March 2023 - Inkscape Board of Directors

Fwd: Legal: Agreement to use Inkscape as a prop on a TV show (NZ)
by Martin Owens 23 May '23

23 May '23

(sent to wrong address in original CC)

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Election of Election proctor
by tavmjong＠free.fr 05 Apr '23

05 Apr '23

Dear PLC, Your vote is require to elect an Election Proctor: Select one. (a) Elect Daniel Pono Takamori as Election Proctor. (b) Elect another person to be Election Proctor. Background: From our election procedure: "The Inkscape Board elects by majority vote an Election Proctor who will run a given election and ensure it’s successful completion. The Election Proctor has the responsibility for ensuring the voting is done according to procedure, assuring that the Vote is accurately tallied, and announcing the finalized result of the Vote." Pono volunteered to be the Election Proctor during the Bensberg hackfest.

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GTK4 migration proposal
by Jonathan Neuhauser 05 Apr '23

05 Apr '23

Dear PLC members, in the recent developer meetings, the dev team has formulated a plan to get the GTK4 migration done. This migration is essential for Inkscape, central to our infrastructure, needs to be done quickly (to reduce blockage of other work) and soon. For this reason, we propose hiring an external contractor, a senior developer with expert knowledge on GTK, for a duration of 4 months. I've attached the proposal for that, feedback is welcome. We're planning to start the vote soon, probably on Friday, since a lot of the discussions have already happened at the hackfest. Best regards, Jonathan

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Inkscape 1.3 About Screen Contributor Voting until April 9
by Maren Hachmann 05 Apr '23

05 Apr '23

Hi Inkscape Contributors! It's that time of the year again :) We invite you to cast your vote on the 5 awesome About Screen Contest submissions that were favorited by 242 voting Community members. For this year's About Screen Contest, we have had 55 submissions from the Community, 49 of which met the requirements (licensing, branding etc.). These are the 5 items they liked the most: * "A long journey“ by Chris Hildenbrand * "Contest“ by Djelita Abderrahmane * "Creative Growth“ by Chris Hildenbrand * "Isometric Madness“ by Denis Kuznetsky * "Portal“ by Milad Moosavi (in alphabetical order) In this two-step selection process, it is now up to us, the Inkscape Contributors, to select the About Screen that we want for Inkscape 1.3. It's going to be a difficult choice, as they are all so cool :D Step 1: ======= Make sure that you are an Inkscape Member (see previous message or link below), and if you're not one yet, apply for membership and ask 3 of your team mates or other contributors whom you have worked with to confirm your membership. More info: https://inkscape.org/*membership/blog/inkscape-signs-new-fsa-sfc/ Step 2: ======= Visit https://inkscape.org/gallery/=artwork/inkscape-13-about-screen-contributor-… and rank the 5 images by clicking on the little circle right below them in order of preference (most liked first). The voting period starts NOW, and ends on April 9, 23:59 UTC. Voting is on the website only. The announcement of the winning entry is planned for April 11. Thank you to everyone who contributed to this year's About Screen Contest! Maren

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FSA update information for the Contributor Community
by Maren Hachmann 28 Mar '23

28 Mar '23

Hi everyone, when coordinating the ongoing About Screen Contest (https://inkscape.org/gallery/=about-screen-contest/contest-for-13/), we've been talking about how to do the Contributor voting, and the Vectors team would like to use the website and the Project members list (https://inkscape.org/*membership/) for it this time, because it is easier and more doable than posting to a mailing list for many. Martin has worked to prepare the website for that, and Vectors have agreed to delay contributor voting by a few days (schedule on website hasn't been changed yet). To let Inkscape contributors know about the membership, its meaning and how to join, we'd like to first give them that information, so they can then apply for the membership with all the necessary knowledge, and then vote on contest entries. For this, we've prepared a few interview questions. We would like to post the interview on the website, as an article for the blog for project members here: https://inkscape.org/*membership/blog/ We'd share links to that article with all channels where our contributors come together - mailing lists for contributors and chat channels for contributors. Would you be able to help us by answering those questions? We would like to publish the replies on Tuesday already, in time for the Contributor voting on the About Screen. So, here it goes: ------------------------- Demystifying Membership - A Contributor's (updated) Guide to the Inkscape Project On March 15, Inkscape's new FSA was published to the inkscape.org website. It's a big step forward for Inkscape's contributor community, but not everyone may know what it all means yet. So, we asked the people who should know, the members of Inkscape's Project Leadership Committee (PLC). Q1 Vectors: Hi! First of all, let's get the acronyms out of the way: what do FSA, PLC and SFC mean and how do they relate to the project? Q2 Vectors: Okay, now we understand what they are, can you tell us why the FSA was changed? Q3 Vectors: Were there any other updates to the FSA? Q4 Vectors: Can you tell us a little about the process of updating the FSA? Q5 Vectors: What do the changes to the FSA mean for the contributors? Q6 Vectors: What requirements do people need to meet to be/become a member? Do memberships expire? Q7 Vectors: Is there anything that contributors need to do now, to become an official member? ------------------------- Thanks for reading! Maren

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Become an Inkscape Project Member!
by Maren Hachmann 28 Mar '23

28 Mar '23

Dear Inkscape Contributors, it's time to make your Inkscape Membership official! With that come voting rights for all kinds of regular contributors - like translators, social media managers, forum moderators, documentation writers, testers, bug managers, ... - (not only developers anymore!). The first occasion we will be using that for is the Contributor Vote for the ongoing About Screen Contest (contributor voting starts tomorrow, and will end on April 9, 23:59 UTC, there will be a separate email for that!), which is also going to be a bit of a test of the membership system for the upcoming Inkscape PLC election. Read all about it here: https://inkscape.org/*membership/blog/inkscape-signs-new-fsa-sfc/ If you have any questions or are looking for people to confirm your membership request, please ask away in the #general rocket.chat channel. In some cases, it will be helpful to state the nature of your contributions to the project, or to approach those directly who know about your contributions. Please approve membership requests of those whom you know to be a contributor by first hand experience, and do not approve other membership requests, as in the worst case, when the person is not a contributor, that can get your own membership revoked. Thank you to the PLC and the SFC for getting that set up for us, to the website team for providing infrastructure for it, and to the Vectors team for writing about it! Maren

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Developer Meeting Notes, March 26th 2023
by doctormo＠gmail.com 26 Mar '23

26 Mar '23

Hi Everyone, This is our first online meeting since the hackfest. Last week's meeting was canceled, so don't worry, you haven't missed any previous notes. Event: https://inkscape.org/cals/event/1/ Present this week: Lazur, Martin, Jonathan, Tav, Thomas, Jabier, NPJ, Marc, Mikekov, Rafael Next Meeting: Monday, April 3rd # Release Plans The alpha release has been uncertain because of reports of deadly crashes on undo. The reports have been a little anecdotal though. The general consesnsus at the meeting is that we should release the alpha right away and then re-release a new alpha if this issue can be confirmed in the latest versions after several fixes. Users can be asked to be brave so long as they understand the risks. Martin created the 1.3 and 1.3-alpha0 release objects on the website and Marc is planning on pushing the alpha out in the next two days. The mushroom about screen was used as the graphic for the alpha. We have a few outstanding merge requests which we can merge immediately. The developer team spent some time looking at these merge requests for our activity at the end of the meeting to clear the backlog for the release. # Jabier Wants to merge some branches, some are minor fixes but need to have better and more descriptions to help reviewers understand what they do, we managed to merge two and attach reviewers to three others. Martin wanted to make sure the corners LPE upgrade is scheduled for after 1.3 since it's quite large. # Jonathan Some reverse engineering of the AI format and helping Nicco putting together the ai importer. Progress is going well, text is likely to be supportable. Asked tav about the mesh gradient and having a number of nodes on the edges of the patches. Gtk4 proposal is ready and waiting to be sent to the PLC. An email got lost and has been resent to Marc and Tav was asked to push the PLC election, nominating the proctor Pono to run the election. # Marc Has been busy and sick, with appologies. # Martin Recovering from travel. Made a video for the hackfest which has been well recieved. Bug accellerator program fixes are submitted and merge request management and pushing for the alpha release. Some website fixes for the about screen contest voting. # MikeKov Looking at a bug #4186 with the new preserve path functionality and trying to work around a fitting alogorythem. We could detect when it's not going to work well and then try a different method, or try to remove the constraints but with bad output. Bug has been assigned and tagged for 1.3. #NPJ Experimenting with Apple archetecture. #Rafael Worked on bugs as part of the accelerator program. Fixed four issues this week, one fix actually fixed two issues. Currently looking into a regression in patterns, where you can't see a marker using a pattern as a context-fill. Pair up with Martin to look into the problem. #Tav Spent a little time in the last week playing with Gtk4, try out the new Gtk List View, it wasn't performing quite as expected. It only generates widgets for things which are on the screen, but this makes the scrolling weird. Made a lsit of 10,000 items, it would scroll for a little bit but then it would jump around. # Thomas Doing some experiments for how to fix menus in macOS, contuing the work from the hackfest to see if there's an upstream patch that can be created. # Team Activity We looked at five merge requests with the Approve Please tag, and merged two, and assigned the rest to reviewers for further testing. Thanks to everyone for coming to the meeting, see you all next week!

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Hackfest notes from Pono
by Daniel Pono Takamori 17 Mar '23

17 Mar '23

Hey everyone, Here are some notes I took after collecting some questions from people at the Hackfest. I'll dump them here and here's a link to the markdown file on Nextcloud: https://office.inkscape.org/nextcloud/index.php/s/62TS2K4obzat4Rd At the end of the week I asked the people here what they liked about the project, what could be improved, how was the Hackfest and what can SFC and I do to better support the project. After I presented these comments and some of my own thoughts about them, we opened the conversation up to discussion and the bits at the bottom are the resulting conversations. Thanks again for having me, and I'm looking forward to building out the in-person events so everyone can come or participate to the best of their abilities. -Pono ## Things to celebrate about Inkscape and it's community There's a good spirit of volunteering and people taking on tasks that are interesting to them. This goes both ways though and sometimes means there are tasks that get left behind for no one to pick up. Liberal code contribution culture which has enabled lots of innovation and creativity. Receptive to new ideas. People are empowered to express themselves, regardless of their position in the world. People focused project, doesn't require lots of technical expertise and has a low bar to picking up. Mature project with lots of good momentum. People love Inkscape! ## Improvements to be made to Inkscape and it's community Diversity of participants was something that came up a lot. Working to have better outreach to make sure all groups and teams are represented. How can we get younger users and contributors? Make it easier for people to contribute non-code (I'm not sure what the processes around documentation, how-tos, etc work). We need better onboarding docs so we don't have to explain "basics" over and over again. "Inkscape on Twitch" - related to other outreach efforts Spending money... we need to come up with a more formal budget to support all teams and I (pono) think that a budget will make it easier to get money to flow since when things are within an accepted budget, it's easier to get things moving. Listening and communicating with users - surveys, forums, Rocketchat, etc. We need more dialogue with users (technical and non). How are artists, scientists and makers using Inkscape? Formalizing subgroups - with fear of over administering, how do we codify the teams so that they can operate autonomously but be included in all decision making processes? **pono idea - seats for each subteam on the PLC and more communication between groups** How do we get Inkscape in schools? This is something SFC has been thinking about in general ## Hackfest ### Things that went well Relationship building is unmatched in person. This was a great opportunity to meet and chat and the travel being handled if needed, was great. Length was good, maybe a long weekend could get more people. In person communication makes it much easier to clear up miscommunications and intentions. The venue was great and everything was made easy to focus on work and relationships. ### Things to be improved Calling it a 'Hackfest' might've discouraged teams from participating and we *need* all teams to participate. 15-25 people would be a better group. More diversity among participants, *pono let's get some scholarships for new and minority contributors* Open space and loud conversations made it hard to focus, providing quiet spaces would help. More thought into how to include remote participants. Have one with users? Does it have to be this event? More regular cadence makes it easier to get people here. ## SFC - how can we do better and what have we done well being clear about our limits SFC is not just an anonymous thing to help with managing things, we need to establish a more close relationship rewarding volunteers financial help was great and improved attendance Pono/SFC is very helpful for networking between FOSS projects, like introducing the right people and thus increasing the chances of successful collaborations Be a sparring partner for discussing policy & fundamental issues, "outside" person that can help when an outsider is need. E.g. CoC issues within the PLC, election proctor Also to escalate things within SFC if progress is slow. SFC should monitor foundations for grant opportunities & forward them to potentially relevant member projects making sure contracts and money flow smoothly SFC done a good job with mediation and spending money ## Notes during discussion hackfest rebuilds energy 5-10 is good for hacking OutreachFest colocating an event? FOSDEM! https://libregraphicsmeeting.org/ conference in Northeast? develop PenPot relationship Jabier and Adam Belis what we need from Inkscape to use PenPot for UI Scribus? Blender? subteams marin - didn't like term leader, have an organizer, contact, representative can switch off! describe as not one person, but a team collectively divvies up responsibilities if you want to be a formal group, you need to meet a set of criteria jonathan and ted thinking about it community building things graphics for teams, hat or graphics mousepads :P vectors, developers, documentaion, testing, translation, UX https://inkscape.org/user/teams/ recognized groups have duties benefits: PLC can delegate technical decisions to dev team, outreach to vectors, etc formalize duties and expectations keep outside FSA probably partners program GNOME has a Sponsors section allows relationship management *ChromeOS* ?? maybe we can talk with Google? how to package for those chromebooks schools helps schools administer the program krita and blender are on steam maybe need someone android? google funding for gtk backend? putting out more video for exposure - Chris attractive to sponsors build up vectors to make more content budget for video how does krita do it? need to try more things what do people like from Inkscape? we don't really know Youtube channel? surveys! demographics working with TuxDigital presskit press list for SFC Plausible website is contributor friendly not marketing slick friendly branding is not a singular thing it's there to tell your story "the only vector software that is a community project" more concious of public image

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Updated election procedure
by Marc Jeanmougin 17 Mar '23

17 Mar '23

# Election Procedure ## Resolution: The Election Procedure as shown below, is adopted as the Inkscape Project's official method for electing new members to its Board. ## Proposal: A majority vote of the current board members is required for the following matter. Adopt Election Procedure version 4, as shown in Addendum for the Inkscape Board's official procedure for holding Board Elections. Diverging from this procedure is not allowed without board approval. - a\. Accept Election Procedure v.4 as official election procedure - b. Accept Election Procedure, if the following changes are done: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ - c. Do not accept Election Procedure ## Background: This procedure is derived from the [election procedure v.3](https://alpha.inkscape.org/board/referendums/resolutions/election_proc…. It mostly updates the procedure to not quote the FSA (so we have to vote on the election process again when the FSA is updated), but link to it. The FSA has changed the way membership is defined, and this is reflected here. ## Change History | Version | | | :----------------: | :----------------------------------------------------: | | v.1 | RFC Draft | | v.2 | Clarify voting through the website | | | Note pseudonyms are ok, but legal names will be needed | | | Allow nominations | | v.3 | Increase Candidacy signup to 2 weeks | | | Post to both inkscape-announce and inkscape-devel. | | | Drop mention of 'Enfranchised Accounts'. | | | Clarify bits that will be specified per-election. | | v.4 | Update for new FSA | | | Allow the proctor to decide on the election platform | | | Allow a deadtime between the end of the candidacy | | | period and the start of the election. | ## Addendum: File: election_procedure.txt Inkscape is holding elections for \${NUM_SEATS} new Board Members. \${INTRODUCTION_TEXT} The term "board" in this document is equivalent with "Project Leadership Committee", as both terms are usually used interchangeably within the Inkscape project. Typically the board votes on things such as project fund expenditures (travel, conferences, marketing materials for events, etc), trademark related issue, other legal issues that arise, etc. The board does not have responsibility currently for technical decisions for the project, and does not handle social/community issues where there are no financial or legal aspects to the problem. Board membership requires a commitment of time: At a minimum you will be expected to participate in votes on the mailing list, which typically occur with a frequency of about 0 to 3 per month. You are required to be on the board mailing list, which has a low volume; you're not required to participate in the discussions, but it is very strongly encouraged. We also solicit volunteers from the board to serve as as event managers, team leaders, fundraising coordinators, etc. - Again, not a requirement, but we value board members who can shoulder such duties for the project. It is also expected of board members to actively participate in the project and follow ongoing discussions. As specified in Section 6 or our fiscal sponsorship agreement (FSA) \[1\] we maintain a committee of seven project members. ## Election Schedule: All dates are 8:00 UTC. The number of days between the end of the candidacy period and the start of the election may be chosen by the proctor, but must not be higher than 7 days. | Event | Timeframe | | :----------------------------------------: | :----------------------------------------------: | | Kickoff Announcement | \${date} | | Candidacy period Start: | \${date} | | Deadline for registration as a Member | \${date + 2 weeks} | | Candidacy period End: | \${date + 2 weeks} | | Publication of Candidates | \${date + 2 weeks + $n days} | | Election Start: | \${date + 2 weeks + $n days} | | Election End: | \${date + 2 weeks + $n days} + 2 weeks | | Results Posted: | \${date + 2 weeks + $n days + 2 weeks + 2 days} | ## Membership: Inkscape community members listed in the [Membership list](https://inkscape.org/*membership/list.txt) as of \${date + 2 weeks} are considered Members for purposes of this election, as per our Fiscal Sponsorship Agreement with the Software Freedom Conservancy. Only Members may run for the board positions, and only Members may vote for them. The Election Proctor may select the voting platform for the election. \${HOWTO_VOTE_DIRECTIONS} ## Election Proctor: The Inkscape Board elects by majority vote an Election Proctor who will run a given election and ensure its successful completion. The Election Proctor has the responsibility for ensuring the voting is done according to procedure, assuring that the Vote is accurately tallied, and announcing the finalized result of the Vote. Once the vote has been finalized, the selected individual(s) immediately become Board Members. The Community may challenge the Election Proctor's tally within 30 days of the vote finalization, by gathering a number of signatures from Members exceeding 2/3rds of the total number of Votes cast declaring the vote to be inaccurate. Should this happen, the Vote is nullified, and a new election must be arranged by the Board. ## Board Election: The following text can be used to draft an announcement about the election, which should be sent to Inkscape's announcement and development mailing lists. > The following Board Members have resigned from their positions and need > to be filled by new members: > > \${RETIREES} > > The election process starts with a Candidacy Period, i.e. members > listed in the > [membership list](https://inkscape.org/*membership/list.txt), > during which any > Member may indicate interest in running for the positions. To > register, please email \${ELECTIONS_ADDRESS}, giving your > > - Name \[2\] > - Current professional affiliation > - Statement of contribution to Inkscape or related technologies > - A personal statement > > Alternatively, any Member may nominate another Member, who has to send > the above email if they are willing to candidate. > > At the end of the Candidacy Period, the applicants will be reviewed to > verify eligibility. The list of candidates will then be published, and > the community will have a chance to ask questions. > > Finally, the election will be held using the Single Transferable Vote > (STV) voting system\[3\]. This is similar in mechanism to the Instant > Runoff Vote (IRV), but for > multi-seat results rather than the single-winner result of IRV. From a > voter's perspective it's the same voting procedure: Rank candidates in > order of choice with #1 being first choice, and so on. # References: 1: https://inkscape.org/*leadership-committee/charter/ 2: Pseudonyms are acceptable for registration purposes, but please note that your legal name will need to be provided when officially joining the board as a member, and may be needed on various legal documents which will be publicly disclosed for transparency purposes. 3: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote

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Mentor stipends - 2023
by tavmjong＠free.fr 17 Mar '23

17 Mar '23

2023 GSoC mentor stipends. Background: Every year, we participate in GSoC, sometimes Outreachy, with a few community members mentoring new contributors. This mentoring task takes time and efforts, and offering support for potential mentors may help them dedicate more time to it, and may help in the long run to have a more diverse pool of mentors. In addition, the project gets a “project stipend” from Google of 500$, this proposal keeps 20% for the project general funds (matching what we did in 2022). Proposal: [ ] a. Offer people who mentor students the possibility to ask for a stipend of up to 400$ for the 2023 mentoring season [ ] b. Do not do it [ ] c. Other (please specify) Timeline Proposed 2023-02-03 Closes 2023-02-10 Tav

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