Re: Meeting Minutes Published - March 29th, 2011

[Martyn Russell <martyn lanedo com>]

On 15/04/11 14:45, Bastien Nocera wrote:
> On Fri, 2011-04-15 at 11:39 +0100, Martyn Russell wrote:
> We wanted to discuss with someone involved in that space what our
> options were.It's an informal chat about what could be done. Andreas
> took on the action item, and chose to talk with Ryan because he knows
> Ryan well.
>
> If I had taken on the action item, I'd probably have asked Robert
> McQueen or Murray Cumming because I know them well, and have had plenty
> of interaction with them.

This does really just illustrate what I am trying to point out. Doesn't 
it make more sense to have a mailing list for all companies involved in 
GNOME to discuss things like this instead of asking specific people from 
specific companies? You would get much more feedback and a more general 
consensus.

> We wanted opinion on how we could have the Foundaton provide what some
> third-party developers were asking for. Andreas chose to talk to Ryan
> about it. It's informal, and an information gathering exercise. Ryan
> won't be the one making decisions in the end, the Board will be.

Sure. But the board then makes a decision based on one person's view, 
not the collective view of businesses around GNOME which could be 
offering such services.

> <snip>
> > We told Stormy last year at GUADEC that we really need a forum or way
> > for potential customers to contact businesses around GNOME and get
> > support for the GNOME stack. We have seen first hand how companies have
> > offered services when they don't have the expertise and subsequently
> > frightened off larger corporations as a result. We want to avoid this too.
>
> That would be a problem here, especially if the list was filled in by
> the companies themselves.

You need *some* dialog with companies otherwise you don't know what's on 
offer as a foundation acting on behalf of GNOME for small business.

> > Please can we have some open forum about this instead of expecting one
> > person in the community who isn't representative of all companies with
> > maintainers in those areas, being contacted?
>
> He's not representing anyone, and he won't be a decision maker in the
> process. The representatives would be contacted once we have a more
> accomplished idea about this.

What's to decide?

The representatives which Ryan informs you about?

Idea about offering services? Surely asking many people yields better 
results than asking just one person?

> But, at the end of the day, you can also help yourself by providing us
> with your feedback, or better, stepping up to the plate and do the work
> to fill those needs and help us help you.

Gladly, just let me know what you want feedback on. What work is needed?

I was actually planning on doing something with Stormy during the past 
year, but never got around to it (that's my fault of course).

> Ranting and raving about how we want to have an informal chat with
> someone about a topic you might be interested is counter-productive.

Where did I rant?

I actually suggested a more open forum to help you get that "informal 
chat" from more sources to help you make a more informed decision.

> Returning to the topic at hand. Do any of the companies you mentioned
> provide developer support for GTK+? I've had the experience of providing
> developer support for Red Hat (that did include fixing Motif bugs...),

Yes.

We certainly do of course.

I am confident Collabora and Igalia do or have, perhaps even Openismus. 
In the end, unless you ask *us* how can you know? I am guessing based on 
rumour and upstream contributions. You can't know for sure without 
approaching companies.

> and most of the questions were about:
> - migration from one platform to another

Do you have more context here, or an example even?

> - best practices when needing to change the implementation

We can provide that (if you mean specific code bases like GTK+). Kris 
Rietveld (from Lanedo) even did a talk about it last year at GUADEC 
which might be available somewhere. He spoke about vendor specific 
branches and working with upstream repositories.

> - (possible) bugs found in underlying libraries that (might) need
> fixing, usually caused by bad or lacking documentation, or actual bugs.

What's the question here?

> All of this is quite a different proposition from providing a turn-key
> finished application, especially with the depth of the stack we provide.

Not sure what you're saying here?

> I'm waiting to hear about your ideas on this.

The above is, at best, hard to interpret. If you have a formal list of 
things to ask, please make it public here and I can reply certainly.

Pleasant weekend all,

--
Regards,
Martyn