Proposed policies, procedures, & solutions

This wiki page is for drafting polices, procedures, and democratic/management of contributing users. This is NOT official and we are planning to write up a proposal to Rubén Rodríguez to ease his burden and further the project. Rubén Rodríguez is the lead developer and project founder.

Purpose: To develop systems, leadership, and reduce the burden on the lead developer.

Join the ongoing discussions:

Process to achieve this goal

1. Communicate with those interested in participation who have been unable or unwilling to contribute thus far via the Trisquel Forums. Started. Ongoing.

Forum Discussion: What would make you become an associate member?

2. Document skills, interests, and propose policies and procedures to ensure success of the objective here.

Proposals for leadership structure, roles, and responsibilities

Board of people not responsible for day to day organisation/leadership although directs the overall project direction (feedback):

Proposed people for this board: Rubén Rodríguez (quidam), lead developer, Christopher Waid (Chris), ?? who else is a dedicated and or got some involvement long term ??

Council: The people on the council would make coordinated decisions on various aspects of the project. These may or may not be the more minor changes. Team leads would ideally be the liaison to the council and most likely also council members due to the current size of the distribution. Who was on the council could be voted on by associate members.

Proposed council members

[ add your name here and a description of skills, background, etc + contact info at the bottom ]

Team leaders

[ what titles / roles do we need? ]

  • lead translator, translator
    • [malberts] I'm not an actual translator, but I could take on the role of managing the Drupal side of things or giving general assistance with the translation processes
  • lead developer, contributing developer, 'newbie' lead developer (for helping new developers)
  • documentation lead (to manage, keep up to date, wean, and document)
  • marketing / press relations / artwork lead / active in fund raising (to learn about and write up press releases, seek donations, etc)
  • systems admin / web lead (manage the back end, drupal, issue permissions, design backup/restore system, revision control, etc)
    • [malberts] I could assist with this too.

Problems brought up on the forum and proposed policy/solutions

Translations

  • Wikipage: Website Translations (was started, we need to move forward on this)
  • [malberts] I have been holding back because we need some feedback from Rubén. I've marked some things as TODO but some of them are pending some changes to the website/management. Ideally we should get feedback from new translators so we know what kinds of information they need. I've worked with and built a multilingual Drupal website before so it is easy for me to understand the process and I could miss something that a new translator might have trouble with.
  • Problem to solve: People start projects, and then leave, abandoned, disorganized, and unmaintainable.
  • Proposed policy: Require at least three volunteers before translations can be started (or at least incorporated).
    • [SirGrant]: Alternative would be have a certain amount of articles translated and ready to go. For example, if a user had all the front page articles and a decent amount of documentation translated I believe that would display enough investment to warrant adding a language without having 3 translators.
  • Proposed solution: Start wiki; Record the languages of volunteers. Once we have three contact volunteers to verify participation.

We should setup a calendar/schedule/roadmap. Even a roadmap that we were not constrained to would make it easier to alert translators and others to upcoming releases and meetings. Automation (send emails) would be even better.

We should contact all the current translators to get an idea of who is still active or not yet listed.

  • Side Project: For anyone interested in translation that doesn't have "translator status" please consider translating issues that you find on the bug tracker in your language to English.

Roadmap

  • looks like a roadmap was started here although very out of date; this should probably have info on when Trisquel releases occur. Probably a job for the lead coordinator/manager:

http://trisquel.info/en/wiki/documentation

Issue Tracker

  • Problem: (1) Lack of attention and regulation of issue tracker. Some critical freedom bugs are over 2 years old (example 1, example 2). (2) Some issues/bugs reported to the issue tracker are not appropriate and should be reported upstream (example 1, example 2). (3) Lack of development hands.
  • Proposed solutions:
    • Issue 3: Make it easier for new developers to join in.
      • Mentor program: Have a senior member hand-hold a interested person on how to fix simple bugs and become involved in development
      • Documentation: Clear up wiki-page on package helpers
    • Issue 2: Add a policy (see draft on dev list) for reporting bugs. This would make it easier to close bugs that do not follow the rules and re-direct them elsewhere.
    • Issue 1: Attempt to establish a time-frame for certain types of bugs. For example freedom bugs should be solved in a certain time frame. Maybe add another category besides "minor", "normal", and "critical". Maybe one that is "freedom issue" and these bugs take top priority and ideally should be solved ASAP. Other examples could include: issues marked as "need more info" with no followup in 3 months from the OP should be closed.

Associate Membership

Reasons people have not become Trisquel Associate Members:
  • Personal Finances (nothing the project can do about this)

Community Guidelines

Community volunteers

People who have put forth an interest on the forum that they would like to get involved; include contact info and description of skills/time/ability:


User: redbaptist

used trisquel for one year, was a paid blogger, can translate English to Filipino, does not make much money to support family "You can contact me thru my profile in these forums or my Statusnet account at parlementum.net."


User: horgeon

Can translate to Brazillian Portuguese does not work and lives with parents; has minimal coding experience in C, Java, Vala, Python and Haskell; learned from books


User: magicfab

  • Advocacy
  • QA/Testing, support/community channels (former Canonical support staff)

I'd like to see a formal foundation and organization, with public reports showing where the money goes and a formal roadmap. Perhaps The Software Freedom Conservancy could provide that.


User: rick-hodgin

C/C++/assembly software developer; needs direction in developing for GNU/Linux distributions


User: kevin-j-feltcher

computer programmer/software engineer by day (and by night in my spare time) Needs guidance to what needs doing though; willing to spend "some" of my free time working on trisquel. He can "get by" in the web development world even though it is not his main domain "spent some time looking through the trisquel repos, trying to get familiar with how the system work"


User: w5xtl AKA Jeramy Ross

Software Development Experience: Software engineer for 10+ years with language experience in C, C++, Python, Java, and various other less prominent languages.

GNU/Linux Experience: Have been a GNU/Linux user for 15 years (since 1997) and have experience with Slackware (first distro I used), Debian, RedHat, SuSE (and later OpenSuSE), and several others that were/are derived from these.

Languages: English

Time/Commitment: I am a working professional, and married with a family. So I do have those priorities; however, I am in this for the long term. I can and will commit whatever time I do have (which would average 10-20 hours a week) for the long term. I desire, and look forward to becoming a integral and productive member of the community and team in any capacity that I can.

Contact: Contact me via my profile here, and I can provide my email and phone information, as needed, to facilitate easier contact.


User: grvrulz

looking for a job, will get membership once employed, proficient in HTML, CSS, PHP and Wordpress, does gtk themeing and working on a Trisquel theme for gtk3, can translate Hindi


User: belovachap

knows python- how well? not sure-sounds like not much; couldn't figure out where to start based on tickets; says needs hand holding


User: sirgrant

Language(s): English only (despite translator badge)

Programming skills: Introductory level java. Will try to learn some bash scripting when I go to visit my dad in a few weeks (he is very good at it).

Availability:Work full time (~40 hours) and go dancing in my spare time. Try to spend a few hours a week contributing to the project. Willing to work on documentation and simple bug fixes.

Other:I have some admin features enabled on my account. I can delete wiki-pages and do things like mark bugs as fixed.


User: leny2010

Language(s): English only, but thanks to really bad quality French teaching at school I can read French and (Madrid) Spanish well enough to understand most Trisquel Issues in those languages

Programming skills: I know enough to patch C/C++, Bash, Pascal, Modula-2, REXX, Python, PHP and perhaps Perl and C#. GIT, Subversion, Mercurial and have used CVS in the past.

Availability: Presently only limited by my disability.

Other: I have 30 years in computing, latterly in custom software. Voluntary only since 2001 so my skills are not as well practised as some (but are better than the 'advanced' commercial course qualified and supposedly fluent custom software programmers I've met). Handling Trisquel issues as and when, odd patch submitted.


User: matsetes

Language(s): Italian, French, English

Programming skills: Knows only a bit of C++, HTML4 and Python although wants to learn/needs some direction.

Availability:Studies a lot (~42 hours per week), contributes on other projects (like translations of gnu.org and master on an RPG by chat), but interested if there is something he can do (he needs a bit of tips to do something more, cause not big programming skills).

Other:Helping doing translations for Italian; like being given "little works"


User: apvp

Could translate to Portuguese; Knows a little XHTML, CSS and some less in Javascript. Starting to learn C. Needs at least three persons before the translations will start.


User: malberts AKA Morne Alberts

Contacting me: On this website, OR malberts in IRC, OR ask for my Jabber details.

Languages: Afrikaans, English, minor experience in various West European languages, general interest in languages and linguistics.

Primary skills: Drupal 6 and 7 -- backend configuration, custom development, LAMP setup for Drupal multisites.

Bug fixing: Will attempt more when I am a little more proficient in tradional build environments.

Availability: Busy with full-time Drupal contract work at the moment.


User: andresm Andres

Contacting me: On this website, mailing list users and usuario (spanish and english) hopefully translator in near future.

Languages: English (UK but sometimes slip to USA) Spanish (spain)

Primary skills: little Translation little programing but little to show for myself. last attempt was using quickly (bazzar + glaze+ python). I am OK with writting instructions for other users.

Bug reporting: I am used to bug reporting on Ubuntu unsure about how to do it in

Availability: I have a job and family. But plan to have at least 30min set apart every Tuesday


User: oysterboy

Contacting me: On this website, translators' mailing list.

Languages: English and French.

Primary skills: English to French translation. Support newbie users. C++ software developer. Have also developed with Java, Python. Not familiar with GNU/Linux dev environment.

Availability: I have a job and family. Can do some stuff when time permits.


User: Aliasbody Luis Da Costa

I Know: C++/Qt, Java (AWT, SWING, JavaFX, Dalvik, Java2D), C# (GTK#, Windows Forms), PHP, Javascript (JQuery), HTML, ASP.Net (not very useful but still xD), MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Pascal, Shell Commands, Arch Linux Packaging

I Know (a little bit): Python, OpenGL, SDL, Ruby, UML, Git, Svn, Debian Packaging

Design: A little bit of Gimp but I'm not very good at it to be honest. Video Edition (I'm training :D) Audio Edition (I'm not bad at all in my Opinion)

Translations (Read and Write):

- Portuguese (Portugal) - Very Good

- French (France) - Very Good

- English (USA) - Good Enough

- Spanish (Spain) - More Reading than anything else

Others: I can Test Trisquel in 5 computers (4 laptops and 1 Desktop) all sort (netbook, "gaming" netbook, medium notebook, "high-end" notebook, "gaming" desktop). Documentation (maybe some grammatical errors but that can be solved with time) Donation (when the money allows me to). I can learn everything since I'm very interested in technology in general. Have a lot of ideas (my ideas are mostly used a few months later by enterprises like google and I finish mostly laughing to not taking action before xD). Big Retro-Gamer (I know this isn't a skill at all but I really love it :D)


User: jbar

Contacting me: On this website

Languages: Spanish (mother tongue) and English.

Primary skills: English to Spanish translation. Support newbie users.


User: bebeto aka Roberto

Contacting me:

On this website and sometimes at #trisquel IRC channel @ freenode.

Languages:

  • Natural: Portuguese (BR, mother tongue), English and I can read Spanish. (:
  • Programming: Java, Javascript, C/C++, PHP, HTML, CSS and Emacs Lisp (for fun).

Primary skills:

  • Translate (English to Portuguese);
  • Code;

Availability:

I can easily do 20 hours/week. Translating, developing, managing or whatever the community needs I'm up for the challenge.


User: Marcus

Contacting me: On this website

Languages: English and German.

Primary skills: Good knowledge in legal aspects, long term free software evangelist, skilled artist (already did design for several well known distributions), long term experience in working with large teams

Availability: I have a job and family. Can do some stuff when time permits.


User: systemovich

Contacting me:

Languages:

  • English
  • Afrikaans

Primary skills:

  • PHP, SQL, C++, C, Python, HTML, CSS, Javascript
  • MySQL, Qt, Bash command line
  • Debian packaging

Availability: Approximately 5 hours per week


User: composr AKA J. R. Omahen

Contacting me: On this website, composr in nearly every communication channel.

Languages: Afrikaans, English, Japanese, French, German, Quenya, Latin.General interest in language.

Primary skills: Development in C/C++ (applications), Assembler, LISP and Java. Foreign language skills as well.

Bug fixing: Working it in to my next round of work schedules.

Availability: Work as a Training Consultant for an "open-source" company, contributing to documentation and training materials.


User: rakubx

Contacting me : On this website / at #trisquel IRC channel @ freenode / mailing list

Skills : C / C++

Availability : 20 hours/week.


User: sirgazil

Contact: http://sirgazil.bitbucket.org/

Languages: Spanish (native), English (intermediate), Japanese (basic)

Availability: weekly, intermittently, for 8-10 hours.

Programming skills

  • Productive with standard compliant HTML and CSS
  • Intermediate Python programming
  • Starting with test-driven development
  • Basic experience in mercurial, git and bazaar
  • Python packaging

Translation skills

  • Mostly, English to Spanish translation. Occasionally, Spanish to English
  • I'm not used to translate chunks, but whole articles, books, websites and software titles
  • I have worked in English to Spanish translation in several projects: thinkpenguin.com, celtx.com, tatoeba.org, Artweaver software, and many others.

Documentation skills

  • I can write manuals in Spanish and English
  • I can proofread and make technical reviews
  • Productive with Sphinx, Mallard and Publican

Art skills

---

Support

  • Can try to help in IRC and forums

Programming skills

  • Basic Python, HTML/CSS

Documentation skills

  • Manuals in english, provide screenshots/casts

Teaching

  • Teaching others trisquel at my gnulinux club

Revisions

06/13/2012 - 00:49
Chris
06/13/2012 - 19:50
malberts
06/14/2012 - 07:28
SirGrant
06/15/2012 - 19:30
w5xtl
08/11/2012 - 11:38
lembas
09/24/2012 - 10:22
Michał Masłowski
10/17/2012 - 18:51
Andresm
10/17/2012 - 19:44
oysterboy
10/19/2012 - 21:01
aliasbody
10/26/2012 - 21:50
jbar
11/13/2012 - 16:33
bebeto
12/08/2012 - 18:33
Marcus
12/13/2012 - 15:12
MagicFab
12/14/2012 - 01:10
systemovich
12/14/2012 - 04:05
composr
12/14/2012 - 10:07
Matsetes
01/10/2013 - 16:29
leny2010
01/26/2013 - 01:14
rakubx
01/26/2013 - 20:03
anonymous
03/12/2013 - 18:47
SalmanMohammadi
09/03/2014 - 03:11
muhammed
12/07/2014 - 20:40
akfoss
03/10/2015 - 07:00
cinnamon