07 <henne> and even if this is supported by all key stakeholders
15:40:52 * coolo still wants nothing to do with it
15:41:07 <ancorgs> so there is a window of time there (between the release and tumbleweed being notice as more stalled than usual)
15:41:17 <henne> you at least write a mail to -factory saying: Hey we $people,  going to do..., because of....
15:41:31 <ancorgs> *noticed
15:41:32 <henne> in as much advance as you can
15:41:41 <sysrich> henne: that's a fair point, true
15:41:53 <henne> even if it's not fully hashed out yet
15:42:07 <sysrich> ancorgs: the 'Tumbleweed to zero' has been a pain point for every Tumbleweed user during every openSUSE release since Tumbleweed started
15:42:17 <sysrich> ancorgs: you can probably find quite some -factory threads on it :)
15:42:40 <coolo> sysrich: because they are forced to switch to a different version at that time
15:42:47 <coolo> exactly what will happen now
15:43:01 <coolo> you don't ease their pain at all
15:43:09 <coolo> you just add more pain for every factory user
15:43:12 <henne> you see what will happen when you talk about your intentions?
15:43:20 <henne> you give people the chance to chime in
15:45:25 <henne> alright
15:45:31 <henne> enough grilling
15:45:38 <sysrich> coolo: technically, you're correct, but every Tumbleweed user I've spoken to is excited about this, and I think we're doing a pretty good job at keeping the pain for factory users to a minimum
15:45:39 * henne hugs sysrich
15:45:43 <henne> just do better next time
15:46:44 <sysrich> henne: you know me, you know how I normally operate, I'm willing to accept my failings, but don't worry, I haven't forgotten how we normally work - just took some different routes for the sake of speed and timing this time
15:46:57 <coolo> sysrich: so where is your wiki plan - http://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Factory will need a complete overhaul
15:47:16 <henne> sysrich: yes. never do that again
15:47:47 <sysrich> coolo: it'll be done if I have to do it myself or die trying
15:48:24 <plinnell> move on ?
15:48:40 <gmanu> yeah..
15:48:53 <sysrich> #topic Any Other Business
15:49:01 <sysrich> Okay then, anything else?
15:49:06 <gmanu> sysrich: the topic which I touched earlier
15:49:12 <gmanu> marketing and news
15:49:44 <gmanu> One of the problems with the news team is well people do not respond to others request
15:49:59 <gmanu> It basically means people in news team will post just what they want to
15:50:00 <henne> there are no people, really
15:50:09 <gmanu> henne: if there are none
15:50:26 <sysrich> what happened to holden87?
15:50:51 <gmanu> So if there are no people how do we fix it
15:50:59 <sysrich> find people?
15:51:08 <gmanu> Well news@oo is a private list
15:51:18 <gmanu> and there are really no press discussions on it
15:51:25 <henne> gmanu: c'mon. not this discussion again
15:51:34 <ancorgs> is not only about "a news team". Is about almost everything beyond packaging in the project
15:51:44 <gmanu> ancorgs: Yes
15:52:03 <gmanu> What I am suggesting is to unify our infrastructures
15:52:07 <henne> but we'll only fix specific parts with specific actions
15:52:14 <henne> so let's stick to the news team
15:52:26 <gmanu> I am talking about marketing and news here because
15:52:36 <gmanu> news was formed by splitting marketing
15:52:46 <gmanu> Why not merge them and see the effects
15:52:52 <gmanu> news is a failure already
15:52:59 <gmanu> we might just as well be other failures
15:53:01 <sysrich> gmanu: 0+0 = 0
15:53:04 <henne> gmanu: merge them?
15:53:10 <henne> what do you mean?
15:53:25 <gmanu> henne: opensuse-marketing list and news list should be one
15:53:30 <gmanu> sysrich: it is not 0 and 0
15:53:31 <henne> ...
15:53:40 <gmanu> sysrich: one marketing list has more members
15:53:54 <gmanu> and so the opportunity to contribute is more
15:54:02 <gmanu> so we will be better off
15:54:17 <gmanu> instead of getting new contributors
15:54:21 <gmanu> we go to them now
15:54:28 <gmanu> people who are already there
15:54:39 <gmanu> it needs to be a slow continuous process but it will work I am sure
15:54:54 <robjo> gmanu: ARe you proposing to discuss news publically before it is public?
15:55:02 <gmanu> robjo: yes
15:55:11 <gmanu> Because it does not really matter
15:55:19 <gmanu> If people are not discussing news
15:55:26 <sysrich> gmanu: didn't we discuss this 6 months ago?
15:55:33 <robjo> Then lets not have news, as they are no longer news,
15:55:39 <henne> http://paste.opensuse.org/view/raw/87009269
15:55:42 <slk021> we had a openSUSE News Survey
15:55:57 <henne> my previous answer to you previous suggestion to marge the lists
15:55:59 <henne> merge*
15:56:04 <robjo> sysrich: yes, this discussion is like a bad penny or dare I say the discussion about systemd ;)
15:56:13 <gmanu> henne: well we are not
15:56:19 <gmanu> getting support
15:56:29 <gmanu> Well if I ask news team for press support
15:56:31 <gmanu> I did not get it
15:56:47 <gmanu> and then we have no one in the news team
15:56:51 <henne> and that's a problem we should fix
15:56:59 <gmanu> How do we do that?
15:57:06 <henne> we're discussing your fix
15:57:31 <gmanu> discussing.. where?
15:57:44 <henne> Get Douglas up to speed. Have him talk to people asking him to join
15:57:53 <henne> would be my suggestions
15:57:54 <sysrich> Okay, hold up - I'd like to go back a bit and pick up on something ancorgs said. I have an opinion on ancors point that outside of packaging, other areas of community activity seem lacking
15:57:54 <henne> -s
15:58:08 <henne> gmanu: right here. right now
15:58:37 <henne> having a plan on how to do this
15:58:49 <henne> having rules and dokumentation about it
15:58:50 <gmanu> henne: lets discuss this I will like to fix this area by area
15:58:51 <henne> train people
15:58:55 <sysrich> I think it's fair to say that in the last year or so, non-technical enthusiasm from openSUSE contributors has been lower than we're used to. We could go into lots of discussion as to why, but I dont think that's very productive, fact is, we are where we are and we have to get better from here.
15:59:39 <henne> that would be my plan for the news team
15:59:55 <gmanu> henne: and how to find new contributors
16:00:02 <gmanu> that is something we should consider too
16:00:32 <sysrich> I'd like to ask that people stop expecting things right now to be 'like they used to be' and accept how they are right now - non-technical contributors are sometimes harder to keep, motivate, energise - it's not like packaging where there's always something new to work on. Lets focus on positive ways on how we can get more people involved, and make the people we have involved more active and encouraged
16:00:36 <henne> Douglas (as "leader") talks to specific people who have shown an interest and talent to write, asking him them join
16:00:59 <plinnell> has the discussion of merging news and marketing finished or decided ?
16:01:02 <henne> asking *them* to join. sorry
16:01:28 <ancorgs> I think that it have never worked beyond jos and henne. Last two releases worked because jos was full-time writing and pushing people. Not really because we were an enthusiastic community :-/
16:01:43 <gmanu> ancorgs: you should see it this way
16:01:48 <henne> Jos was the enthusiastic community
16:01:49 <gmanu> 1. Release - Henne and Jos
16:01:51 <henne> I'm the enthusiastic community
16:01:53 <gmanu> 2. GSoC - Me
16:01:59 <gmanu> 3. Conference - Jos
16:02:01 <henne> what's the problem?
16:02:01 <sysrich> ancorgs: in the past we had marketing hackathons where we had a good number of people involved
16:02:11 <gmanu> 4. Education - education team
16:02:15 <henne> sysrich: resulting in nothing really
16:02:23 <gmanu> and then you find everyone is doing what everyone is interested in
16:02:25 <gmanu> but not as a tem
16:02:56 <henne> and the education team should take care of the marketing of it
16:03:07 <henne> the news team will help them making their content great
16:03:18 <gmanu> henne: that is the ideal case
16:03:21 <henne> teaching them how, when, where to do it
16:03:26 <gmanu> henne: ok..
16:03:36 <gmanu> henne and douglas I am up for a wiki page
16:03:41 <gmanu> or anything like that
16:03:49 <sysrich> henne: hey, I worked really hard on all those GNOME articles tyvm.. I think we need to be careful about dismissing the hard work people do - if it's not filling the gaps we need, then I think we need to do a better job of identifying those gaps.. but it really is demoralising when people here the stuff they've been working on is 'nothing really'
16:03:52 <gmanu> or rules and doc which help us do better
16:04:02 <plinnell> sysrich: maybe a marketing/news hackathon should be part of the mini-summit ?
16:04:52 <henne> sysrich: fair enough
16:05:02 <sysrich> plinnell: given it's in the West Coast of the USA and most of our marketing/news people are no where near there.. I dont think the budget will stretch that far. but a marketing/news hackathon does sound like a good idea, get people together, sort this out
16:05:12 * plinnell nods
16:05:21 <gmanu> mini summit?
16:05:25 <gmanu> When is it :/
16:05:25 <plinnell> perhaps in NUE
16:05:29 <henne> gmanu: like I said. having a plan on how to do this. having rules and docu about it. train people
16:05:42 <plinnell> gmanu: in LAX as a part of SCALEX
16:05:47 <gmanu> henne: lets discuss this at news@oo.
16:05:56 <gmanu> plinnell: I plan to attend SCALE as part of openSUSE
16:06:01 <plinnell> https://www.socallinuxexpo.org/scale13x
16:06:02 <gmanu> so I can help you over there
16:06:11 <plinnell> gmanu: cool, im already booked as well
16:06:28 <plinnell> suse will have a 'secondary' presence too
16:06:37 <plinnell> not to take away from openSUSE
16:06:56 <gmanu> plinnell: can you take this discussion opensuse-marketing
16:07:00 <gmanu> and it will be great
16:07:01 <plinnell> the local team there is excellent
16:07:13 <plinnell> for sure, im on the list
16:07:14 <henne> gmanu: I'm currently trying to get douglas up to speed. then take it from there
16:07:28 <sysrich> and henne's doing a good job at that
16:07:44 <henne> yup
16:07:49 <gmanu> henne: cool.. thanks a lot.. but once he is upto speed, lets discuss on the news list
16:08:03 <henne> he has all the tools in his belt. he knows writing
16:08:15 * plinnell needs to jump
16:08:18 <henne> he just doesn't know all the software etc. etc.
16:08:32 <henne> gmanu: for sure :)
16:08:48 <coolo> plinnell: the fate of the little poeple - they need to jump to be seen
16:08:50 <gmanu> henne: cool.. bye for now everyone
16:09:00 <plinnell> coolo: lol
16:09:53 <ancorgs> my
16:09:57 <sysrich> Okay, any other topics to discuss? This meeting has gone for over an hour :)
16:10:08 <ancorgs> just one last point about it
16:10:27 <ancorgs> I would like to call everybody to fill https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Major_features
16:10:46 <ancorgs> I still miss a lot of information (btrfs, snapper, wicked, more about the kernel, development tools),
16:10:50 <sysrich> #info Please help fill in the Major Features wiki page for 13.2 at https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Major_features
16:10:53 <ancorgs> ven if it's already late for using that information in the release announcement or the press kit, I think that filling it is still worth it
16:11:14 <robjo> #info Board elections are coming up, we need Election committee volunteers and candidates, see the announcement on -project
16:11:26 <sysrich> ancorgs: okay, will do
16:13:19 <sysrich> Anything else?
16:15:23 <sysrich> #endmeeting