What would make you become an associate member?
I am a member!
For those who are not members what is holding you back?
I'm also going to ask what skills do people have?
If you can't contribute financially can you contribute some other skill? What languages (non-coding) do you know? Are you familiar with drupal, administration, or have other coding skills? Are you a graphics person? Can you write press releases? Are you familiar with SEO techniques?
Maybe we can improve Trisqual's financial resources by working together. Simply documenting what people are capable of doing and collecting email addresses might be a good start.
Sense of Direction
For being an Ubuntu based distro, the benefit for the Trisquel team is that there is a company out there (Canonical) that is testing their packages for the Ubuntu release that others can benefit from. Kinda like with CentOS and Scientific Linux where Red Hat puts a lot of money into their Enterprise edition and releases the source code. Trisquel can go back to being a straight Debian distro, but more effort would be needed to bring consistency to what is essentially a rolling distro. Linux Mint does this with their Debian edition and they have had to resort to "update packs" to bring some sanity back.
With all that said, there still is somewhat of a lack of direction for the Trisquel project since it is essentially one guy handling it all. I don't know if people don't want to help or its an ego thing, but it slows down the release. Ubuntu is on a strict 6 month schedule and Linux Mint gets a release within a month after the Ubuntu one. I know that the Trisquel team goes to the beat of their own drum, but when they rely on Ubuntu releases that can have short lifespans, it is important to get a Trisquel release out as soon as possible. Especially if anyone wants to deploy this in the enterprise and the Trisquel team waits a few months and the end user loses at least 3 months of support when they install.
Attitude on the forums
I have always been super gung-ho about this operating system since I installed 4.0. What drew me to the OS was how beautiful it was for a Gnome 2 based distro and the strict adherence to free software. I not only installed it for myself, but other family members who had no issues in using it on a daily basis.
I do admit I have been passionate in my views on these forums, but as of late, I am getting verbally attacked and called a troll. The post I have may have genuine information and opinion, but it doesn't matter to some people. Of course if I respond, I always have someone contacting Ruben asking for my banning and he emails me. I have never resorted to name calling on these forums and it shows the maturity of some of its users.
Conclusion
I know this is a long post, but I have thought about in the past to contribute to this project either by donating or buying something on Think Penguin. Soon after my viewpoint changed after I got the impression that many people on this forum are somewhat cultish and extremely passive aggressive towards a viewpoint. Heck, even if I did contribute, my name would then be tied to this account and I seriously don't trust what some of you would do with that information. Sorry.
So to the team... please develop a schedule on when the next release comes out and at least try to get Unity on 6.0 for some of us users. We need to have some confidence in this project actually following through if they want our money. Please don't turn this project into a glorified panhandler.
you have joined & remained here since May 2011. how is that you are still confused about whether to contribute(money/dev/non-dev)?
I would request you to please not to rant without concern to its effect on other forum members. Be inspiring instead.
Although the schedule is not official, it exists. Trisquel's versions usually are released during the LibrePlanet conference and for the Free Software Day (it is going to be September 15th this year). This bi-annual pace is about five months delayed w.r.t. Ubuntu's. As a home user, I am happy with it: I prefer not to go go through the issues met by early adopters of Ubuntu. For companies/institutions, the five month shift applies to the support and I believe it is not a big deal either since these users usually want to stick to LTS releases (for more stability), which are supported 4 years and 7 months (the 5 year-support of Ubuntu minus the 5 month shift) with a 2 years and 7 months that are overlapping with the availability of the next LTS.
You did not clearly answer Chris' question: "what is holding you back to contribute financially/technically to the project?". Is your answer "I would if the governance makes a commitment to reduce delays w.r.t. Ubuntu's releases and work on a new Unity-based edition"? If so, don't you think your contribution should precede this greatly augmented load of work for the developers (otherwise this augmentation may never be possible)?
I am a member!
t3g: Magic Banana makes a good point here about the problem existing because of the lack of resources (people/money). Rubén doesn't have the time to deal with setting a definite schedule, maintaining the forums, etc. If he gets sick there isn't anybody who can take up the slack. If his other job requires him to work late to meet a deadline that's time from working on Trisquel. With other distributions there are more participants in the development process and paid developers. There is someone to manage the projects. Responsibilities can be delegated. Not so with Trisquel. Even with volunteers it makes more sense for Rubén to do stuff himself because volunteers (except the most dedicated) distract him from getting real work done. They take up more time to manage than they contribute in other words.
If we want to see Trisquel improve then we need to find the money. Especially now. It's not Rubén's burden to get things done on a specific deadline. It's our burden as users to get him situated (financially) so he can meet deadlines.
Rubén's not demanding $99 for each and every upgrade. He's not charging for access to the download servers or repositories. These are things he could charge for and it would still be legitimately free software. Trisquel would still be complaint with the four freedoms.
Trisquel isn't about being available for no cost. It's about the freedom.
t3g: Maybe I should ask you this. It sounds like your reasoning is "Trisquel isn't doing what I want so I won't contribute". Yet you are still using it. It would be one thing if Trisquel was non-free. It seems like another though if it is free and the project simply isn't able to meet your demands. The fact you are using it suggests to me (provided you are able) that you should contribute (if things are to be fair).
You wouldn't go into a restaurant and not tip the waiter when you were served even if they didn't meet your full expectations would you? This does assume you are in a country where the waiter's pay is what you voluntarily tip (largely). I certainly wouldn't.
If Rubén "made official" the unofficial schedule (without any guarantees of course) and put this up on the web site would you contribute? How much would you contribute?
I also just want to point out that Rubén's not actually delaying the release to a detrimental degree. The security updates which are from the Ubuntu project are available for a long time after each new release of Trisquel. This is to give people time to upgrade. The security updates for older short term releases are available for so long that even Trisquel users should not have a problem sticking with an outdated version for a long time. Trisquel 5.0 will get security updates until October 2012. It was released in April. That means you have about 7 months after a new release of Trisquel to upgrade. If you can't find the time to upgrade within that time period you need to look at the long term releases.
One last thing. It might seem childish to attack you- but don't take it too personally. The people here are here for freedom. If your views don't match the accepted definitions of this community then you should find a different distribution/community which does. I think your views actually match the Debians position more than Trisquels or the Free Software Foundation.
I say this because Debian also tries to exclude non-free software all the while supporting it. Debian does not prevent or inhibit (and even encourages it from the Free Software Perspective) the installation of non-free software. They make it slightly more difficult though. They setup separate repositories and instruct users how to install the non-free software. This largely makes it possible to run mostly free software as long as you don't add one of the non-free repositories. Debian does take a stance on freedom though unlike many distributions. Linux Mint, Ubuntu, and most other distributions include non-free drivers/firmware in the shipping ISO. Debian (at least with the most recent version) does not (from my understanding). They now require you to add the non-free repository and manually install non-free firmware.
I sometimes take it from the perspective if I were to start a new company and outfit the computers with a version of GNU/Linux. What do I choose? I'm not going to pay for Red Hat and CentOS is not really my taste. I like the Ubuntu ecosystem and the 5 years of support for the LTS releases, but the main release can dabble in non-free software. Trisquel is FSF approved and pretty so people who are used to Windows 7 will feel at home with the menus and transparent bottom panel.
There's also the worry that the project could go away and not be supported or I have no idea on when a new version comes out if I have 100+ computers. I know my way around a system and wouldn't need a support package from a company like Canonical or Red Hat unless absoluately necessary. Don't have that at this point with Trisquel since the team is so small but maybe down the road?
With the LTS versions of Ubuntu, it is usually recommended to wait for the .1 point release or higher as some fixes with the installer and upgrading from a previous LTS are fixed. I know that Ubuntu 12.04.1 will be released in August and I suppose that would be a good release for Trisquel 6.0 to be based off of. I see the benefits of those who upgrade from Trisquel 4.0 to 6.0 to hopefully be as smooth as Ubuntu 10.04.4 to 12.04.1 since they use the same Update Manager.
I'll be honest... I'm a Unity convert. I'm a Pisces and artistic, so one of the initial reasons for picking Trisquel over Ubuntu was the default theme. I hate the orange and brown theme that Ubuntu uses and if a future Trisquel release can bring over the sexy to Unity in Trisquel 6.0, then I would be giddy.
I think I tried to email grvrulz but his email didn't exist or whatever becuase I'm really gung ho about his themes and curious on his progress is on getting Unity locked and loaded in Trisquel. It would be nice if Unity showed up in LightDM and GDM in Trisquel 5.5. :-(
Oh and one more thing about people ragging on me on these forums... I have a thick skin and kinda have a taste for the theatrical. I did teach improv to students while in college and I don't take it to heart. :-)
I am a member!
See- if your not using Trisquel for freedom's sake wouldn't it be easier to use Trisquel's theme on Ubuntu instead? I guess that is what you were trying to do by sending the above email. Anyway. It seems like it might be wise to just stay away from the Trisquel forums in this instance.
No, the pretty interface was the first thing that got me interested in trying Trisquel and from then on I was able to change my daily habits to be more aware about free software. I learned to use different tools for programming and stick to free software and open standards for my daily use. I kicked my Adobe habit and haven't touched Photoshop, Illustrator, or Dreamweaver in over a year.
We all have to start somewhere and the path is different for everyone. Heck, some people find true love with a stripper while this other guy had to go through 2 divorces to find his. Or they got it right on the first time and live happily ever after.
I am a member!
:) Maybe I'm not paying attention closely enough or not understanding what it is your talking about. I seem to recall you going on about how there was nothing wrong with non-free software. I think it might have related to commercial games or something similar.
You are right where I said in the past that I like video games and that I supported commercial games. Some of the people here drew the line in the sand and said that they were bad and Steam is evil and games like Halo or Zelda shouldn't exist because they disrespect the user I'm regard to not having the source code.
I then said videogames are art and I really don't care if they are closed source because I didn't put the effort into creating it and don't have the right to the code. Free software shines when software is used as a tool to create software for the greater good and support open standards. With a game, my purpose is to consume it as entertainment and not serve webpages or help educate a student in how to code Java.
I can see Trisquel really shining in a library or school where the use is to educate and not make a profit. If used in a corporate environment there could be breaking of the free software mentality if the user uses Trisquel to create proprietary software.
I don't want this post be derailed so I'll start:
I am Red Baptist and I used to be a paid blogger and I can translate English to Filipino. I have been a Trisquel GNU/Linux user for over a year and would love to contribute my off-work time and attention to make Trisquel even better. I would contribute financially if not for the meager salary I receive for my family's daily needs.
I would love to get rid of spammers on these forums.
You can contact me thru my profile in these forums or my Statusnet account at parlementum.net.
I can't contribute financially because I do not work and live with my parents. I don't manage my own money. I could translate the website to pt_BR but I'm not sure how to do it. I also have _some_ coding experience in C, Java, Vala, Python and Haskell (though I started to hate this last) from what I've read in books. I've never developed something serious, mostly a little more than book exercises so development tutoring would be a must. A documentation about "how to start helping" - like what skills to expect from you (inkscape, gimp, c, bash, sysadmin etc) - along with the existing "how to help" would be more helpful.
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Having a formal foundation and organization, with public reports showing
where the money goes would get my money.
Something like this:
http://sfconservancy.org/blog/2012/jan/16/fy-2010-form-990/
F.
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I don't know if it is normal to have only one lead developer. Perhaps it is. A bit of single mindedness is a good thing sometimes, I think. But to have the whole Trisquel OS reliant on a single developer is a bit precarious and can't be a good thing.
How many other developers are actively involved in improving Trisquel?
But to have the whole Trisquel OS reliant on a single developer is a bit precarious and can't be a good thing.
That is the point of asking for financial or technical contributions to the project. I repeat Chris' question: "What is holding you back?".
Would like to support Trisquel. I don't know enough about Linux or distributions to know how I can help (I'm a C/C++/assembly software developer).
Some background:
I believe in Trisquel. I want to support it. I use it on my desktop for MOST computing. I would use it on my laptop all the time even if I could only get even backup drivers to work supporting my laptop's full 1600x1200 resolution, but no matter what I've tried it only comes up 1024x768 with no other settings / options (Toshiba laptop). I could live without everything else support, but not the screen. (And FWIW, even the proprietary AMD driver doesn't work properly on this laptop. If I want to be able to switch back to the laptop's display, I have to boot up using only the laptop's display, and THEN plug in my HDMI cable to use my external monitor (or both). Horrible closed-source drivers :-( ... ).
I would love to use Trisquel for all my computing. I completely fell in love with Trisquel 5.0. Don't like Trisquel 5.5 at all because of GNOME 3 and the fallback mode. But more importantly than that, I need some features its kernel doesn't support (which are really only accelerated AMD graphics as these are integrated into my motherboards).
Right now I use Trisquel 5.0 for 90% of desktop use. And I have no choice but to use Ubuntu on my laptop 100% of the time.
What can I do to help Trisquel? If there's a way I can help get the recently released AMD open-source drivers working ... point me in the right direction and I'll go for it.
Best regards,
Rick C. Hodgin
--- On Thu, 6/7/12, name at domain <name at domain> wrote:
> From: name at domain <name at domain>
> Subject: [Trisquel-users] What would make you become an associate member?
> To: name at domain
> Date: Thursday, June 7, 2012, 8:43 PM
> For those who are not members what is
> holding you back?
>
> I'm also going to ask what skills do people have?
>
> If you can't contribute financially can you contribute some
> other skill? What languages (non-coding) do you know? Are
> you familiar with drupal, administration, or have other
> coding skills? Are you a graphics person? Can you write
> press releases? Are you familiar with SEO techniques?
>
> Maybe we can improve Trisqual's financial resources by
> working together. Simply documenting what people are capable
> of doing and collecting email addresses might be a good
> start.
>
> What can I do to help Trisquel? If there's a way I can help get the
> recently released AMD open-source drivers working ... point me in the
> right direction and I'll go for it.
These drivers (as they have been doing for years) require nonfree
microcode which is sourceless and (for modern cards) has a license
forbidding reverse engineering. There is completely no AMD cooperation
on replacing it. I don't expect this to be easy to fix (although
Nouveau developers probably did similar tasks for different
architectures).
(My reason for not being a member is not using PayPal, this can change.
I don't contribute to Trisquel in programming ways, since I don't
experience easier bugs and have several other projects I spend not
enough time on.)
Rick -
You can install MATE from http://mate-desktop.org and then install the trisquel-themes-gtk and trisquel-icons manually for the 5.0 release to get the Gnome 2 look in 5.5. The program names will be different like caja instead of nautilus and may require manual tweaks to be exactly like Trisquel 5.0.
On 06/08/2012 11:12 AM, name at domain wrote:
> You can install MATE from http://mate-desktop.org and then install the
> trisquel-themes-gtk and trisquel-icons manually for the 5.0 release to
> get the Gnome 2 look in 5.5. The program names will be different like
> caja instead of nautilus and may require manual tweaks to be exactly
> like Trisquel 5.0.
>
Thanks, tegskywalker! :-)
Best regards,
Rick C. Hodgin
> For those who are not members what is holding you back?
Funds. I am on the verge of donating to freedom (in the form of either
the fsfe or Trisquel membership. I doubt I could afford both) I'm
weighing up the value of my money to each party. I have previously been
a member of the fsf. I am also on the verge of changing job and moving
away; so I don't know what the future holds financially.
> I'm also going to ask what skills do people have?
I'm a computer programmer/software engineer by day (and by night in my
spare time). Although it is not my main domain, I know enough web coding
(server and client side, various technologies) to get by. I am a long
time GNU/Linux user (previously debian, currently migrating to
trisquel).
> If you can't contribute financially can you contribute some other
> skill? What languages (non-coding) do you know? Are you familiar with
> drupal, administration, or have other coding skills? Are you a
> graphics person? Can you write press releases? Are you familiar with
> SEO techniques?
I've spent some time looking through the trisquel repos, trying to get
familiar with how the system works in the hope of spotting a niche my
skills can fill. Any guidance to what needs doing would help.
I am willing to spend some of my free time working on trisquel.
Kevin, there are non-monetary ways to help the project. See the how to help page.
I am a member!
On Jun 7, 2012 7:44 PM, <name at domain> wrote:
>
> For those who are not members what is holding you back?
I just became a member. I have been using GNU/Linux for a little over 15
years both at home and work. I've been through many up's and down's with
many, many distros. Some are nothing but a footnote in computing history.
I became interested in this distro and became a member because this distro,
project, and community has a huge potential and a lot to offer. I want to
be a part of that, and do what I can to help continue the success and build
upon it.
> I'm also going to ask what skills do people have?
>
I am a systems developer and test engineer. In other words... I sling code
and break code. I have already volunteered, but I (and I recommend this to
all volunteers) am taking it slow, observing, and being a sponge at first.
A bunch of gung-ho volunteers running in and creating chaos can doom a
project.
Which leads to my first suggestion: Organize.
There needs to be a volunteer coordinator. A person who organizes the
volunteers by skill and time commitment. A person who can take a list of
tasks that the project needs taken care of and can then assign them out to
their pool of volunteer assets, track them, and minimize the chaos as much
as possible while taking that huge load off of the lead developer's
shoulders.
Cheers,
Jeramy
I am a member!
I'm actually making a quick list of all the people here, skills, and potential for becoming a member.
---
2nd: this isn't directed at you specifically.
I'm already a very busy person though. I am going to try and see if I can't help with the organisation a bit. If there is someone who is:
1. dedicated
2. has the time
3. has some idea on how to organise (if you can write an email it's a good start, if you can edit a wiki, setup a wiki, etc even better)
Then this might be the the time to put your hand up! Yes- right now!
That is if you are really willing and able to make the commitment.
I'm not that good from the traditional programming sense in like C or Java, but I have over a decade of programming experience with HTML/CSS and JavaScript/jQuery and PHP. Also experience in MySQL and MongoDB.
The thing with those skills is that they are very common and I bet like the majority of people on this forum have related skills.
On 08/06/12 20:21, name at domain wrote:
> That is if you are really willing and able to make the commitment.
While I'm not 'really willing,' as you put it, to do coordination I have
appropriate experience and skills. It's not something I enjoy very
much, to the extent that I jumped off the management track and back onto
the technical one. What I can do is offer to be a part time gopher / PA
to someone who is, including you Chris, until someone willing is found.
In the medium term I'll need the sweetener of technical or writing stuff
to keep my motivation. For now I'll be OK with the odd pat on the head
and thanks for doing something for whoever.
--
With computer technology we're building a world where Orwell's 1984
could be a childhood fantasy akin to Santa Claus. What makes you
think software without ethics is tenable?
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
I am a member!
On Fri, Jun 8, 2012 at 4:58 PM, Andrew Lindley
<name at domain> wrote:
> On 08/06/12 20:21, name at domain wrote:
....snip...
>
> In the medium term I'll need the sweetener of technical or writing stuff
> to keep my motivation. For now I'll be OK with the odd pat on the head
> and thanks for doing something for whoever.
>
....snip....
There's another idea! People love titles and being able to say that
they are a part of something. Titles give them a sense of being a key
piece of the pie... so to speak.
So there's another idea that might work to get more folks involved and
helping. Put up adverts and links where people can apply to become
"Wiki Content Developers", "Forum Designers", etc. etc. etc.
That gives people a sense of importance, that key part of being a part
of the team, and just might be enough of a "sweetener" or motivator to
get folks to come in and lend a hand with things however they can.
For what it's worth..
Cheers,
Jeramy
I am a member!
On Fri, Jun 8, 2012 at 2:21 PM, <name at domain> wrote:
> I'm actually making a quick list of all the people here, skills, and
> potential for becoming a member.
>
> I'm already a very busy person though. I am going to try and see if I can't
> help with the organisation a bit. If there is someone who is:
>
> 1. dedicated
> 2. has the time
> 3. has some idea on how to organise (if you can write an email it's a good
> start, if you can edit a wiki, setup a wiki, etc even better)
>
> Then this might be the the time to put your hand up! Yes- right now!
>
> That is if you are really willing and able to make the commitment.
I think when it comes to organizing a project, or even simply
attempting to organize certain parts of it (like the volunteer
effort), a team would be the way to go. That way the time asked of
any one person isn't too great. You have a better opportunity to
respond to volunteers in a timely manor. Let's say there were 25
volunteers. Let's then say that each volunteer sent an average of 2-4
emails to the volunteer coordinator person a day. You can see where
there would easily be a backlog. A team of 4 or 5 trusted volunteers
would be able to handle that with greater ease. Initially, I would
think that those 4 or 5 folks would work closely with the lead
developer in finding out what exactly he needs, would help him, and
provide feedback to him to come up with a plan to go forward with.
From that, the team would go through the volunteers and figure out who
would fit where, and how. Maybe even form teams of volunteers to take
care of certain areas (i.e. the web development team, the wiki team,
the bug report triage team, etc.) to help further get the project
organized.
Cheers,
Jeramy
I am a translator!
Hello Chris, if you are making such a list, I'd like to be on it as a translator. I can translate between English, German and Russian, being most proficient in the later two.
I can write HTML and code in Java and JavaScript, but it would take me way more time to do anything than a real programmer.
I've tried contacting Ruben two times about translations, but got no response.
I am a member!
I'll add you to the list. It really should be a public list although for now it isn't. We need a wiki. the Trisquel site probably has an appropriate place to do it. If someone wants to point me to a good spot I'll post the list. In fact this would probably be a good idea as then other new people who come across this discussion list could add themselves
to the wiki. Then we could pull people from that list when we find tasks that need to get done.
One thing I have to say is talk is cheap. I'm no saint. Action is much harder and I do like to talk a lot. Unfortunately like most people I'm involved in wayyy too much as it is. Communicating with Rubén I'm sure isn't going to make this any easier. He gets a lot of mail and I'm sure he can frequently skims over and then misses stuff. Partly due to putting off responding to emails. When you want to do a proper response... things take longer.
I'll try and talk to Rubén one of these days and see if we can't carve something out that would work. I'm sure he likes the idea of making parts of it more community oriented. It's the problems which get created by doing so (more work for him, assigning permissions, etc).
Quite honestly I think the best approach would be to look at Maegia as an example and setup something similar on a smaller scale.
They have a board of directors. They have a council.
The council doesn't do much. The board of directors does most of it although isn't terribly involved either I don't think. They just vote on stuff and organise the overall participants.
Maybe what we could do is have a small council with three or so people (like myself, Rubén, and someone else who has been working with Trisquel a while). And these people wouldn't have to be really involved in the project. Just a guiding force. Maybe someone who is following everything closely rather than someone who is actively developing.
Then we could have the board which might be made up of three or so people. The trick is actually finding three people who are able and willing to dedicate the time each week to meeting. Maybe some better tools would work. Or just a mailing list for the board and then a wiki for proposals which must be decided on. Each board member could vote. And who elects the board could be decided by associate members? (just a thought).
Then maybe we could separate infrastructure a bit and title someone administrator. Setup a virtual private server. This way tasks could be more easily delegated as opposed to having mail/web/forums/etc together. And restoring from a screw up would be relatively easy regardless of who might take over the post later.
I'm not sure how hard it would be right now to separate concerns. I think it wouldn't be too terribly time consuming though for Rubén to do. I've done it enough times to know what a pain it is although it isn't that bad time wise. We probably just need to export the drupal database and tar a directory. Then we could move it to a VPS, setup automated nightly off-site backups, and occasionally do a bit for bit backup.
Give my role I say ThinkPenguin can fund it :) but maybe Rubén will think it unnecessary. Really all of this is Rubén's call.
I think I've got plenty of ideas to summarise for Rubén once I find the time to write him an email.
>We need a wiki. the Trisquel site probably has an appropriate place to do it.
Say right here http://trisquel.info/en/wiki/skillbase (doesn't yet exist)
I'm sure quidam won't mind and it can be moved later if needed. Makes me happy to see some many people willing to help the project!
On 08/06/12 01:43, name at domain wrote:
> I'm also going to ask what skills do people have?
>
I've recently freed up a chunk of my personal time. Trisquel can have it.
I know enough of the following to bug hunt and patch:
C/C++, Python, Bash scripts, PHP
I've done a couple of Drupal sites but that was two years ago.
Obviously I know [X]HTML and CSS well enough, but I'm not up to date
with HTML5 Canvas (I have the books.)
I also write British English well enough to have been published in small
time magazines in non-computing fields. However, I don't have
experience in writing for an International or non-first language
audience so I would need an alt/mentor/editor.
The realities of my disability are that I don't know how much time I can
offer Trisquel. I could for example be in hospital next week, or back
in what you might call 'survival mode' at any time. As such I judge it
a bad use of quidam's time for him to mentor me.
That said, I've had a varied 28 year career in computing. There's none
of the roles in Trisquel that I haven't done as at least part of my job
for other non-free systems. In short I have the skills and concepts not
the Trisquel & GNU/Linux specific knowledges. So pick a priority role,
give me a reading list and someone other than quidam as first line
question answerer and I'll give it a go.
Leny
--
With computer technology we're building a world where Orwell's 1984
could be a childhood fantasy akin to Santa Claus. What makes you
think software without ethics is tenable?
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
I am a member!
It's great to hear from everybody. Lets see if we can keep this up!
I'm probably going to contact some people including Rubén and see what he thinks. At a minimal there are some projects I think we could and should start that won't be a distraction to Rubén. One thing we shouldn't do is fear our efforts will be a distraction because then it can be a guaranteed loss on what is otherwise possible.
Another question. Who here knows Trisquel's web site and workings? Who has what editing permissions for translations? Maybe we can get additional languages added.
I think Rubén is the one who has to give these permissions at the moment. Based on what people have said they could do I'll probably write an email or two and see if we can't get a number of things rolling based on said skills and other factors.
And keep this thread going...
On 08/06/2012 21:30, name at domain wrote:
> Another question. Who here knows Trisquel's web site and workings? Who
> has what editing permissions for translations? Maybe we can get
> additional languages added.
My impression is that for the time being only Rubén will be working on
the website's administrative aspects.
The reason being that the website cannot really be version controlled,
so if someone breaks the website it would at worst require a restore
from an older backup, possibly losing content. Such a worse case
scenario is very slim given the parts of the site that volunteers could
be allowed to work on. If he starts letting people make a mess there
then his time will be wasted in fixing things.
The structural/administrative aspects are managed unlike content
revisions and the package helpers. Both content and system settings are
stored in the database and it is not that easy to get Drupal to be fully
version controlled. However, there are ways to externalise some things,
like Content Types and Views, by using the Features module. That will
allow volunteers to test website modifications on their own servers and
then they can send the modules/diffs back to Rubén to check out, but
that adds more work for him again. It will also produce more headaches
if the volunteer needs a copy of the website in order to play with it
because the database contains private user data like email addresses.
However, I have not noticed anything strangely complex here, so it
should be possible to attempt to create a skeleton of the website and
then a volunteer can fill it with dummy content (using Devel's
autogenerate). But anyhow, this is Rubén's call. If he wants anyone to
help develop or fix bugs on the website he'll either have to make the
website be exportable so volunteers can hack on it, or he'll have to
find someone competent that he trusts enough to grant direct access.
As far as translations go, Rubén is still the only one to grant
permissions and add languages. The above argument applies here
(slightly) but the bigger problem is that the translators need to be
active. This is the biggest problem with people wanting to add their
language. They will need to provide a nearly full translation of the
site /and/ keep adding translations. One-man teams are more likely to
fall behind. As for the current languages, German still does not even
have a release announcement for Trisquel 5.5. It looks bad when
important posts like that are not translated.
I am still not sure how we can better manage the translators.
--
Morne Alberts
I am a member!
Maybe what we can do is come up with some ideas to solve these problems.
How frequently do you think the website would really go down? If some data was lost what is the worse case scenario? What data is of significant importance? At most I would expect one day of content to be lost and a setup where Rubén didn't have to get involved in restoration.
I think the translation issue could probably be solved by better management. We don't really have a manager right now. We have Rubén, a developer. Lets put together some policies on this subject.
For instance lets not add new languages until we have multiple translators to participate. We can put out a list and once we have sufficient volunteers (lets say 2 for now) we will add the language.
Why don't we start this by creating a public wiki people can edit.
We can put proposals on it for policies. Then we can submit a summary of our goals (separate Rubén's need to manage simpler things that we have multiple capable volunteers for, so he can focus on development) and how we intend to resolve the problems through policy.
What we should do is figure out from the list of volunteers who we can use (because there are multiple volunteers) to write up little resumes describing past projects (personal or real world), experience, etc.
Then we can write up a voting system of some kind (policy, wiki it) and figure out who would be willing to participate in management (council members).
Once we come to a general agreement we can put all this forth to Rubén.
I think a good start is just getting up a wiki. I'm definitely willing to write up some proposals on how I think the system should work. Then we can post to the forum what changes and problems people see and see if we can find solutions for them.
Can anybody volunteer an appropriate place to start this wiki? Either on the Trisquel site- or I can setup and fund a VPS to get us started. If things don't work out- or we need to change them (like not use a VPS, etc) we can go from there. Alternatively maybe there is a good freedom friendly wiki elsewhere we can utilise.
Suggestions?
On 12/06/2012 08:12, name at domain wrote:
> How frequently do you think the website would really go down? If some
To be honest, if somebody is competent and not malicious there should
never really be a problem except in the case of gross negligence.
Besides custom PHP development, and possibly broken/orphaned Rules, you
cannot really break a Drupal website using the GUI backend. As long as
you don't delete content/field definitions, you should be able to
reverse changes using the backend. There is enough granularity to allow
a Translations Manager of sort. There is also enough to allow somebody
to manage Views/displays and content types without getting access to
everything else.
> data was lost what is the worse case scenario? What data is of
> significant importance? At most I would expect one day of content to be
> lost and a setup where Rubén didn't have to get involved in restoration.
Only if data is actually deleted would it be a 'worse case'. Screwing up
a View or something that controls display can be reversed (sometimes
with some effort, but still).
I'm not sure what Rubén stores behind the scenes, but as far as public
information goes it would be all the posts and all user login details. I
don't think membership is actually.
I know Linode does a daily backup, although that fails once in a while.
For example, one of my Linodes failed a daily backup yesterday. But in
general that automated daily backup should be a relatively good failsafe
in case the site sustains crippling damage -- whether by negligence or
malice.
A concern with giving someone a permission like "Administer Content" is
that there exists the risk that existing data can be damaged or tampered
with. The same with a User Administration permission. But like I
mentioned, this won't happen for no reason. I realise that Rubén will
have to really trust the people he gives website modification rights to,
especially when there is no version control. Although, as you mentioned,
with something like Linode's daily backup we can restore a recent backup
and revoke that user's rights. As long as the server itself has not been
compromised, we shouldn't have an issue.
> I think the translation issue could probably be solved by better
> management. We don't really have a manager right now. We have Rubén, a
> developer. Lets put together some policies on this subject.
>
> For instance lets not add new languages until we have multiple
> translators to participate. We can put out a list and once we have
> sufficient volunteers (lets say 2 for now) we will add the language.
>
> Why don't we start this by creating a public wiki people can edit.
Have a look at this thread:
https://trisquel.info/en/forum/seriously-facing-trisquel-website-translations
We were discussing translation management and I pointed Rubén to it in
IRC. I'm not sure if he read all of it in much detail because he was
travelling at that time.
We also created a Translations wiki with most of the information we
could put together, including a manually updated list of all pages:
https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/website-translations
I have not looked at this again because there is not much I can do
directly. The wiki still needs to be updated and we should probably
confirm with all the users currently listed as translators if they are
actually still active.
I have offered to help with translation management in that thread and
multiple times in IRC. I realise that I have not been here that long and
that I don't really have a big presence, like, for example, you with
ThinkPenguin. Anyhow, my offer still stands but it is up to Rubén to do
something going forward. I've given some (Drupal) implementation ideas
in that thread, but beyond that I'm not going to actively pursue this
any further. It is slightly frustrating but I understand why Rubén would
be reluctant to allow anyone to just have access to the website's
backend and I know his thoughts are more on the actual distro anyway. So
I'll assist translators in IRC or wherever, but I'm also slowly moving
my focus to learning about and assisting with bug fixing.
> I think a good start is just getting up a wiki. I'm definitely willing
> to write up some proposals on how I think the system should work. Then
> we can post to the forum what changes and problems people see and see if
> we can find solutions for them.
>
> Can anybody volunteer an appropriate place to start this wiki? Either on
> the Trisquel site- or I can setup and fund a VPS to get us started. If
> things don't work out- or we need to change them (like not use a VPS,
> etc) we can go from there. Alternatively maybe there is a good freedom
> friendly wiki elsewhere we can utilise.
>
> Suggestions?
You could/should probably do that on a wiki here. We can all edit those
pages and it would be the least amount of effort for the time being,
unless you envision that we need more functionality to manage this?
If you do a wiki here, give it a Book Outline of 'Documentation' and
link it to one of the existing pages, maybe 'How to help'. With that
outline setting we can create sub-pages that can be linked to your main
wiki page.
--
Morne Alberts
On 12/06/2012 20:36, Morne Alberts wrote:
> I'm not sure what Rubén stores behind the scenes, but as far as public
> information goes it would be all the posts and all user login details. I
> don't think membership is actually.
What I meant to say was that I don't think the membership and donation
details here are much more than simply marking a user as being a member
and making an entry when a user donates. The actual financial aspects
are handled through PayPal (or wherever), so even if the website was
damaged it shouldn't disrupt membership horribly either.
--
Morne Alberts
I am a member!
I skimmed the translation page. That seems like a good start.
https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/website-translations
We should probably have regular team meetings and/or council meetings. Even if this meant at certain intervals. Like weekly prior to the run up to a release. This way we could make sure the pages were translated before the official release. Working alongside Rubén makes more sense than doing translations after the fact.
Small teams could probably be contacted by a team lead whose responsibility it would be to confirm the translation team(s) are doing the translations and report back to the council any problems/changes/etc.
This brings up another good point. As far as I know we don't really have an official roadmap. That's ok. But we should document in a calendar/wiki when, where, and who is responsible for what aspects. I was looking at the documentation and noticed something was written up for 4.0. Wow- is that an old release. Again maybe a documentation lead / lead coordinator can take this responsibility and update that.
Then either automate the emails to alert translator and others of upcoming obligations (translation prior to a release for instance). This would give people time figure out when they will have time. As opposed to translators maybe or maybe not knowing a release was even made available. And then users having to wait even longer for the translations.
I have gone and added a wiki page here:
https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/proposed-policies-procedures-solutions
What problems did I leave out of that? What solutions are bad/or what solutions might be better? Whom should we put into the proposed leadership slots? Which posts should we eliminate? There are probably too many posts right now. There aren't going to be enough people to fill them all. Maybe we can merge some.
I'll let others edit and add themselves (or others) in some of the spots. The list of below volunteers can be used as a basis. The descriptions of people are taken from this forum so if anything is badly worded/offensive please fix it. I wrote that out without much thought or intention to publish as is publicly. Use it like 'scrap paper'.
I'll become a member today, but I'd also like to help run a Trisquel (or free software/free GNU/Linux in general) YouTube channel, or website, like I posted about months ago. It'd also be cool to run a free software podcast in the way TheLinuxAction show does, or make a more user oriented FAIF.us-like podcast.
I think LibreCast would be a good podcast, and for a Trisquel and free software oriented site or YouTube channel (or both) could be called TrisquelUser (or something else).
Wouldn't it be nice to direct users with common problems to an informative how-to video? A podcast could inform any user about what the components of the latest issues are, or what the beef is about some new version of a free program. Also, most YouTube videos for GNU/Linux help simply suck, and tell users how to work with "Linux" or "open source."
I know it's not much, but I'm pretty good with English grammar and usage. I could help proofread documentation, and things like that.
I have done a bit of programming before, but I've never done any "real" programming. I might be able to help with some programming tasks but I don't even know where to begin.
I think it would be nice if there was some kind of tutorial for new contributors that would show how to do various things. Like examples of past bugs that have been fixed, with a step by step explanation of what was done to fix it.
I am a member!
I think we actually need a tutorial on search. I'm not kidding either. Most people seem incapable of effectively utilising search to locate information. I myself find at times new features that I've never used before that can really help in locating information.
Just to give you an example. If you try searching for particular products or type of content it is often available in certain regions or on certain domains.
Knowing that you can use certain words to limit the scope of your search and reduce the amount of work it takes to find what you are looking for.
For example:
Go to Google and search for a movie.
Note what types of sites come up. Are they specific to your region? Will they stream the movie to you? In a lot of cases (particularly here) I bet not.
Now if you are looking for sites which are compatible with your operating system, or a particular movie, there are certain domains which you can tell the search engine to search in order to limit the results.
Try searching for: Revolution OS (this may be a bad example)
Then try searching for:
Revolution OS site:.eu
or
Revolution OS site:.co.uk
Chances are better you will find a company which has the licensing rights to stream this film to you. This particular movie is probably a bad example although it may work well for other movies.
Lets say I want to search for video content and want to limit the results to sites which have ogg theora/and or html5 content due to compatibility with my preferred OS/browser (real world examples for Trisquel users).
First- find out what sites are freedom friendly. A quick search appears to result in a few: http://www.thevideobay.org/, http://www.dailymotion.com/, and http://www.youtube.com/ so that is where we will start:
revolution os search site:dailymotion.com OR site:youtube.com OR site:thevideobay.org
Now the results will only be from sites which offer the content compatible with my free software operating system.
But maybe that wasn't good enough. It was just too generic. Lets add some quotes to limit it to a particular phrase:
"revolution os" search site:dailymotion.com OR site:youtube.com OR site:thevideobay.org
Now I've found this movie from sources which have it in ogg theora / and or html5.
I've just completed my studies and I'm looking for a job. So I'll be able to be a member once I get a job and some money starts coming. :)
I'm quite proficient in HTML, CSS, PHP and Wordpress, but those look like common things and a lot of people here might have those. I also do some gtk themeing and I'm currently doing the Trisquel theme for gtk3.
I'm learning vala for gtk application development but it's in very early stages.
I know Hindi, that's my mother tongue, and I'll be happy to translate the website :)
>I know Hindi, that's my mother tongue, and I'll be happy to translate the website :)
I think that would be great! Hundreds of millions of people speak Hindi.
I'm already a member. It's probably only a drop in the bucket but I like to think that the monthly contribution keeps the Update Manager popping up in my dock from time-to-time.
I would like to help more! I'm a pythonista but am up for learning whatever. I've looked at a few tickets in the past but couldn't really figure out where to start. Are there tickets that can be piped to newbies that, with a little hand-holding, might get us on the right track?
Take a look at the page on package-helpers. You can also view a list of currently written ones here on the bazaar page. These are little scripts (usually awk and sed) which modify the packages we get from Ubuntu. A lot of time they may remove a string that recommends non-free software or sometimes a package may refer to the OS as Ubuntu and that needs to be fixed.
As far as python goes I asked specifically about perl and got this response "(10:30:58 AM) quidam: SirGrant: you could embed perl or python scripts in a helper, but just bash and some sed/awk should suffice". - So if you want to use python that is ok.
If you want to take a look at some bugs which should be on the tamer side I would look at these two pages: List of bugs that threaten Free System Status. These are critical bugs in which a package may have slipped through but tells the user to use non-free software. Fixing these is really important. The other is Comprehensive Trisquel Branding Issue Page. These issues are not quite as important but should be pretty easy to fix. Mostly they appear when as mentioned above the ubuntu/debian logo appears in a program or string. Usually the fix involves just changing the string or something like that.
I am a translator!
I read all the posts...
I'm a student and I'm supporting the FSF, I haven't got my money, so I cannot spend it freely. 60$ for the FSF for my parents are enough.
However, I can say something about what I would like in Trisquel...
1) I am a translator of the italian language, we are only three, but we have almost translated all the website in a few months. A big problem is that nobody can admininster translations and translators, only Rubén. Malberts tried to talk to him about that, but there is still no good administration. I had several times to write e-mails or into the IRC channel only for becoming a translator! This is not a good thing!
2)There is no volunteer admin, and so if I have a problem I have always to talk with Rubén that has yet enough problems...
3)The mailing lists are unused, so the lack of organization is more and more...
I'm helping doing translations, I'm not good with programming, I know only a bit of C++, HTML4 and Python, not very much for coding... But if there was someone who coordinates, he could help the learning coders giving them little works to do...
I am a member!
:) Well, this is what we are trying to do.
I'll prod some more although before I do lets work together on figuring out a plan of action. We need to write up some proposals of policies and how the system would work and *stay working*.
First thing we really need is a wiki!
I am a member!
I'll work on this some more once we have a wiki. I think it will be telling though as to this efforts success if we can't even get a wiki up.
I've already summarised everybody in a private wiki of my own. I'll push it up once we have somewhere to post it. I'll see if I can figure out from it which languages we might be able to translate for (and have multiple people) and which we would need more people for. As well as which languages people know and who might be a good person for a council position (management, voting on ideas/proposals/etc and general coordination).
I'm unemployed and very, very poor at the moment. I'll gladly help to fund Trisquel in the future, if i can. In the meantime i may have some skills (and time, for sure) to help in some way: I'm Portuguese and i have already volunteered to translate whatever i can to/from English/Portuguese. Ruben told me we would need at least three persons that could translate to Portuguese to get that started, so i'm waiting. I'm in the translators mailing list but i always feel a little bit lost and dispersed (not really used to these distributed organizational methods. I prefer the "DO THIS" approach. :) )
I also have excellent knowledge in XHTML, CSS and some less in Javascript. I'm starting to learn C and have some previous programming experience in Visual Basic (from back when i was young and innocent and used that other thing some call "operating system", but now i have thrown it out the windows.), also i'm always learning bash.
I always need some starting guidance but if someone gives me something to do related to translating and/or HTML/XHTML,CSS and Javascript i'll sure do it.