Dear Inkscape Committee,
After our detailed discussion with Karen and Pono, it's becoming more clear that we should be running Committee Meetings via a video chat service. There is a great need to have more discussion, debate and decision making process at specified times and places outside of this mailing list and I believe that the SFC's suggestion of using their big blue button server is actually their gentle hint that running a higher bandwidth meeting would benefit the project greatly.
I propose that we start running committee meetings. This meeting would be a distinct and different event from the existing status update event, where activate items have their updates relayed to the rest of the project. But would instead focus on many of the processes, problems, activities and votes which are involved in being a responsible committee for the Inkscape project.
To kick off this series of meetings, I'd like to invite Pono to chair the first meeting. The hope here is that the SFC can instruct us on the right way to conduct a more structured and productive meeting via video chat and then from there on we would conduct meetings monthly, with reports and recordings to the mailing list. Using this as a template.
Should this idea meet with general approval from the rest of the board, Ted would contact the SFC to formally request a suitable date and time which the SFC would be available to offer this initial meeting and when the majority of the current comittee members would be available. The agenta would focus on reviewing the basics of meeting operation and our questions to the SFC about running ourselves better.
I believe having this meeting structure is essential before we can conduct much of the rest of the business for Inkscpe we must have a decision making process which is more attentive than the current mailing list approach where I don't believe proper quorum can be achieved which raises doubts bout the legitimacy of the decisions we make here.
A vote will follow after period for comments.
Best Regards, Martin Owens
I agree - a face-to-face video meeting does a lot more for motivation and communication than is possible on just the mailing list. I also believe we should follow every bit of advice on how to organise ourselves and conduct meetings in accordance with the SFC's recommendations, since they specialise in adding infrastructure to FOSS projects. Since I joined the board/committee, I've had no guidance on what to do other than to show up at the former board meetings (which apparently were supposed to be status updates). So I'm going to be all ears about how we can move forwards to better serve the project, and our users.
Thanks for putting this together, Martin. -C
On Thu, Jun 17, 2021 at 5:25 PM Martin Owens doctormo@geek-2.com wrote:
Dear Inkscape Committee,
After our detailed discussion with Karen and Pono, it's becoming more clear that we should be running Committee Meetings via a video chat service. There is a great need to have more discussion, debate and decision making process at specified times and places outside of this mailing list and I believe that the SFC's suggestion of using their big blue button server is actually their gentle hint that running a higher bandwidth meeting would benefit the project greatly.
I propose that we start running committee meetings. This meeting would be a distinct and different event from the existing status update event, where activate items have their updates relayed to the rest of the project. But would instead focus on many of the processes, problems, activities and votes which are involved in being a responsible committee for the Inkscape project.
To kick off this series of meetings, I'd like to invite Pono to chair the first meeting. The hope here is that the SFC can instruct us on the right way to conduct a more structured and productive meeting via video chat and then from there on we would conduct meetings monthly, with reports and recordings to the mailing list. Using this as a template.
Should this idea meet with general approval from the rest of the board, Ted would contact the SFC to formally request a suitable date and time which the SFC would be available to offer this initial meeting and when the majority of the current comittee members would be available. The agenta would focus on reviewing the basics of meeting operation and our questions to the SFC about running ourselves better.
I believe having this meeting structure is essential before we can conduct much of the rest of the business for Inkscpe we must have a decision making process which is more attentive than the current mailing list approach where I don't believe proper quorum can be achieved which raises doubts bout the legitimacy of the decisions we make here.
A vote will follow after period for comments.
Best Regards, Martin Owens _______________________________________________ Inkscape Board of Directors mailing list -- inkscape-board@lists.inkscape.org To unsubscribe send an email to inkscape-board-leave@lists.inkscape.org
On Thu, Jun 17, 2021 at 11:21 AM C R cajhne@gmail.com wrote:
I also believe we should follow every bit of advice on how to organise ourselves and conduct meetings in accordance with the SFC's recommendations, since they specialise in adding infrastructure to FOSS projects.
I'm not sure that's what SFC specializes in. It's my understanding that their primary focus is to provide fiduciary oversight and counsel on legal issues. They help to ensure we're above board and compliant as a non-profit. That's not to say they don't do/offer more, but those are the core things. I'd note that over the years it's come across that different orgs under their umbrella operate very differently. I bring that up because while they definitely have dealt with helping projects grow, it's primary focus is keeping the orgs compliant in that process. When asked about infrastructure often they will respond with well Project A did it this way, Project B did it that way, and then they share any insights they gleaned from those different approaches.
Since I joined the board/committee, I've had no guidance on what to do other than to show up at the former board meetings (which apparently were supposed to be status updates). So I'm going to be all ears about how we can move forwards to better serve the project, and our users.
From what I recall, the intention of the committee (formerly board) was to have a group of individuals that handle the in-project side regarding said financial and legal matters and communicating with SFC.
At this point it really seems like we might need to revisit the intention of the committee and the scope of expectations and responsibilities. It comes across as if there is an expectation that the committee should be doing more than what it was intended for. It wasn't intended to be a group of people to control and give direction to the project... that has always been (and in my mind should be) community driven. One example of the committee's role would be if someone had a fully thought out and detailed proposal and wanted funding for it. If the community was behind it, we'd vote on releasing the funds and then we'd basically just be the ones to deal with SFC. I'd be interested to know what other people's opinions are as well as if I'm misremembering the "purpose" of the committee.
Cheers, Josh
On Thu, 2021-06-17 at 12:16 -0700, Josh Andler wrote:
I'd be interested to know what other people's opinions are as well a if I'm misremembering the "purpose" of the committee.
I think you have the right remembrance of the core intentions of the committee;
Although with caveats. The leadership functionality of the project has deprecated over time as people have left the project, removing capabilities and authority. It may have been possible to get the community together to make an authoritative pitch before, but now we can't even make a definitive call on who is in and not in the community enough to perform the most basic of committee functions; namely spending money and electing new members to the committee. Both functions are pending in our inbox and we are not really meeting either of these tasks with the required capability.
The proposal seeks to address this.
Hopefully we'll be able to import the discussions we've had about community membership and have a vote on what that is too, sooner rather than later. Clearing that administrative process up will make returning to the core rubber-stamping operation much easier, and I hope we can get to that point again this year.
Best Regards, Martin Owens
On Jun 17 2021, at 11:25 am, Martin Owens doctormo@geek-2.com wrote:
I believe that the SFC's suggestion of using their big blue button server is actually their gentle hint that running a higher bandwidth meeting would benefit the project greatly.
I think you're vastly overstating the implications of their offer.
I believe having this meeting structure is essential before we can conduct much of the rest of the business for Inkscpe we must have a decision making process which is more attentive than the current mailing list approach where I don't believe proper quorum can be achieved which raises doubts bout the legitimacy of the decisions we make here.
Not sure what you mean by quorum here. But to be clear, our process doesn't require quorum just more than half of the votes to be positive during the time set for the vote. There are no requirements for quorum.
On Thu, 2021-06-17 at 12:16 -0700, Josh Andler wrote:
I'd be interested to know what other people's opinions are as well a if I'm misremembering the "purpose" of the committee.
I think you have the right remembrance of the core intentions of the committee;
I think that Josh has made a reasonable summary here of the goals of the board. The board has never had a mandate to set the goals of the project, it is just there to support those who are working on it. There are a lot of things "typical developers" and others don't like to deal with, and the board deals with those details.
Although with caveats. The leadership functionality of the project has deprecated over time as people have left the project, removing capabilities and authority. It may have been possible to get the community together to make an authoritative pitch before
I believe that you're remembering history with rose colored glasses. There has never been the ability to get people together. Every road map effort has failed. And that's a good and a bad thing. People love road maps and to predict the future, but the reality is that we're relying on volunteer efforts, and we can't (and shouldn't) tell people what to do with their spare time. So what actually gets done depends on individuals and what they care about and want to get done. What you're suggesting is that there needs to be power through authority, which honestly, doesn't even work in corporate settings where everyone is getting paid for their time. An analysis on the types of leadership I enjoyed is here: https://jacobian.org/2021/mar/15/organizational-power/
The proposal seeks to address this.
I don't feel like your proposal does anything to give people more time to work on those things. More meeting time, and more required prep for meetings, doesn't get more done. Overall, I feel like your demands for video meetings come from a position of extreme privilege. Personally, over the history of the board I've taken meetings many places where a video call wouldn't be appropriate or possible. During the pandemic I've been home more, but as hopefully that is coming to an end I expect video calls to be more difficult. It feels like you're trying to put a technological barrier in place to people participating. Ted
Thanks ted,
The board has never had a mandate to set the goals of the project.
This proposal says nothing about the goals of the project. Not sure why you brought it up.
volunteer efforts, and we can't (and shouldn't) tell people what to do with their spare time. So what actually gets done depends on individuals and what they care about and want to get done.
This culture makes sense for a developer. But it's a very bad way to conduct a committee. Perhaps this is where we've gone wrong here. There is responsibility to being in this position which is a step above the casual "care about" culture of a casual developer. People, users and developers Depend on us, and we should not conduct ourselves with such carelessness.
Overall, I feel like your demands for video meetings come from a position of extreme privilege.
Conducting text meetings is likewise extreme privilege. There are technical and social advantages and disadvantages to both. I'm sure different people can be accommodated and nothing in this proposal requires everyone to always attend. Hopefully we can get to a state where very little is needed from the committee, but that is not where we are today.
Over all ted, this committee is failing at it's basic functions. There are large numbers of the active community who are very unhappy with our work here (or lack of it) and I can't blame them for being utterly profoundly furious with us. I come back to the word: Responsibility. The project needs a committee which takes it's responsibilities seriously, one that recognises that this is a bigger project than it used to be. Our community is asking us to step up.
Ted, Please consider supporting committee meetings.
Best Regards, Martin Owens
I believe the board should play a more active roll in facilitating Inkscape's development (both code and community). That was my hope when I pushed for monthly board meetings. To be blunt, the fact we are sitting on such a large chunk of unused donations shows a complete failure of the current board (me included). While it's not the boards role to direct development, it is the board's roll to enable the community to use the donations to further Inkscape. One step would be to let the community know exactly what is needed to fund projects.
I think that a video conference with SFC is a good idea. It may or may not prove to be useful but we need to start trying to find ways to improve the way we work.
We have a myriad of things to use the money on too. We need at least one Windows developer to make sure our releases are performant (at least up to the standards of the competition). If we don't do that soon, we're likely to lose the majority of our users to the likes of Affinity Designer, since Windows users constitute the majority of our user base. More generally, we need to be able to put together plans to fill in the gaps for parts of the project that require people to either do stuff they don't like (an alternative to telling people what to do, which I agree should not be a function of the committee). It's not reasonable to expect our users or developers to put that plan together for us. We need to be proactive in that, and I believe that monthly meetings would help.
I'd also like to point out that since we did have meetings that were more than just status updates, more things have been getting done, and I think it's a big reason why the project has grown. Maybe they were completely invalid as status updates, but they have served us well, and I think we should continue them in some form. Whether or not that's video is up to whether people want video or not. I think we should provide the option. IRC has more of a technological barrier than video chat these days. It's easy for people to connect and use BBB or jitsi. IRC is still a pain for regular users.
-C
On Fri, Jun 18, 2021 at 10:13 PM tavmjong@free.fr wrote:
I believe the board should play a more active roll in facilitating Inkscape's development (both code and community). That was my hope when I pushed for monthly board meetings. To be blunt, the fact we are sitting on such a large chunk of unused donations shows a complete failure of the current board (me included). While it's not the boards role to direct development, it is the board's roll to enable the community to use the donations to further Inkscape. One step would be to let the community know exactly what is needed to fund projects.
I think that a video conference with SFC is a good idea. It may or may not prove to be useful but we need to start trying to find ways to improve the way we work. _______________________________________________ Inkscape Board of Directors mailing list -- inkscape-board@lists.inkscape.org To unsubscribe send an email to inkscape-board-leave@lists.inkscape.org
On Jun 18 2021, at 10:52 am, Martin Owens doctormo@geek-2.com wrote:
volunteer efforts, and we can't (and shouldn't) tell people what to do with their spare time. So what actually gets done depends on individuals and what they care about and want to get done.
This culture makes sense for a developer. But it's a very bad way to conduct a committee. Perhaps this is where we've gone wrong here. There is responsibility to being in this position which is a step above the casual "care about" culture of a casual developer. People, users and developers Depend on us, and we should not conduct ourselves with such carelessness.
Woah, drama. Didn't realize we were a life critical organization.
Ted, Please consider supporting committee meetings.
I'll find it interesting to see what you propose. I'd ask though that you consider proposing how you think things should actually work instead of proposing a discussion to talk about how things should work. As you've noted, we need actual proposals to implement to move forward. Ted
On Fri, Jun 18, 2021 at 2:13 PM tavmjong@free.fr wrote:
I believe the board should play a more active roll in facilitating Inkscape's development (both code and community).
I do not think this is unreasonable. But as awkward as it is, it sounds like we're going to need to: 1) Have a meeting to discuss what we think the scope and duties of the committee should be. 2) Hold a vote on the mailing list based on said meeting to ask for a community vote to approve the changes (or if we have a copy of the video call that is publicly published we can probably get away with our vote to get a community vote in the call). 3) Granted we agree on changes in authority, responsibilities, etc... ask the community if we should change the scope of the committee to fit that (and possibly modify the charter if needed) to actually empower us to do this. As bureaucratic as that sounds, I won't agree to us unilaterally giving ourselves more authority without community backing. If there was a decision for the committee to become an actual authority without the community approving first, I'd have to resign.
That was my hope when I pushed for monthly board meetings. To be blunt, the fact we are sitting on such a large chunk of unused donations shows a complete failure of the current board (me included). While it's not the boards role to direct development, it is the board's roll to enable the community to use the donations to further Inkscape. One step would be to let the community know exactly what is needed to fund projects.
I don't know that "complete failure" is appropriate phrasing. I'm not offended if that's what people think. However, it was never our role to decide on behalf of the project to come up with ways to spend money. Our role was simply to ensure we're not spending the organization's funds in irresponsible ways. We've DEFINITELY dipped our toes into various pools of coming up with ways to spend money over the years (chats, mailing lists, in person conversation), but it's never been in our mandate to make those things happen. The thing to note, we generally reach a consensus on what we think are right approaches, but nobody ever runs the ball into the endzone. Ideas are a dime a dozen. We all have come up with and shared great ideas over the years. The fact that nobody (at least to my recollection) has ever followed through with a detailed enough proposal of how to achieve them, run with one as a proof of concept via faith/sweat equity that they'd retroactively get compensated, or otherwise made them come to fruition just to prove a point should give people pause.
I think that a video conference with SFC is a good idea. It may or may not prove to be useful but we need to start trying to find ways to improve the way we work.
Yeah, I think we need a meeting before a meeting with SFC. They're stretched incredibly thin and the reality of our situation is we don't have any solid questions/ideas to put forth and it's honestly not their job nor worth their time to help us wade through at this stage.
Cheers, Josh
On Fri, Jun 18, 2021 at 2:59 PM C R cajhne@gmail.com wrote:
We have a myriad of things to use the money on too.
Agreed.
We need at least one Windows developer to make sure our releases are performant (at least up to the standards of the competition).
Agreed... We realistically need to take care of our MAC and *nix users too. We need to fund optimizations and tailoring where possible on all platforms we claim to support, imho. Logically following that, we also need people to actively optimize for ARM where possible as well.
We need to be proactive in that, and I believe that monthly meetings would help.
Let's have a first meeting to figure out changing the scope of the committee then.
I'd also like to point out that since we did have meetings that were more
than just status updates, more things have been getting done, and I think it's a big reason why the project has grown.
I'm just going to kindly and gently disagree. I'd attribute it to a lucky influx of new blood. Excited people who get involved, take on more responsibility, and just have that undeniable fire in their belly is what I believe you've witnessed in terms of more things getting done. I've been with the project long enough to see just about everyone except Ted drop off over time from the original developer community. I adminned for years for GSoC and saw new blood come in and saw the ebbs and flows that came with that motivated energy. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just sharing my opinion based on a long history with the project. Energy, excitement, and the feeling of possibilities gets stuff done better than any other motivators I've ever witnessed.
IRC is still a pain for regular users.
Aren't we primarily on Rocket.chat for chat style communications these days? Given the recent exodus from freenode, IRC is definitely not what I'd recommend to people. That said, the last time I tried the rocketchat app on Android it's complete garbage compared to any proprietary alternative.
Cheers, Josh
Alright I'm going to circle back around to business...
I'm in favor of a video chat to address the scope of the committee's purpose/responsibilities. I do not believe we need SFC involved in that initial meeting unless they would like to be involved. I think the meeting needs to come up with a proposal to then discuss with SFC. We can go to the community from there.
Cheers, Josh
On Thu, Jun 17, 2021 at 9:25 AM Martin Owens doctormo@geek-2.com wrote:
Dear Inkscape Committee,
After our detailed discussion with Karen and Pono, it's becoming more clear that we should be running Committee Meetings via a video chat service. There is a great need to have more discussion, debate and decision making process at specified times and places outside of this mailing list and I believe that the SFC's suggestion of using their big blue button server is actually their gentle hint that running a higher bandwidth meeting would benefit the project greatly.
I propose that we start running committee meetings. This meeting would be a distinct and different event from the existing status update event, where activate items have their updates relayed to the rest of the project. But would instead focus on many of the processes, problems, activities and votes which are involved in being a responsible committee for the Inkscape project.
To kick off this series of meetings, I'd like to invite Pono to chair the first meeting. The hope here is that the SFC can instruct us on the right way to conduct a more structured and productive meeting via video chat and then from there on we would conduct meetings monthly, with reports and recordings to the mailing list. Using this as a template.
Should this idea meet with general approval from the rest of the board, Ted would contact the SFC to formally request a suitable date and time which the SFC would be available to offer this initial meeting and when the majority of the current comittee members would be available. The agenta would focus on reviewing the basics of meeting operation and our questions to the SFC about running ourselves better.
I believe having this meeting structure is essential before we can conduct much of the rest of the business for Inkscpe we must have a decision making process which is more attentive than the current mailing list approach where I don't believe proper quorum can be achieved which raises doubts bout the legitimacy of the decisions we make here.
A vote will follow after period for comments.
Best Regards, Martin Owens _______________________________________________ Inkscape Board of Directors mailing list -- inkscape-board@lists.inkscape.org To unsubscribe send an email to inkscape-board-leave@lists.inkscape.org
On Jun 18 2021, at 4:13 pm, tavmjong@free.fr wrote:
One step would be to let the community know exactly what is needed to fund projects.
I think that sounds like a great idea, is that you taking writing that up on as a task?
I think that a video conference with SFC is a good idea. It may or may not prove to be useful but we need to start trying to find ways to improve the way we work.
A conference call with the SFC is fine with me, but I'm afraid ya'll are going to be disappointed with what they say. Spending money is hard work, and largely all of the work is defining the project and agreeing on scope and deliverables. The SFC can't help with those things. Someone to do the work to define the projects and get agreement with a contractor on a price is what we need, not more complex meetings. Ted
On Jun 18 2021, at 4:59 pm, C R cajhne@gmail.com wrote:
We need at least one Windows developer to make sure our releases are performant
Ah, that's interesting. What part of that do you you think we could contract out? Could you write that up? Probably working on a measurement of performant would be important. Do you know of any contractors or developers who would be willing to bid on that? I think that if we had a proposal and a contractor that would be a good thing for us to fund. Ted
On Jun 18 2021, at 5:35 pm, Josh Andler scislac@gmail.com wrote:
ask the community if we should change the scope of the committee to fit that (and possibly modify the charter if needed) to actually empower us to do this. As bureaucratic as that sounds, I won't agree to us unilaterally giving ourselves more authority without community backing. If there was a decision for the committee to become an actual authority without the community approving first, I'd have to resign.
No worries, any change that drastic would require a change of the charter and a vote of the community, your resignation is safe 😉 While I'm skeptical that any "top down" control of the project would be helpful, I'm curious what gating people think the board should be doing. Not up for requiring board sign off on every MR. Ted
participants (5)
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C R -
Josh Andler -
Martin Owens -
tavmjong＠free.fr -
Ted Gould