September 2017 - Inkscape Devel

CMake Address/Memory/Thread/Undefined Sanitizer support
by Michael Soegtrop 09 Sep '17

09 Sep '17

Dear Jabier, as discussed, I tested the Sanitzer builds with Debian 9 - works well. I can now configure 4 sanitizer variants with CMake D Parameters like this: -D SANITIZE_ADDRESS=ON -D SANITIZE_MEMORY=OFF -D SANITIZE_THREAD=OFF -D SANITIZE_UNDEFINED=ON address and undefined can be enabled together, the other two options require separate builds with only one option enabled. When I set export ASAN_OPTIONS=halt_on_error=0 before you start inkscape, it will not stop on errors. Then you get the output in sanitizer-sample-1.txt until inkscape reaches the main screen. It looks all like new/delete mismatches which usually come from forgetting to define a destructor virtual. If I disable these as well with: export ASAN_OPTIONS=new_delete_type_mismatch=0 it is clean until reaching main screen. The second attached file is from shutdown and shows just memory leaks. So chances are not bad that the Sanitizer will be useful for specific issues without a lot of upfront debugging. The detection and configuration of the sanitizers is done by CMake scripts I took from another project (compatible licenses). You get all 4 variants with gcc 6.xx. With earlier variants only the address sanitizer works. The changes to the inkscape CMake files are minimal, all is in separate CMake modules. I will do some more tests on Saturday and do a pull request then, but you can already look at it here: https://gitlab.com/MSoegtrop/inkscape/commits/sanitizer It is just one commit you can easily merge. Best regards, Michael P.S.: attachments as ZIP didn't get through and are way large unzipped. If someone is interested in the Sanitizer errors, please send me a mail.

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Funded development thoughts (long)
by Bryce Harrington 08 Sep '17

08 Sep '17

There's been interest of late in figuring out some options for funding development work on Inkscape. I'm thrilled to hear this as I also think it's an important direction for Inkscape's longer term health, and something I've been working on directly myself for some time now. I promised Martin I'd write a thorough response to his proposal, including the course of action I think we should undertake, which makes for a long read, so I apologize upfront about the length. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ First, let me share my thoughts on Patreon and why we should not rely on it for our *project* needs. Patreon looks interesting for individual developers, but for the Inkscape project in general what we really need is a mechanism to direct and focus funds towards the issues our donors, users, and developers care about collectively, and to provide them with a level of accountability that the funds are being put to good use for tangible, predictable benefits. Patreon is undirected, simply providing funding for whatever the recipient wishes to do. It provides no mechanisms for review, guidance, or transparency. Martin suggested advertising placement on the Inkscape website and utilizing trademark legal enforcement as a carrot/stick mechanism to help ensure the recipients are at least working actively on Inkscape. However, website placement is likely going to be contentious since it relies on donors selecting who to fund. They'll either pick the most popular, the guy at the top of the list, the biggest self-promotor, or randomly. We can strive very hard to make it "fair" but with money involved there will always be complaints, and someone feeling that someone else is getting more funding priority than they "deserve". Despite our best of intentions, this feels likely to turn into a can of worms. The use of trademark enforcement is an interesting angle, by restricting who can label themselves as "Inkscape Developers". However, I believe trademark law does not work that way, and even if it did would be difficult to enforce, requiring the involvement of the Conservancy to issue cease-and-desist letters -- I think we'd end up deciding the marginal benefits would not make up for the time, manpower, and stress investments of dealing with abusers flouting our trademark rules. It may work adequately as a gentlemen's agreement, but if someone truly challenges it, I fear our enforcement will be revealed to be a paper tiger. But we needn't overthink it to that level - fundamentally, restricting how other developers define themselves within our community is at odds with our egalitarian principles, and does not respect the development freedom we cherish. If someone wants to refer to themselves as an Inkscape Developer, we should encourage it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fortunately, we can achieve a much better approach by focusing our efforts more intently into the funded projects system already under way. Paid developer work has been long discussed in our project. We've looked at bounty systems, direct patron sponsorship, straight up contracting, and so on, that other projects have experimented with. We approached the Software Conservancy with these ideas and hashed them out into a workable system, after months of discussion and drafting. The essence of the system is straightforward: 1. We post a list of approved jobs, similar to our GSoC lists. 2. Money from donations can be directed towards jobs the donors want to see done. Small donations can be aggregated together to provide big funding for larger efforts. 3. We carefully vet developers who wish to take jobs, similar to how we vet GSoC students, but also judge their past work, history of Inkscape involvement, etc. 4. Vetted developers can take approved jobs when the funding level reaches the amount they feel is appropriate to the work, by sending in a Job Proposal (similar to GSoC), that we review and accept. 5. Developers are required to post monthly reports, just like GSoC. Each job also defines an expected time limit, like with GSoC. 6. On job completion, a Reviewer checks that the requirements were met, and the payment is cut. The process is strongly modeled after Google Summer of Code, which has been proven effective for us historically. It builds in several checkpoints to ensure bad actors don't enter the system, and to ensure accountability and transparency into the development work. It also empowers and leverage donors to influence where their money gets invested, both to give them a level of ownership and to use their donation decisions as "crowd wisdom" to ensure we're putting money where it will most benefit the Inkscape community's needs. One important distinction from GSoC is that jobs don't need to be fixed sized to fit 3-month summer schedules. This system should work for quick turn-around 1-2 week projects, up to multi-month or even year-long efforts. Whatever we need. It also doesn't have to be feature work, but could target bug fixing, website work, documentation. Whatever we need. A final benefit - this system's already been reviewed and approved by Software Conservancy's lawyers. So, while there might be some bumps along the way, there is no reason we can't start using it immediately. What I have been working on myself is Django-based software that would enable us to scale the system up to handle a multitude of project ideas, track jobs in various states of completion, and coordiate work by arbitrary numbers of developers, vetters, and reviewers. It aims to also directly hook the donation system into the project listings so a donor has instant feedback of the effect of their funds. This is complex, as you can imagine, and with my time being in short supply it's been slow going. However, for small scale needs the software is superfluous, we can do all the same steps manually, tracking status in a google spreadsheet or whatever. And for the near term, I think we should. Here's what we'd need to do: * Designate several people to defined roles: 1. Fundraising coordinator. 2. Vetter (must be a board member) 3. Reviewer * Add more Job definitions. + For each Job we define Completion Criteria + Board can vote to make certain of them immediately fundable. * Organize an online fundraiser. + Set up is just as we've done for hackfest fundraising, but with a detailed list of what Jobs are specifically being funded. + Donated funds are distributed equally to the specific Jobs we list. + Board can vote to assign Inkscape funds, too. * Recruit developers to participate + We already know of several (Mc, Tav); put out a call for more + Vetter will receive job proposals and review applicants, check that they've been actively contributing, and look able to complete assigned work, have provided payment details, etc. + Once vetter gives OK on a given job proposal, work can begin immediately When the work is done, the Reviewer reviews it, and I notify Conservancy to cut a check or wire transfer to the person that did it. This system is set up to make payments after completion, rather than reliably regular monthly payments, and I know that will be an issue for people needing predictable income for covering monthly rent and so on. One way we can hack around that is instead of defining one big 3-month job, to break it up into three 1-month (160 hr, $2000+) jobs assigned to them that they perform sequentially. This will require more reviewer involvement, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. For all of this to work, though, I would need to recruit a number of you to help out in various roles. I don't think these roles will be time consuming, but you'd need to commit to being available regularly as stuff comes up. How does this plan sound in concept? Bryce

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User feedback from forum
by Maren Hachmann 08 Sep '17

08 Sep '17

Some very nice user feedback that I think you'd enjoy reading, from this forum thread: http://www.inkscapeforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=32905 --------------- New to Inkscape, very thankful about it by ken » Fri Sep 08, 2017 3:22 pm I would like to praise the creators and maintainers of Inkscape, and the Inkscape community as well, for the great free software you all brought to reality. I'm still learning many things about Inkscape, I started using it some days ago, I needed a free option because of my budget, and I found in Inkscape a great alternative. It is far above my expectations, and many times, when I find something new and useful in it, I get impressed with the quality of your work, and I feel thankful for having such a good and useful software for free. Thank you very much, I hope I can retribute your efforts. --------------- Maren

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Election Inkscape Vectors Team: Nominations
by unknown＠example.com 07 Sep '17

07 Sep '17

Dear Inkscape Developer, There is a new election underway to elect a new member to Inkscape Vectors Team, you have 4 days (Sept. 9, 2017) to invite members of the community to stand for the election. ---- This election has been called to test the election software. It's a work in progress and although a lot has been done to try and get this software ready, we do need a live test before we can start a proper board election using it. ---- You must be a member of the team on the website in order to vote or invite candidates to stand. You must make sure that your team membership status is settled before the vote opens in order for your ballot to be created in time. Send invitation: http://www.inkscape.org/en/*inkscape-vectors/elections/test-election-2017/

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[karen@...3057...: Conservancy mini-conf around FOSDEM]
by Bryce Harrington 05 Sep '17

05 Sep '17

Let me know if you'd be interested in attending this event in Brussels to represent Inkscape. Bryce ----- Forwarded message from Karen Sandler <karen@...3057...> ----- Date: Tue, 05 Sep 2017 14:50:17 -0400 From: Karen Sandler <karen@...3057...> To: Project Reps <project-reps@...3057...> Cc: Staff <staff@...3057...> Subject: Conservancy mini-conf around FOSDEM Reply-To: karen@...3057... Hi project reps! We're strongly considering holding a Conservancy mini-conference around this coming FOSDEM, which has been announced for February 3rd and 4th in Brussels. We've often been asked over the years to organize an event like this and in addition struggle during FOSDEM to find the time to meet with everyone who wants to meet with us. Would you mind surveying key participants in your project to see if they are planning to attend FOSDEM, if they would be interested in such a meeting and, if so, whether the Friday before or Monday after FOSDEM would be more convenient for them? We've got a lot of projects in Conservancy now, so please let us know what you find out off-list :) thanks! karen Karen M. Sandler Executive Director, Software Freedom Conservancy __________ Become a Supporter today! http://sfconservancy.org/supporter/ ----- End forwarded message -----

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Be careful with icons
by C R 05 Sep '17

05 Sep '17

Right-Click > Image Properties currently fails to bring up Object Attributes dialogue in trunk. This is because of a missing icon dialog-object-attributes.svg Just a reminder that mucking with the icons can break Inkscape functionality. Thanks. -C

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LPE on grouped shapes
by Jabier Arraiza 05 Sep '17

05 Sep '17

Hi all. I all I just commit a fix to allow LPE on shapes across nested groups, also improved in paths. Please test it and report problems in: https://bugs.launchpad.net/inksc ape/+bug/1242170 Cheers, Jabier.

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Election Inkscape Vectors Team: Nominations
by unknown＠example.com 05 Sep '17

05 Sep '17

Dear Inkscape Developer, There is a new election underway to elect a new member to Inkscape Vectors Team, you have 4 days (Sept. 9, 2017) to invite members of the community to stand for the election. ---- This election has been called to test the election software. It's a work in progress and although a lot has been done to try and get this software ready, we do need a live test before we can start a proper board election using it. ---- You must be a member of the team on the website in order to vote or invite candidates to stand. You must make sure that your team membership status is settled before the vote opens in order for your ballot to be created in time. Send invitation: http://www.inkscape.org/en/*inkscape-vectors/elections/test-election-2017/

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x86 MSI installer detected as a malware
by Daniel Berteaud 04 Sep '17

04 Sep '17

Hi. Since 0.92.2, a few antivirus programs detects the x86 MSI installer as a malware (Avast, Sophos and AVG see the Other:Malware-gen signature). See https://www.virustotal.com/#/file/665507b85422f25350736b8b47a50931521bc7e2b… for details The x64 MSI is not affected. This is most likely a false positive, but as the file is quite big, I cannot submit it to Avast as such for example. Anyway, I think you might be interested in knowing this. Not sure what can be done. Cheers, Daniel -- Logo FWS *Daniel Berteaud* FIREWALL-SERVICES SAS. Société de Services en Logiciels Libres Tel : 05 56 64 15 32 <tel:0556641532> Visio : http://vroom.fws.fr/dani /www.firewall-services.com/

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Inkscape Board Meeting (note earlier time!)
by Bryce Harrington 02 Sep '17

02 Sep '17

A 2-hour earlier time is scheduled for this month's board meeting[1]. Friday, Sep 1st, at 10am Pacific time in #inkscape-devel. As always, all members of the community are welcome to participate. http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Board_Meetings Agenda: + GSoC 2017 wrap up + Sponsor acceptance/approval criteria + Board election status + Other business Bryce 1: The earlier time was discussed last meeting, so when we have development meetings after, we aren't keeping European folks up too late. https://inkscape.org/en/gallery/item/11250/

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