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