18:09:48 <michl> #startmeeting
18:09:48 <bugbot> Meeting started Wed Aug 25 18:09:48 2010 UTC.  The chair is michl. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot.
18:09:48 <bugbot> Useful Commands: #action #agreed #help #info #idea #link #topic.
18:10:09 <michl> #topic openSUSE Foundation
18:10:24 <michl> Alan sent an updated paper to me
18:10:33 <suseROCKs> Yeah let's dedicate today's meeting to fleshing that out and getting it finally pushed through
18:10:44 <michl> and I'll have a meeting with him on Monday together with Jos
18:11:09 <michl> #chair suseROCKs
18:11:09 <bugbot> Current chairs: michl suseROCKs
18:11:14 <suseROCKs> michl,   Is it a change for better or worse or what?
18:11:24 <suseROCKs> #chair prusnak
18:11:24 <bugbot> Current chairs: michl prusnak suseROCKs
18:11:39 <michl> suseROCKs: honestly, I haven't read it yet
18:11:47 <michl> its printed out on my desk
18:11:54 <michl> I'll let you know tomorrow
18:12:09 <prusnak> michl: please don't forget to mention opensolaris thingie
18:12:24 <suseROCKs> well if there's anything relevant, I'd like us to be able to comment on it before you guys meet on Monday
18:12:28 <michl> prusnak: you mean the current opensolaris thingie, right?
18:12:37 <suseROCKs> what's the opensolaris thingie?
18:12:39 <prusnak> we are percieved more similarly to oracle/opensolaris than redhat/fedora
18:12:46 <sn7> How so?
18:12:52 <michl> suseROCKs: good point, I'll send the document around to you guys
18:13:09 <prusnak> suseROCKs: opensolaris basically died because of oracle management
18:13:42 <prusnak> suseROCKs: i wonder what kind of news you read if you haven't noticed that :)
18:14:01 <suseROCKs> prusnak,   ok so how will that relate to foundation?  Just curious
18:14:09 <michl> #info michl received an updated document on openSUSE Foundation and will share it with the Board
18:14:34 <michl> #info for Monday there is a meeting scheduled with Alan and jospoortvliet
18:14:35 <prusnak> novell execs were asking why redhat does not have foundation for fedora
18:15:00 <suseROCKs> prusnak,   honestly when sun became oracle...  I lost interest and distrust in anything that goes on over there.   I expect everything to die under the Oracle star
18:15:19 <prusnak> the point is that we are not percieved in public like FOSS company (redhat) but rather than software company (oracle)
18:15:33 <michl> prusnak: yes, Oracle, openSolaris should be mentioned in it as well
18:15:43 <prusnak> so foundation will help us significantly (when talking about perception in public)
18:15:43 <sn7> Now, Novell has not exactly terminated openSUSE nor looks to be planning in doing so.
18:16:02 <prusnak> sn7: no, this is not going to happen
18:16:26 <prusnak> but opensolaris case is exactly the reason why having a foundation is good thing
18:16:27 <suseROCKs> prusnak,   I think the better way to push it (and yes using opensolaris as an example) is to emphasize that we haven't achieved a sense of identity and ownership from the community wrt openSUSE    and thus a Foundation would greatly enhance that perception by the public
18:16:30 <michl> Gents, please excuse me for a minute
18:19:21 <suseROCKs> ok we've gone silent or I've lost my internet connection again
18:19:45 * michl s back
18:20:01 <michl> suseROCKs: your connections seems alright
18:20:11 <michl> next topic ?
18:20:35 <michl> #topic Trademark Approval
18:20:37 <suseROCKs> sure I have another topic
18:20:44 <suseROCKs> ahh  right in that vein   perfect!
18:21:16 <suseROCKs> did we all clean up our trademark approvals?
18:21:20 * michl summarized the ones in the queue and proposed based on the votes a accept or reject
18:22:03 <suseROCKs> there's one that was raised in the queue and I have further questions/issues about this
18:22:07 <michl> if I doesn't hear differently I will send out tomorrow the accept or rejct mails
18:22:20 <michl> suseROCKs: you mean the furniture one ?
18:22:27 <suseROCKs> no, that one I endorse
18:22:39 <michl> suseROCKs: you shouldn't
18:22:43 <suseROCKs> I'm referring to the one about the guy in UK who wants to resell openSUSE for 5 pounds
18:22:52 <michl> suseROCKs: yes
18:23:20 <michl> suseROCKs: your question please ?
18:23:23 <suseROCKs> and saw henne raised the issue of whether this is acceptable based on open-slx   and I have a broader issue about open-slx that we should clarify today
18:24:06 <suseROCKs> when you queried the board last year for any objections to open-slx being the exclusive redistributor, we didn't have any objections.   But now I'm finding the agreement seems highly secretive
18:24:10 <michl> just for people not knowing open-slx, this is the company who produce ans sell the openSUSE retail box
18:24:54 <suseROCKs> we don't know the terms of the agreement, we do not know if people are allowed to redistribute at a nominal cost, I asked rupert a couple of weeks ago for info about open-slx status and every question was answered with "Sorry, NDA... can't discuss"
18:24:57 <michl> suseROCKs: why's that ?
18:25:21 <michl> suseROCKs: ask me ;-)
18:25:33 <suseROCKs> so we can't even know how well those boxes are selling so its hard for us on marketing team to know where market penetration is good.
18:25:53 <suseROCKs> michl,   Well that's what I'm asking for clarification on here.  What is secretive and what isn't?
18:26:33 <michl> see http://en.opensuse.org/Statistics
18:27:01 <sn7> That reminds me.. prusnak (or who had the idea?) should finish popcoRn.
18:27:06 <michl> scroll down, dvd-biarch is the retail box and it reflects kind of 2-3.5% of all installations
18:27:49 <michl> and wrt market penetration, the retail box is very EMEA centric and in there kind of 85% or so are sold in Germany
18:28:10 <michl> open-slx has the right to do the retail box
18:28:30 <suseROCKs> michl,  dvd-biarch includes the promoDVDs?
18:28:42 <michl> when it comes to I burn openSUSE media and sell it for some bugs this doesn't infere open-slx business
18:28:52 <michl> so it is allowed for everyone
18:29:20 <michl> suseROCKs: no promodvd is a seperate item just below bi-arch
18:29:43 <prusnak> sn7: i am in contact with guy who is implementing this feature in smolt
18:29:52 <suseROCKs> michl,   ok
18:30:02 <suseROCKs> so you answered 2 of 3 questions I had...
18:30:13 <michl> what was third?
18:30:21 <suseROCKs> 3rd question is does a portion of sales come back to openSUSE in some way?
18:30:41 <michl> suseROCKs: no money involved in the agreement
18:30:59 <michl> but open-slx will contribute back to the project when the business is healthy
18:31:17 <michl> and they already did, eg wiki transition
18:31:30 <suseROCKs> yes, there was big money in that  :-)
18:31:59 <suseROCKs> ok so the whole "Sorry, NDA!" was a bit over the top then
18:32:07 <michl> more secrets to publish ?
18:32:47 <suseROCKs> no but just would like us to remind open-slx to work more closely with the artwork team and the marketing team in openSUSE in future
18:33:20 <michl> yes
18:34:15 <suseROCKs> prusnak,   you have any comments on this topic?  otherwise michl  can move on
18:34:42 <prusnak> well, i was just told that it is hard to communicate with open-slx guys
18:34:55 <prusnak> but i don't have my own experience
18:35:20 <suseROCKs> prusnak,   I think that could be resolved with better interaction.  Right now,  we don't see them here
18:35:31 <michl> prusnak: so, if you don't have your own experience you shouldn't talk bad thing you heard ;-)
18:36:04 <suseROCKs> that's right!   For example, I heard good things about michl, but without my own experience, I won't talk about it
18:36:10 <prusnak> that's why I did emphasize the no own experience part
18:36:10 <michl> prusnak: for "hard to communicate" you always need two sides involved
18:36:26 * sn7 imagines a Möbius strip for michl
18:36:26 <michl> ;-)
18:36:39 <prusnak> i don't want to dig into this topic further now
18:36:54 <prusnak> we are missing two important people for this - rupert and henne
18:37:08 <michl> #topic Status Membership approvals
18:37:26 <suseROCKs> another topic I wanted to get into  :-)
18:37:53 <michl> prusnak: can you give an insight?
18:38:00 <prusnak> checking
18:38:18 <prusnak> we currently have 20 open tickets
18:38:20 * VenomVelvet is confused
18:38:33 * suseROCKs pats VenomVelvet
18:38:34 <prusnak> which is good
18:38:44 <suseROCKs> prusnak,   yes and no
18:38:44 <prusnak> but i'm afraid membership officials are not creating ones
18:38:50 <prusnak> ... the new ones
18:38:58 <VenomVelvet> may I ask a question to the previous topic?
18:39:14 <michl> prusnak: so there might be additional ones queuing up at users.opensuse.org ?
18:39:19 <suseROCKs> VenomVelvet, go for it
18:39:20 <prusnak> michl: correct
18:39:33 <prusnak> michl: will check tomorrow
18:39:51 <VenomVelvet> Is is ok for a guy in .uk to burn openSUSE on DVDs and sell boxes for 5 pounds?
18:39:51 <michl> I just noticed that the membership # is slowly rising but in users.o.o I see a queue of 50 or so
18:40:42 <michl> according to GPL2 this is okay
18:41:01 <suseROCKs> VenomVelvet,   as long as its a nominal cost (to help reduce costs for the distributor) and is not significantly changed, we're supporting it
18:41:03 <VenomVelvet> sounds like the licence to print money to me but ok...
18:41:14 <michl> and from our side it is okay to use our trademarks if no bit is changed (software wise)
18:41:21 <suseROCKs> we have a license to print geeko bucks too.
18:41:31 <prusnak> VenomVelvet: if you don't sell it for 50 pounds it is ok
18:42:11 <michl> prusnak: you can even sell it for 500 pounds, but as long as there are DVDs available for 2 or 3 pounds you won't make business ;-)
18:42:18 <suseROCKs> VenomVelvet,   In fact it is useful in certain countries to allow this where people have poor internet service but there are "CD Burning" companies to alleviate that in their countries for a few bucks
18:42:41 <VenomVelvet> yes... ok. agreed
18:42:42 <suseROCKs> prusnak,   I think michl just challenged us.  Wanna go into business?  :-)
18:43:04 <prusnak> hehe
18:43:04 <suseROCKs> ok let's get back to membership topic.  I have some concerns here.
18:43:39 <suseROCKs> #1   When we outsourced membership, the idea was to a) get this off our plate and b) have a team come up with efficient ways to streamline the procecss for speedier approvals
18:43:59 <prusnak> JFYI I wrote an email to membership-officials if they need help from my side
18:44:29 <suseROCKs> #2  While we have outsourced it, technically the membership is still our domain.   And while its good we outsourced, we have turned this into an "out of sight/out of mind" thing in that we're not regularly keeping tabs on the process
18:45:06 <suseROCKs> #3 I'm getting complaints lately that some people have waited a loooong time for their approvals, just like when we did our own approvals.  So looks like we didn't acheive much here.
18:45:48 <prusnak> and you propose to do what?
18:46:07 <suseROCKs> Figure out where we went off track from our original goal
18:46:50 <suseROCKs> prusnak,   has there been any assessment in the team about how to streamline the process?
18:47:19 <prusnak> the process is set up, it is much effective than it used to be when we used wiki
18:47:24 <prusnak> ... much more ...
18:47:42 <suseROCKs> how so?
18:47:44 <prusnak> it will be even more effective once we get rid of that copying
18:48:11 <michl> prusnak: yes, I think the manual copying is a big hurdle
18:48:15 <prusnak> effective => intuitive and easy
18:48:20 <prusnak> but
18:48:21 <michl> and opens the door for a growing queue
18:48:25 <prusnak> it is not more effective
18:48:46 <prusnak> because people don't have motivation to do that
18:48:51 <prusnak> i guess
18:49:11 <suseROCKs> when we did the work last year, we usually took about 4-6 weeks turnaround.   Any indication what the turnaround time is now?
18:49:27 <prusnak> yes
18:49:34 <prusnak> 2 tickets - 3 months ago
18:49:38 <suseROCKs> also want to mention when I applied for GNOME Foundation membership, I got approved in like 2 weeks.  Really fast.   How can we mimic that?
18:49:40 <prusnak> 2 tickets - 2 months ago
18:49:48 <prusnak> the rest is under 4 weeks
18:50:13 <michl> prusnak: and maybe the ones in users.o.o are missing here
18:50:15 <suseROCKs> no actually it was 1 week not 2
18:50:23 <prusnak> sure, i'm talking about retro now
18:50:26 <michl> but I don't like to compare what was some time ago
18:50:53 <suseROCKs> prusnak,   the ticket dates are when it was entered in retro.  Correct?  not when the application was filed?
18:51:10 <prusnak> yes
18:51:31 <prusnak> suseROCKs: GNOME project is 11 years old today, openSUSE is around four
18:51:46 <prusnak> do you want to compare effectivness of processes in these two projects?
18:51:48 <michl> prusnak: key will be one person who takes over responsility and push others to vote
18:51:52 <suseROCKs> prusnak,   sure, but doens't mean we can't learn from what others do.
18:52:11 <prusnak> michl: that is the wrong approach I guess
18:52:24 <prusnak> i was filling the tickets before
18:52:36 <michl> prusnak: I doubt, it worked with the Board membership approvals that way
18:52:39 <prusnak> I stopped doing it a month and a half ago
18:52:59 <prusnak> and since then noone created new ticket or indicated the need for help
18:53:42 <prusnak> when I start doing it again we'll have single point of failure again
18:53:55 <suseROCKs> I move that one way or another, we get this queue of ~70 applicants approved by mid-Sept
18:54:23 <prusnak> I mean - I can do it
18:54:29 <prusnak> it will take me less than an hour
18:54:29 <suseROCKs> prusnak,   I agree with that issue you have.   I guess some automated ticket-creation process would be helpful
18:54:34 <prusnak> but is that what we want ?
18:54:51 <suseROCKs> no that isn't,  it defeats the whole purpose of why we did this in the first place
18:54:54 <prusnak> suseROCKs: it would be helpful but we have noone who will do it
18:55:06 <prusnak> so we have to stick to crappy  copy-paste
18:55:10 <prusnak> for now
18:55:21 <suseROCKs> ok we're muddling two separate issues here
18:55:39 <suseROCKs> issue 1:  Efficient and automated process of populating the tickets
18:55:50 <suseROCKs> Issue 2:  Backlog of applicants who are screaming for approval
18:56:18 <prusnak> i disagree
18:56:21 <prusnak> we have one issue
18:56:21 <michl> both can be solved with one person take the responsibility and push others
18:56:33 <prusnak> membership officials are not working like we expected
18:56:55 <prusnak> i.e. they are not autonomous
18:57:27 <suseROCKs> here's my issue....
18:57:30 <michl> prusnak: do they have access to users.o.o ?
18:57:50 <prusnak> michl: yes, all is set up correctly to my best knowledge
18:57:59 <suseROCKs> I've got ambassadors who have already proven their merit for membership.  They are applying and want to print up business cards with @o.o addresses.  They can't do so until membership is approved.
18:58:02 <prusnak> and if it wasn't i would expect someone to complain
18:58:29 <michl> prusnak: so what makes them no autnomous ?
18:58:45 <prusnak> lack of time? lack of motivation?
18:58:47 <prusnak> i don't know
18:58:47 <suseROCKs> and as "event season" is fast approaching us, this is holding back their ability to develop their materials for distribution
18:59:19 <prusnak> suseROCKs: you know that nothing is blocking you from creating the tickets in retro, right? :-)
18:59:48 <suseROCKs> prusnak,   that's not the point...
19:00:07 <prusnak> if we can agree that I should file all remaining users from users.o.o to retro.o.o I will do it tomorrow
19:00:10 <suseROCKs> the point is we outsourced it and netierh you n or me should have to do that.
19:00:44 <michl> prusnak: maybe a friendly reminder to the approval team list ?
19:00:58 <suseROCKs> yes  do that first
19:01:05 <prusnak> I did it already
19:01:16 <michl> it doesn't be solved in a day but it should move ahead again
19:01:58 <prusnak> okay, next topic
19:02:25 <michl> #topic where do we fail?
19:02:42 <michl> I guess that's just a carry over from last meeting, right?
19:02:52 <suseROCKs> no that's a permanent topic
19:03:04 <michl> but I have one question, what is meant by Services Documentation ?
19:03:27 <suseROCKs> that's my AI,  I need to discuss with henne further about proper location/page
19:03:58 <suseROCKs> basically in the last meeting we agreed we needed admin@o.o to be more prominent on our pages and then we agreed that other key contact info should also be there  such as press@o.o, etc.
19:04:25 <michl> ahh, now I get it
19:04:31 <suseROCKs> so it'll get taken care of this week  (unless henne is out this week?)
19:05:09 <michl> suseROCKs: don't know, at least yesterday I've seen him and today he was active in IRC
19:05:16 <michl> so there is hope ;-)
19:05:59 <suseROCKs> ok
19:06:14 <suseROCKs> I think we can close this topic as we pretty much identified "where we failed" in other topics  :-)
19:06:46 <michl> right
19:07:29 <michl> so thanks to holiday season we're having a rather short meeting and coming to the #topic Q&A's
19:07:34 <suseROCKs> michl,   Can you take the aI also to inform henne and rupert that we have tentatively discussed having board F2F on the Monday prior to Conf?
19:07:49 <michl> I can
19:08:08 <suseROCKs> let's get that nailed down so we can plan travel arrangements
19:08:34 <suseROCKs> as I'll be traveling in Europe, I'll need to know whether to depart for NUE on Sun or Mon
19:08:59 <suseROCKs> and then prusnak will have to give me some tips on Praha for post-Conf visitation
19:09:13 <prusnak> ;-)
19:09:37 <suseROCKs> impressed I said "Praha"?  :-)
19:10:15 <suseROCKs> ok everyone in the channel... Now's your time to ask questions of the board or we'll leave!
19:11:22 <michl> 3
19:11:24 <michl> 2
19:11:28 <michl> 1
19:11:33 <wolfiR> prusnak: I've replied to your mail
19:11:35 <sn7> meins!
19:11:42 <michl> thank you and good night
19:11:49 <michl> #stopmeeting
19:11:52 <wolfiR> is there a full workflow description for approvals somewhere?
19:11:59 <michl> #endmeeting