[opensuse-project] Minutes from Board meeting on Dec 10

Michael Loeffler

9 Jan 2009 9 Jan '09

15:07

Happy new year to all of you. And sorry for the delay of the meeting minutes. Best Michael openSUSE Board Meeting Minutes Dec 10th, 8pm - 10:20pm CET Participants: Federico Mena Quintero (federico1) Hendrik Vogelsang (henne) Michael Löffler (michl) Bryen Yunashko (suseROCKs) Pascal Bleser (yaloki) Joe Brockmeier (zonker), for the first hour *Advisory Board (zonker) Proposal get reviewd by Novell's lawyers and then up to the project mailing list *Awarding good people We should award outstanding contributors and good poeple Everybody agreed, just with what and how to find all valuable contributors? *openSUSE conference (zonker) probably September '09 in the Nuremberg area Zonker clarified that all openSUSE talks will be public. But there migth be a few Novell internal talks (eg. company processes) *FOSDEM - We should have a talk with the Board, kind of or meet and great (in our dev room) - there is probably an open source project track where openSUSE would fit to participate -> best to contact mlasars on that (AI: yaloki) *Creation of thoughts page Done in the Board wiki *Board blog Some feel the board should have its own blog or a seperate channel to communicate. As spotlight.opensuse.org already exists its kind of a simple task to enlarge this to the openSUSE Board. An zonker is not lonely anmore. Everybody agreed to do so. AI: henne to make this happen *Board's public presence To increase Board's presence in the community and visibility in the public we agreed on having a public Board Meeting in January together with the project meeting Board articles Rotate each board member to write an article on a topic the board agrees to speak to the public on. Bryen writes up an review 2008, the rest will review and should be sent out soon Old AIs *AI henne, post meeting logs to board wiki Henne had an issue and didn't do it but will mail them around * michl to write thank you letter letter written but not sent out, waiting for the flash lights * Members approval 46 queued up again, should be down to 0 latest end of the month We'll meet on Dec 17th to go through them *Contrib repo http://en.opensuse.org/Talk:Contrib This turned out in a long, constructive discussion. Meanwhile already announced, http://news.opensuse.org/2008/12/17/get-going/ Next meeting Jan 14th - a public one with the project meeting -- Michael Löffler, Product Management SUSE LINUX Products GmbH - Nürnberg - AG Nürnberg - HRB 16746 - GF: Markus Rex -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

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Clayton

9 Jan 9 Jan

19:43

...

*Awarding good people We should award outstanding contributors and good poeple Everybody agreed, just with what and how to find all valuable contributors?

Just wondering... what constitutes an "outstanding contributor" or "good people"? Someone who files loads of bugs? Someone who babbles a lot on the user mailing list? What is the criteria? And how do you keep this from being an inner circle of mutual back patting? No really, I don't mean that it will be like this... this is the same question I face in another project I am involved in as we try to find ways to recognize contributors. C. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Bryen

19:58

On Fri, 2009-01-09 at 20:43 +0100, Clayton wrote:

...

...
*Awarding good people We should award outstanding contributors and good poeple Everybody agreed, just with what and how to find all valuable contributors?

Just wondering... what constitutes an "outstanding contributor" or "good people"? Someone who files loads of bugs? Someone who babbles a lot on the user mailing list? What is the criteria?

And how do you keep this from being an inner circle of mutual back patting? No really, I don't mean that it will be like this... this is the same question I face in another project I am involved in as we try to find ways to recognize contributors.

C.

The truth is that while we came up with a thought of wanting to recognize significant contributions by individuals, we reached a wall for the exact same reasons you ask. This topic was also discussed on Zonker's blog. I don't think we'll be able to come up with an easy answer, and this idea may not achieve its goal. However, if someone comes up with a perfect idea, we'd be glad to hear suggestions. But at this time, I fear we're not going to get anywhere on this idea, although we really do appreciate all the hard work everyone does for the Project. -- Bryen Yunashko openSUSE Board Member -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier

20:15

On Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 2:43 PM, Clayton wrote:

...

And how do you keep this from being an inner circle of mutual back patting? No really, I don't mean that it will be like this... this is the same question I face in another project I am involved in as we try to find ways to recognize contributors.

It's a really difficult question. I know a lot of people are contributing, but that's because in some way they've reached out for help in some way or made some noise. I also know that many people are contributing quietly, in very valuable ways, but it's hard to identify those folks. Ultimately, I don't think there's any way to have a 100% objective set of criteria that's 100% fair, but I'd be happy if we could find something that's at least closer to that than just picking the contributors that some group of people happen to notice. Best, Zonker -- Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier openSUSE Community Manager jzb@zonker.net http://zonker.opensuse.org/ http://blogs.zdnet.com/community/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Clayton

21:40

...

It's a really difficult question. I know a lot of people are contributing, but that's because in some way they've reached out for help in some way or made some noise. I also know that many people are contributing quietly, in very valuable ways, but it's hard to identify those folks.

This same discussion pops up from time to time on the OpenOffice.org community lists... it wobbles back and forth between do we have any contributors at all to pick from other than a very small core group? to who do we pick out of all the people who have made small but useful contributions. A tough one to resolve. Recognition is important to encourage contributions. Some ideas/brainstorming/braindump...... Draw a line in the proverbial sand and start collecting input from that point.. ie, don't grandfather it and award to the people who stand out right now for whatever reason based on work they did on previous releases. Define specific areas for awards, and make it clear that the awards are for the community contributors. Award areas could be something like... - Factory contributions (development, critical bug fixing) - Build service efforts of some kind - Community projects (like making a live cd) - Documentation contributions (wiki, core docs, tutorials, etc) - Providing consistent helpful responses on mailing lists. - Taking initiative to provide community help/tools outside of the Novell sponsored ones (like building up a successful community forum) Award types: - Cash is nice :-) Maybe follow a similar vein as what the OOo Community Council did in providing grants to people so that they could attend the OOo Conference in Beijing this year (I met several people there who were only able to attend with the money they received via an award for a project they worked on). - Public recognition? I don't know what is good here... but sometimes simple things like the project leads naming people in a newsletter, or general email to the project thanking them for their contributions. Sometimes that is all that is needed. - Free boxed openSUSE releases? Ok, I'm running dry here... someone else's turn to do a brain dump now :-) One thing that seems important in my observations is that those of us paid to work on open source projects have quite a bit of an advantage over the community at large... either in high volume project contributions, or in the ability to attend community events, or some other factor... and that really needs to be taken into consideration in however this is dealt with in the long term. C. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Kevin Dupuy

12 Jan 12 Jan

00:11

On Fri, 2009-01-09 at 22:40 +0100, Clayton wrote:

...

- Cash is nice :-) Maybe follow a similar vein as what the OOo Community Council did in providing grants to people so that they could attend the OOo Conference in Beijing this year (I met several people there who were only able to attend with the money they received via an award for a project they worked on).

I like the idea of funding for outstanding contributors to go to openSUSE Conferences. But that's probably cost-prohibitive for the project. -- Kevin "Yeaux" Dupuy - openSUSE Member Public Mail: Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays from the Yeaux! -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier

01:44

On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 7:11 PM, Kevin Dupuy wrote:

...

On Fri, 2009-01-09 at 22:40 +0100, Clayton wrote:

...
- Cash is nice :-) Maybe follow a similar vein as what the OOo Community Council did in providing grants to people so that they could attend the OOo Conference in Beijing this year (I met several people there who were only able to attend with the money they received via an award for a project they worked on).

I like the idea of funding for outstanding contributors to go to openSUSE Conferences. But that's probably cost-prohibitive for the project.

It's an idea. I can't say whether we'll have budget for that or not. I will say this: If we have funds to fly people to the conference, it will take substantial contributions to qualify for travel assistance. Best, Zonker -- Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier openSUSE Community Manager jzb@zonker.net http://zonker.opensuse.org/ http://blogs.zdnet.com/community/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Stanislav Visnovsky

15 Jan 15 Jan

08:27

On Friday 09 January 2009 21:15:55 Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier wrote:

...

On Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 2:43 PM, Clayton wrote:

...
And how do you keep this from being an inner circle of mutual back patting? No really, I don't mean that it will be like this... this is the same question I face in another project I am involved in as we try to find ways to recognize contributors.

It's a really difficult question. I know a lot of people are contributing, but that's because in some way they've reached out for help in some way or made some noise. I also know that many people are contributing quietly, in very valuable ways, but it's hard to identify those folks.

For me, the "People of openSUSE" series was very close to this kind of recognition. Stano -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Carlos Goncalves

10:02

On Thursday 15 January 2009 08:27:46 Stanislav Visnovsky wrote:

...

On Friday 09 January 2009 21:15:55 Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier wrote:

...
On Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 2:43 PM, Clayton wrote:

...
And how do you keep this from being an inner circle of mutual back patting? No really, I don't mean that it will be like this... this is the same question I face in another project I am involved in as we try to find ways to recognize contributors.

It's a really difficult question. I know a lot of people are contributing, but that's because in some way they've reached out for help in some way or made some noise. I also know that many people are contributing quietly, in very valuable ways, but it's hard to identify those folks.

For me, the "People of openSUSE" series was very close to this kind of recognition.

I've been leading "People of openSUSE" almost since the beginning and from my experience I must have to say that it is a good way to recognize valuable community users, indeed. The thing is that I was forced to stop those series due to personal reasons (time) and because, to be honest, my interests in the openSUSE community have changed - I now want to focus my attention mostly on "the truly" development and not on the marketing/promoting side. So, if anyone want to pick it up and start running it again please be free to email me and I will teach you how to handle those interviews quite easily. -- Regards, Carlos Goncalves -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Stephan Binner

18 Jan 18 Jan

10:54

On Thursday 15 January 2009 09:27:46 Stanislav Visnovsky wrote:

...

...
I also know that many people are contributing quietly, in very valuable ways, but it's hard to identify those folks. For me, "People of openSUSE" was very close to this kind of recognition.

On that topic, I would like to see the openSUSE board provide a list of new members together with one/two sentences of the reason/stuff the new member has done (for introduction/publication in openSUSE Weekly News). Bye, Steve -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier

14:28

On 1/18/09, Stephan Binner wrote:

...

On Thursday 15 January 2009 09:27:46 Stanislav Visnovsky wrote:

...
...
I also know that many people are contributing quietly, in very valuable ways, but it's hard to identify those folks. For me, "People of openSUSE" was very close to this kind of recognition.

On that topic, I would like to see the openSUSE board provide a list of new members together with one/two sentences of the reason/stuff the new member has done (for introduction/publication in openSUSE Weekly News).

It'd be nice of the board to provide a new list of members when they're approved, but I don't think they should have to provide a justification for each member. But a "openSUSE welcomes new members ..." each week or so in oWN would be nice. Best, Zonker -- Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier openSUSE Community Manager jzb@zonker.net http://zonker.opensuse.org/ http://blogs.zdnet.com/community/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Bryen

14:50

On Mon, 2009-01-19 at 01:28 +1100, Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier wrote:

...

On 1/18/09, Stephan Binner wrote:

...
On Thursday 15 January 2009 09:27:46 Stanislav Visnovsky wrote:

...
...
I also know that many people are contributing quietly, in very valuable ways, but it's hard to identify those folks. For me, "People of openSUSE" was very close to this kind of recognition.

On that topic, I would like to see the openSUSE board provide a list of new members together with one/two sentences of the reason/stuff the new member has done (for introduction/publication in openSUSE Weekly News).

It'd be nice of the board to provide a new list of members when they're approved, but I don't think they should have to provide a justification for each member.

But a "openSUSE welcomes new members ..." each week or so in oWN would be nice.

This is something we definitely want to do, as soon as we get the new site set up where we can post our activities. We're still waiting on that.

...

Best,

Zonker -- Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier openSUSE Community Manager jzb@zonker.net http://zonker.opensuse.org/ http://blogs.zdnet.com/community/ -- Bryen Yunashko openSUSE Board Member

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Stephan Binner

19 Jan 19 Jan

10:08

On Sunday, 18. January 2009 15:28:27 Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier wrote:

...

...
On that topic, I would like to see the openSUSE board provide a list of new members together with one/two sentences of the reason/stuff the new member has done (for introduction/publication in openSUSE Weekly News). I don't think they should have to provide a justification for each member.

The potential member has to provide the reasoning. I don't see why openSUSE (unlike other developer communities) should hide contributor activities or achievements which can be also incitation to other developers/non-members. Or do you fear that in the end it would be comprehensible who the board accepts as openSUSE member and who not? :-) Bye, Steve -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Henne Vogelsang

10:24

Hi, Stephan Binner wrote:

...

Or do you fear that in the end it would be comprehensible who the board accepts as openSUSE member and who not? :-)

You think its not comprehensible who the board accepts as openSUSE member and who not? I would like to know why :) Henne -- Henne Vogelsang, openSUSE. Everybody has a plan, until they get hit. - Mike Tyson -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Stephan Binner

20 Jan 20 Jan

08:31

On Monday, 19. January 2009 11:24:38 Henne Vogelsang wrote:

...

You think its not comprehensible who the board accepts as openSUSE member and who not? I would like to know why :)

I think I saw some confusion about in the past. And no, I didn't google every to me unfamiliar member name to figure out what (s)he may has been done. :-) Bye, Steve -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Henne Vogelsang

10:25

Hi, Stephan Binner wrote:

...

On Monday, 19. January 2009 11:24:38 Henne Vogelsang wrote:

...
You think its not comprehensible who the board accepts as openSUSE member and who not? I would like to know why :)

I think I saw some confusion about in the past.

I would like to know what. I hear this a lot but never specifics...

...

And no, I didn't google every to me unfamiliar member name to figure out what (s)he may has been done. :-)

Nobody expects you too. Although you google a lot :P Henne -- Henne Vogelsang, openSUSE. Everybody has a plan, until they get hit. - Mike Tyson -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Rob OpenSuSE

19 Jan 19 Jan

11:37

2009/1/19 Stephan Binner :

...

On Sunday, 18. January 2009 15:28:27 Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier wrote:

...
...
On that topic, I would like to see the openSUSE board provide a list of new members together with one/two sentences of the reason/stuff the new member has done (for introduction/publication in openSUSE Weekly News). I don't think they should have to provide a justification for each member.

The potential member has to provide the reasoning. I don't see why openSUSE (unlike other developer communities) should hide contributor activities or achievements which can be also incitation to other developers/non-members.

The thought that such a justification would be widely published in Weekly News, may be daunting. It might also be rather banal for the readers. Wouldn't qualification by categories suffice, when the Board indicate criteria for acceptance? Things like Packager, Developer, Bug Reporter, Forum Support, Email Support. Then the board policy can publically set the bar for qualification by one category, to reduce the embaressement of rejections, and partial qualifications can be summed. As there's publically verfiable archives, there's nothing hidden once you know what area to look. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier

20 Jan 20 Jan

12:45

On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 9:08 PM, Stephan Binner wrote:

...

The potential member has to provide the reasoning. I don't see why openSUSE (unlike other developer communities) should hide contributor activities or achievements which can be also incitation to other developers/non-members.

Do other projects post a name + justification for why they accept certain people for membership? IIRC, Debian has a lengthy process, but they don't post a "this is why we've given so-and-so Debian Developer status."

...

Or do you fear that in the end it would be comprehensible who the board accepts as openSUSE member and who not? :-)

I fear nothing! :-) Seriously, I just don't think that it's necessary -- I'd just be happy to see a periodic (weekly, monthly, whatever) email that says "the openSUSE Board is happy to announce that the following openSUSE contributors have applied and been accepted for membership..." Best, Zonker -- Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier openSUSE Community Manager jzb@zonker.net http://zonker.opensuse.org/ http://blogs.zdnet.com/community/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Stephan Binner

13:17

On Tuesday, 20. January 2009 13:45:24 Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier wrote:

...

Do other projects post a name + justification for why they accept certain people for membership? IIRC, Debian has a lengthy process, but

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue124#New MOTU's https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue124#New Ubuntu Members Bye, Steve -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Birger Kollstrand

10 Jan 10 Jan

07:15

2009/1/9 Clayton :

...

...
*Awarding good people We should award outstanding contributors and good poeple Everybody agreed, just with what and how to find all valuable contributors?

Just wondering... what constitutes an "outstanding contributor" or "good people"? Someone who files loads of bugs? Someone who babbles a lot on the user mailing list? What is the criteria?

And how do you keep this from being an inner circle of mutual back patting? No really, I don't mean that it will be like this... this is the same question I face in another project I am involved in as we try to find ways to recognize contributors. For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

A possible way is to do as a lot of lotterys. Disallow members of´r family members of the controlling entity to participate. The award could be development hours :-) An outstanding contributor gets do donate x number ov Novell developer hours to the contributors choice of projects. The projects could be a list of SUSE areas. (Kind of a user controlled development.) cu / birger....

Stephan Binner

9 Jan 9 Jan

23:12

On Friday 09 January 2009 16:07:37 Michael Loeffler wrote:

...

As spotlight.opensuse.org already exists its kind of a simple task to

That is news to me. Again discussing wrong facts? Bye, Steve -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

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11 participants

participants (11)

Birger Kollstrand
Bryen
Carlos Goncalves
Clayton
Henne Vogelsang
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier
Kevin Dupuy
Michael Loeffler
Rob OpenSuSE
Stanislav Visnovsky
Stephan Binner