17:02 #startmeeting Ubuntu Community Council meeting 17:02 Meeting started Thu May 21 17:02:41 2015 UTC. The chair is mhall119. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.ubuntu.com/meetingology. 17:02 17:02 Available commands: action commands idea info link nick 17:02 Agenda: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CommunityCouncilAgenda 17:02 hello all 17:03 o/ 17:03 #chair czajkowski cprofitt elfy pleia2 17:03 Current chairs: cprofitt czajkowski elfy mhall119 pleia2 17:03 it seems I remember the meetingology commands 17:03 always useful 17:03 we have nothing on our Agenda wiki for today 17:04 is there anybody around who has a topic they would like to discuss with the Community Council? 17:04 ummm mhall119 17:04 Forums Council 17:00UTC 21st May / Core Apps/Phone 17:30UTC 21st May 17:04 that's today ;) 17:04 Yeah mhall119! 17:04 elfy: ah, that's down further on the page, sorry I didn't see it 17:04 :D 17:04 * popey rolls mhall119's mouse wheel a bit 17:04 #topic Forums Council check-in 17:05 anybody from the Forums Council here today? 17:05 I went and found the hat especially ... 17:05 popey: :-) 17:05 suits you 17:06 only me mhall119 :) 17:07 pretty much all's good 17:07 elfy: how has the forums activity been since the last checkin? 17:07 elfy: any specific events or activities to share? 17:07 pretty much static month by month 17:08 we've just finished trying to get people involved in nominating themselves for mod team 17:08 elfy: how successful was that? 17:08 that's not gone well really, not sure what we're going to do about that 17:08 pretty much the same as everywhere - hard to get people to want to 'leader' up 17:09 what did you do to attract people? 17:09 threads - public and in the area members can see, blog post 17:10 elfy: and in general have the the FC seen an increase in users or is it just static ? 17:10 elfy: how about directly asking people who you think would be a good mod if you can nominate them 17:10 ? 17:10 czajkowski: mostly static - get increases at release time 17:11 mhall119: that is an option open to us still - but we're trying to make it a bit more open 17:11 elfy: ack, but sometimes having a personal invite makes people more willing, we identified that in one of the UOS sessions earlier in the month 17:12 yes - and that's the way the forum has done it for 10 years 17:12 ah, ok, so a public call is something new that's being tried? 17:12 yea 17:12 ok 17:13 elfy: any highlights or praises you'd like to give? 17:13 well - not brand new, we tried a while back - same 17:13 we're thinking on next steps 17:14 we still get people applying for membership via us - that's still working 17:14 elfy: what do you think might be causing people to now want to step up and be a moderator? 17:14 not 17:15 * mhall119 guesses inertia is the most likely cause 17:15 cprofitt: not sure - could be the process, could be them seeing the 'troublesome' ones 17:15 and that mhall119 17:16 the new supermod group's making transition for people to FC much easier all round 17:16 elfy: is there anything the CC can do to help with recruiting mods, or anything else for the Forums? 17:16 not with Mods no 17:16 as far as anything else - we're pretty good thanks 17:17 rt's are always a bit of an issue - but other than bumping old ones 17:17 things sitting around for 6 months or more get to be annoying 17:17 just finding one ... 17:17 elfy: is there anything outstanding on rt or in general the CC can help with ? 17:18 https://rt.ubuntu.com/Ticket/Display.html?id=25642 17:18 we can try and bump priority on RTs, or at least get some action on old ones 17:18 I opened that last October -seems that all that's required is edit a config file 17:18 we of course don't have that access anymore 17:19 ugh 17:19 mhall119: surely we can get some bump on that RT 17:19 October is a long time ago 17:19 yup, I'll take an action item to do that 17:20 #action mhall119 to request a response to RT#25642 for the Forums Council 17:20 * meetingology mhall119 to request a response to RT#25642 for the Forums Council 17:20 24227 - April last - mods can't set their own passwords 17:21 generally though - positive 17:21 elfy: as in april just gone ? 17:21 elfy: you said 24228 was solved, is 24227 still open? 17:21 oh - sorry we're in May ... 2015 17:22 24228 is nothing to do with us afaik 17:22 #action mhall119 request a response to RT#24227 for Forums Council 17:22 * meetingology mhall119 request a response to RT#24227 for Forums Council 17:22 elfy: ok 17:23 elfy: which is the most urgent? 17:23 24227 17:23 ok, I'll push for that one first 17:23 but I think this is tied up with http/https/sso - knotty problem 17:23 elfy: anything else the FC is blocked on or waiting on? 17:24 nope 17:24 anything else the FC would like to discuss during this meeting? 17:24 well - waiting, but I'd not be worrying about recent ones 17:24 nope - I'm good thanks mhall119 17:24 I can take the hat off now ;) 17:25 elfy: if you get to where you feel you've waited long enough, ask the CC to escelate it 17:25 yep 17:25 you don't need to wait for the next checkin :) 17:25 well no - but they hang around for so long we forget lol 17:26 cprofitt: czajkowski pleia2 anything else to talk to the FC about? 17:26 narp all good 17:27 I am good 17:27 thanks elfy for representing the FC today 17:27 elfy: shout earlir if the FC need help with RTs 17:27 czajkowski: :~) 17:27 seems crazy waiting that long 17:28 hard to know what else they're up to - mostly just a note on the ticket 'soon'orsomething helps 17:28 syrup under space bar apparently ... 17:29 #topic Core Apps checkin 17:29 popey: your turn 17:29 o/ 17:29 well if everyone is good - we can move on to popey fidgeting in the corner :) 17:29 Yo, wassup? 17:29 hi popey :) 17:29 I was passing time providing support in #ubuntu :) 17:30 17:30 oh yes - words 17:30 so - anything awesome you can tell us about Phone :) 17:30 popey: ok, first off then, any notable activity on the core apps? 17:31 * mhall119 asks knowing there is 17:31 lol 17:31 Ok, so we had UOS between last time we spoke and now 17:31 Had a bunch of sessions for core apps 17:31 Lots of discussion and planning done for the coming months. 17:32 However, there's one overriding issue which I want to braindump at you. 17:32 if you don't mind. 17:32 go for it 17:32 Contribution is down, and it's quite hard to get more people involved and I have some theories why. 17:32 1) Some aspects (such as writing autopilot tests) are not exciting but incredibly dull, and hard to 'sell' 17:33 2) many people don't have a device. 17:33 1 we can work on, we can make the tests easier to write 17:33 we can also find those strange people who like writing them 17:33 * popey looks at balloons 17:33 However, 2 is a bit harder. 17:33 yeah, I was a bit disappointed when I found my nexus 7 could not help test 17:33 if they were easy I would 17:33 The knock on effect of people not having a device is that they don't feel empowered to help in many ways 17:33 and they don't feel like they're scratching an itch 17:34 e.g. "Why would I work on the Ubuntu music app on ubuntu phone, when I have an android phone" 17:34 In the past, the desktop was 'easier' to get contributions to, because anyone could install it on any system 17:34 The fact that we need to port to specific devices actually makes it hard to get devices for people 17:34 especially when in some regions (USA) there's limited options (bq and meizu devices don't work well over there on all of their frequencies for example) 17:35 Is this making sense? 17:35 popey: do you forsee that getting easier once we have a usable Unity 8 desktop? 17:35 popey: it is 17:35 popey: yep 17:35 Ok. 17:35 Well, there's a few things that will help. 17:35 more devices being available, and having a better end user experience helps 17:35 as people will be more inclined to use them as their daily driver 17:36 if you use it daily and you notice janky things, you're way more likely to file bugs / patches / translations / documentation 17:36 we have seen this on the ubuntu-phone list 17:36 there's people writing their own documentation, prototyping apps, translating things etc 17:36 all things we used to get lots of contributions for on the desktop 17:36 but at a MUCH smaller scale 17:37 because few people have the devices. and those that do, don't use it daily, so don't see the issues, or don't feel motivated to fix them 17:37 Now, this leads ot a bit of a chicken and egg issue. 17:37 I feel like ubuntu phone is where ubuntu desktop was in ~2005 17:37 works well for a subset of users, on specific hardware. 17:38 Oh, and another thing! 17:38 many regular contributors to ubuntu are students - people who traditionally have limited desposable income 17:38 so they often (generalising here) make the best of the equipment they have 17:39 popey: it's a daft idea but why not organise some some of phone jam - where you or others bring along hand sets and people play with them and use them and file bugs. New users = new bugs and new users = new ideas on the phone 17:39 people come and get to meet one another 17:39 and are more inclined to fix things because "It's my only PC". whereas everyone (mostly) already has a smartphone - even students with low / no / income 17:39 and you get some community interaction 17:39 Well. 17:39 Good idea to have events. 17:39 I will certainly note that. 17:40 However, right now, bugs we are not short of :) 17:40 we have encouraged people to bring their devices to loco team events 17:40 but that doesn't let others use it as a daily driver 17:40 well it's more about interaction and if you provide the devices then people can get involved 17:40 popey: perhaps for a student meet up you could give away one to the person who files the most bugs, or writes the best test case 17:40 put bounty on it 17:41 hmm. incentivising 17:41 you know how I feel about that :) 17:41 popey: I do :) 17:41 popey: next co working day bring devices and let people play and run the tests on them! 17:41 like I say, bugs we have. contributions we don't 17:42 I know in the past we have used the community donations to send devices to core apps developers, but we haven't expanded it to more general phone users/contributors 17:42 people often say "it doesn't do X or Y" and I already have the bug on my screen for them 17:42 even for core apps devs, we were bending the guidelines for them 17:42 I would love to have a bunch of devices i could take somewhere and get people to contribute 17:42 as many were not (yet) Ubuntu Members 17:43 Going back to the previous question, I do believe that things will get easier as we have snappy desktop in 15.10 17:43 and converged device coming this year 17:43 right, it won't give a phone use experience, but it will at least make it easier for people to run the apps themselves 17:43 both of those should have an impact and we should make certain to capture those poeple who are interested in contributing 17:43 popey: is there anything we can do to encourage people to use core apps on current desktops? 17:44 popey: mhall119 could a loco team apply for funnds via the fund to buy phones for their team to get more involved? 17:44 yes and no 17:44 Perhaps the perception is you have to be a core dev to get a phone 17:44 so to mhall119, yes, i need to delete all the core apps wiki page and replace it with a pretty page on developer.ubuntu.com :) 17:45 czajkowski: I would think so, yes, but they would need to show that it would be money well spent 17:45 i dont want to buy a bunch of phones to sit in a drawer somewhere 17:45 ^^ that 17:46 we've loaned devices to loco teams for use in events, but the expectation was that it would come back to Canonical afterwards so it can be loaned to someone else 17:46 nods 17:46 popey: got to run here - I'll read up in a bit - thanks :) 17:46 thanks elfy 17:46 I do know some locos are very proactive in QA and might enjoy this 17:46 perhaps they don;t know they could avail of the fund 17:46 maybe one thing they'd have to do is provide a bi weekly report of their work ? 17:47 elfy: thanks 17:47 czajkowski: yeah, and I think they would need regular in-person meetups in order for more than just one person to take advantage of the device 17:47 Again, QA isn't really what we need. We have people testing stuff. It's fixers we need. IMO 17:48 popey: is it time for another recruitment drive for Core Apps? 17:48 yes 17:48 so, todo list:- 17:48 1) make a better home page on developer.ubuntu.com 17:48 ok, the hack days seemed to work reasonably well for that in the past 17:48 2) Better articulate the things we need 17:48 3) recruit 17:48 popey: ack 17:48 hack days were variable 17:49 popey: what part of that can the CC help with? 17:49 I'll make a start on 1 and 2 17:49 Don't think anything (yet) 17:49 popey: has it helped to bring some of those core app devs to sprints? 17:49 I know it's highly motivating to the ones that go, but what about in recruiting new devs? 17:49 yeah, absolutely 17:50 not sure I understand the question 17:50 inviting community people to sprints is a mixed blessing 17:50 "Here, come along with us and hack on ubuntu" vs "Here, spend a week of your vacation working for no pay" 17:51 is that kind of involvement with Canonical something that helps motivate people to get involved, or does it only motivate people who are already involved? 17:51 I think it's motivating and fun for students 17:51 less so for people with families / careers 17:51 ack 17:51 ergo we should target students ㋛ 17:52 exams are now, summer holidays coming for many 17:52 now is the time to strike 17:52 popey: what about a GSoC project for this? 17:52 popey: contact unis that offer mobile dev courses and see if they'd like a semester project 17:52 too late for GSOC I think? 17:53 maybe 17:53 not sure if Google would approve it anywya 17:53 czajkowski: yeah, will add that to my list 17:54 popey: changing gears a bit, is there anything blocking or disrupting contributions from the people you already have? 17:54 Yes. Not having enough other contributors. 17:54 heh 17:54 People to review code for example 17:54 popey: I know we can only build for ubuntu devices there are no cross platform options out there yet 17:54 I'm not kidding 17:54 czajkowski: would be nice if the SDK ran on other platforms, but it doesn't right now 17:54 popey: do you still have people from Canonical helping with code reviews? 17:54 but have peple thought about going to many more mobile conferecens and talking about the Ubuntu phone theer to get developers who work on xamarin ios and android interested 17:55 mhall119: I poke people now and then yes 17:55 popey: I type slowly :( 17:55 czajkowski: we do go to conferences. not many, but targetted, dpm was at one this week doing exactly that :) 17:55 * czajkowski attends many many mobile events, but no sign of Ubuntu at them 17:55 and they're not just for android or iOS 17:56 anyways 17:56 yes, that is something we are trying to do more of within the community team at canonical 17:56 we've also been developing materials for community contributors to use at such conferences 17:56 we have to target events carefully. 17:56 we don't have a huge budget for events 17:56 and many are just not appropriate 17:56 yeah, a lot of mobile events seem very businessey 17:58 having the SDK working on Windows and OSX would certainly help, but I think the technical difficulties on that are too high for it to be realistic right now 17:58 yup 17:58 its even hard to run it other linux distros 17:59 I would like to see more of Ubuntu at mobile dev conferences though, perhaps we should go over our material again to make sure it's ready for non-canonicalers to use 17:59 ok, our hour is just about up, is there anything else you wanted to bring up or ask for assistance with popey ? 17:59 I think we'll be in better shape by the end of the year as we'll have more devices in more regions and converged device. 17:59 Nope 18:00 popey: any highlights or praises you want to give? 18:00 Not now, I'll save that :) 18:00 :) 18:00 czajkowski: cprofitt anything else for popey? 18:01 narp all good 18:01 no thank you 18:01 #topic Any other business 18:01 thanks for the tips and advice everyone 18:01 ok, *now* is there anybody here who wants to bring up a topic that wasn't on the agenda? 18:02 can I go home now? :) 18:02 chooo chooo 18:02 popey: don't like working from the office? 18:02 mhall119: no he prefers co working :D 18:03 alright, last call for topics 18:03 AOB anyone ? 18:03 czajkowski: well co-working gives him chocolate pains 18:03 #endmeeting