2011-11-05 meeting minutes

[Frederic Peters <fpeters gnome org>]

Release Team Meeting, 2011-11-05, 18h^W19h UTC
==============================================

Attendance
==========

Present:
 Alejandro Piñeiro Iglesias (API)
 Andre Klapper (andre)
 Frédéric Péters (fredp)
 Olav Vitters (bkor)
 Matthias Clasen (mclasen)

Missing:
 Colin Walters (walters)
 Javier Jardón (jjardon)
 Luca Ferretti (elleuca)
 Kjartan Maraas (kmaraas)

Agenda
======

 - Release assignments
 - Freeze merge
 - 3.3 Feature proposals
 - Bugzilla for freeze break requests
 - Status of "GNOME Goals" concept
 - When to kill fallback?
 - Misc

Release assignments
===================

2011-11-14: 3.2.2, API
2011-11-21: 3.3.2, still open, jjardon, elleuca ?
2011-12-19: 3.3.3, fredp

Freeze merge
============

Initial proposal is at https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2011-September/msg00178.html

- drop ui change announcements,
- merge feature freeze and ui freeze, and string announcement period.
- keep string and code freezes as is.

Bugzilla for freeze break requests
==================================

Initial proposal is at https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2011-September/msg00142.html

The release team is fine with any of the two options, we could change
at any time to Bugzilla flags if there are strong opinions in favour
of it, we'll bring the discussion back to desktop-devel-list.


3.3 Feature proposals
=====================

http://live.gnome.org/ThreePointThree/Features

+ Zoom options dialog (universal access)
  https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2011-October/msg00140.html
  → API will have a feature page written

+ Brightness and contrast functionality
  https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2011-October/msg00141.html
  → API will have a feature page written

+ Focus caret/tracking in GNOME Shell
  https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2011-October/msg00142.html
  → API will have a feature page written

+ Braille Translator for Print Documents
  https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2011-October/msg00143.html
  → dots will be pushed to #gnome-design for some polish

+ Information-efficient text-entry interface, driven by natural continuous pointing gestures
  https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2011-October/msg00144.html
  → bring dasher back to the -tested moduleset, and keep an eye on it,
    making sure it builds with our platform changes

+ Alternative input system based on low-cost webcam
  https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2011-October/msg00145.html
  → out at the moment, the feature would need to be integrated to be
    part of GNOME

+ Application menu / Actions
  https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointThree/Features/ApplicationMenu
  → desrt put out his gio menu model code on a branch, mclasen wrote
    some gtk test code, mclasen needs to push walters to take a stap
    at the shell side, hopes to get a prototype by end of November.

+ Blank slate helps you get started
  https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointThree/Features/Blank%20slate%20helps%20you%20get%20started
  → it's getting implemented in gedit

+ Boxes
  https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointThree/Features/Boxes
  → many commits, mclasen will push the developers to blog a progress report
    once they have something to show

+ Help Menus
  https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointThree/Features/HelpMenus
  → still unsure about the way it will fit with app menus, will
    probably need a pass in #gnome-design once we have an app menu
    prototype

+ IBus/XKB support
  https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointThree/Features/IBus
  → many pieces are there, but details remain to be sorted out

+ Jumplists
  https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointThree/Features/Jumplists
  → didn't heard much opinion of it from designers

+ Network zones
  https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointThree/Features/NetworkZones
  → many find the idea useful but all designers hate the idea, mclasen
    will update the page to reflect that

+ Lock Screen
  https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointThree/Features/ScreenLock
  → Jon has started to put designs on the wiki

+ System Dialogs
  https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointThree/Features/SystemDialogs
  → mclasen will ask stef

+ a11y themes
  http://live.gnome.org/Accessibility/ThreePointTwo/NiceToHaves
  → the feature page needs to be written


Status of "GNOME Goals" concept
===============================

Postponed waiting for jjardon, the questions andre have are:

 - who decides which proposed goals are "accepted" (and how and when?)
 - which module/-sets must get fixed so the goal can be closed as done

Additionnaly fredp notes we should work on automating the tracking,
those huge report pages on live.gnome.org are not maintainable, and
bkor notes tracker bugs aren't that difficult.


When to kill fallback?
======================

Prompted by a discussion on https://lwn.net/Articles/465728/ and the
improvements in software rendering, we probably want to come up with a
story to tell by the time we release 3.4, as we see how the plan works
out in Fedora 17, keeping careful like "we plan to make fallback mode
go away by 3.6, however might reconsider as per progress in lower stack
components and the general availability of them".