Outreach Program for Women IRC meetings take place in #opw on GIMPNet (irc.gnome.org). Anyone interested in participating or helping with the program is welcome in the channel.

During January-April internship period, we are having two meetings with a theme "What's there to learn?", as proposed by Sumana Harihareswara from Wikimedia. It's a great question one of the interns posed to her mentor. Representatives from the participating organizations present the big picture of their organization's workflow and various activities that have to happen for their software to get made and used.

This is a log from the first one of these meetings that took place on February 21, 2013. You might also like to review the log of the second meeting with presentations from Mozilla, GNOME, Deltacloud, Subversion, OpenITP.

In this Log

  • updates from interns about their work
  • presentations from 5 of the 10 participating organizations about the "big picture" of how their projects get done
    • Wikimedia - Sumana Harihareswara
    • Fedora - Máirín Duffy and Ralph Bean
    • JBoss - Anil Saldhana
    • OpenStack - Anne Gentle

    • Open Technology Institute - Jonathan Baldwin
  • design in the open discussion

In Attendance

Interns: aleta, anteaya, Deindre, gbg, housewifehacker, ingu, Isarra / APexilI, ladquin, llmelon, marija, mitevam, njerichelimo, Petra, priyanka_nag, salarcon, satabdi, smanuel16, sucheta, terrydactyl, tsabi, tunabananas, valeriej, vkmc, wowsig

Mentors and coordinators: andre, annegentle, asaldhan, danielsh, Dereckson, georgiabullen, hadess, iccha, jfuerth, jpich, jrbaldwin, karenesq, kittykat, marina, marktrauceur, mizmo, qgil, reed, sri, sumanah, threebean

Past interns: fabiana, fijii

Community members: pleia2, elleuca

Joined for the open design discussion: hbons, nirbheek

Pre-meeting Discussion

* sumanah (~sumanah@74.113.160.38) has joined #opw
<sumanah> hi folks, looking forward to talking about the Wikimedia software development process & all the skills there are to learn
<sumanah> we're such a huge software project and institution with so many nooks and crannies that I cannot possibly hope to COVER everything, but I can at least give an overview of what it takes to make this software & deliver it to the users
<sumanah> (and thus what skills are out there to learn, like release management, systems administration, bug triage, community management, user experience design & product management, testing & QA automation & process work....) which reminds me to ask you all:  if you had to think about what kinds of activity, work, jobs, skills there are in software creation  that you've only realized exist in the last 7 weeks, does anything come to mind?
<sumanah> sucheta: valeriej - I am particularly interested in your answers :)
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<vkmc> sumanah, User experience design! Loved it :)
<sumanah> vkmc: yeah :-)  I think it's important to be interdisciplinary and I fear my UX design skills are one of my weakest FLOSS skillsets
<fabiana> sumanah: it was just a while ago that I realized how important translations are, specially for oss
<sumanah> you're quite right and I think I missed that early in my career as well
<sumanah> Translations -- need to *make the software translatable* and also need to *help people do that translation and ensure those translations get deployed quickly* and also need to *help people actually use the software in multiple languages & input entry methods*
* fujii (~luciana@177.42.64.22) has joined #opw
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<valeriej> fabiana: +1
<anteaya> sumanah, push code early and get some review feedback, nothing is more frustrating than polishing a patch that is outdated by the time you push because priorities have changed
<anteaya> sumanah, broken or ugly code in the works, ready for discussion is a better situation
<Deindre> sumanah: if I can help you with translations, let me know, I'll be happy :)
<sumanah> Deindre: check out https://translatewiki.net/?setlang=it 
<sumanah> anteaya: I hear ya.  Yeah. http://webchick.net/embrace-the-chaos and "release early release often" and "fail faster" are easy to say but take habit changes to do!
<ladquin1> sumanah, continuous integration
<anteaya> sumanah, true that, just got told that yet again 5 minutes ago
<Deindre> sumanah: ok
* didinomade (~meda@26.241.106.109.adsl.dyn.beotel.net) has joined #opw
<sumanah> ladquin1: interesting. Yeah.  So, both setting up the continuous integration systems, and responding to errors & fixing them so the deployment can move forward
* Petra (~chatzilla@50.11.77.200) has joined #opw
<sumanah> hi Petra, good to see you! I don't see you enough around here
<Deindre> sumanah: Translation in italian is not perfect... may I do something for you?
<Petra> I have been busy on my mentor's channel
<sumanah> Deindre: yes! please do go ahead and improve the Italian translations of software
<ladquin1> sumanah, yes, I had the wrong idea that ci was some kind of optional luxury :P
<sumanah> ladquin1: Well, I think it is, for some projects
<sumanah> I can understand the thought
<sumanah> if I had to choose, for instance, to rank source control, bug tracking, and continuous integration, I would rank them in that order
* georgiabullen has quit (Leaving.)
<Petra> I wondered if anyone used this channel much.
<sumanah> I'm in here 2-3 times a week.
<sumanah> Feel free to lurk!
<sumanah> There are people talking in here every day.
<sumanah> I think.
<Petra> Since we are on different projects what do most people talk about?
<ladquin1> sumanah, yeah, I agree, it definitely depends on the nature of each project, it plays a big part in OpenStack, but yet it goes unnoticed most of the time
<ladquin1> Petra, well, it's quiet most of the time, but sometimes you appreciate the support of other interns or have a particular question they may help answer
<sumanah> Petra: we've critiqued each other's blog posts, given each other career advice, helped each other with skills (testing, writing, system administration, git, etc.), talked about upcoming conferences & grant opportunities & calls for talks, discussed the WFS planet and what we want it to be .....
<ladquin1> Petra, like a cafeteria I guess
<sumanah> ladquin1: I think you should consider submitting a talk about your documentation work and/or about OpenStack to Grace Hopper or to Open Source Bridge
<sumanah> Open Source Bridge: 18-21 June, Portland, Oregon, USA.  Call for proposals deadline: 9 March.
<sumanah> http://opensourcebridge.org/blog/2013/01/2013-call-for-proposals-now-open/
<sumanah> Grace Hopper: 2-5 October, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.  Call for proposals deadline: 15 March. http://gracehopper.org/2013/participate/call-for-participation/
<valeriej> sumanah: I was not familiar at all with bug triaging before this internship, so it's been a huge learning experience. It takes time to gain the breadth of knowledge needed to manage  bug reports.
<valeriej> I think it would be easy for a developer to get focused on her own project or feature at the expense of the broader project, which can have its own benefits/drawbacks, but you can't really do that with bug triaging/management.
<valeriej> However, if someone was interested in learning how to triage bugs, I would suggest focusing on reports from a specific component to avoid getting overwhelmed.
<sumanah> Yes. When you do bug triage, you *HAVE TO* have a sense of perspective ... sort of not be too egotistical about it
<sumanah> valeriej: That's interesting. When you got started, did you do that? or maybe you didn't start with a specific component, and you got overwhelmed :/
<andre> and starting with one product/component of interest (and expertise) definitely helps when starting with bugtriage, yeah.
<ladquin1> sumanah, wow, that sounds really... awesome!
<sumanah> YES.
<sumanah> I've been to OSB 3 times, keynoted last year, loved it.
<sumanah> Grace Hopper I've only been to 1 time, and it's an amazing experience.
<valeriej> sumanah: Well I was going to start with bugs in General/Unknown, which is its own component, but can be very broad. However, Quim released the monthly report that mentioned a large number of 'stale' bugs, so I started to work on those.
<ladquin1> sumanah, any plans for this year's?
<valeriej> Grace Hopper is awesome. I definitely recommend attending.
<sumanah> ladquin1: I haven't yet made any plans about speaking at either of those events. I will probably submit something for OSB, and I will possibly do the same thing for GHC that I did at GHC last year, which is that I helped run a hackathon to help women get their first taste of open source contribution
<sumanah> http://systers.org/systers-dev/doku.php/ghc12osdwikimedia
<ladquin1> sumanah, those are wonderful initial projects
<sumanah> yeah! and people can do them from home too
<valeriej> sumanah: As for being overwhelmed... I mostly felt unproductive at times because of all the reading I was doing to learn about different extensions. But I got good advice that helped combat that.
<sumanah> Right. Especially the fact that alignment and learning *are productive*
<valeriej> Right.
<sumanah> What was the advice you got?
<valeriej> What you said before - I was actually being productive even if it didn't feel that way. Also, it helps to associate my time with some outcome, like triaging x reports, so I know where that time went.
<Petra> When I read other interns' blogs it seems like they are doing so much while I spend my time reading.
* asaldhan (~anil@c-24-14-55-208.hsd1.il.comcast.net) has joined #opw
<asaldhan> marina: ping in 1 hour?
<marina> the meeting is in 1 hour
<ladquin1> Petra, oh believe me, we all feel that way
<sumanah> Petra: remember: we see everyone else from the outside while we see ourselves from the inside
<sumanah> I think Keillor said: I have a backstage view of myself, and everyone else I see from 3rd row center
<sumanah> (I translate as: I see everyone else's shiny installer tarballs, and my own messy git repo)
<vkmc> Petra, I feel like way too... but as long as you achieve some progress every day, everything is ok :)
<vkmc> sumanah, Great analogy haha
<Deindre> sumanah: sorry I'm trying to go ahead but it seems there no way to modify that page....
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<sumanah> Deindre: the translatewiki page? please go ahead and ask for help in #translatewiki on Freenode I think
<Deindre> sumanah: yes, that page :)
<sumanah> I will go away for an hour now as I have a meeting, sorry
<sumanah> Talk with you all soon!
<sumanah> Thanks for the input
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Meeting

Status Updates from Interns

<housewifehacker> Are mentors in today's meeting too?
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* threebean waves to housewifehacker 
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<Dereckson> Hello.
<karenesq> hi!
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<andre> Hi everybody!
* terrrydactyl (~Teresa@2601:9:5480:7c:480:6259:e55c:8a6f) has joined #opw
<Deindre> Hi!
<housewifehacker> threebean: I need to learn those irc tricks
<priyanka_nag> Hi hi!!
<marina> housewifehacker: they are; some of them even presenting!
* andre will only be here a few minutes, unfortunately :(
<terrrydactyl> hi everyone!
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* aleta (~aleta@c-98-246-169-113.hsd1.or.comcast.net) has joined #opw
* anteaya better get to bugging andre while he is still here
<Deindre> Hi andre! Nice to meet you again!
<threebean> housewifehacker: oh, try using "\me does something"
<andre> hehe
<valeriej> Hello all!
<anteaya>    /me
<housewifehacker> \me tries it :)
* housewifehacker tries it
<andre> \ -> /
<anteaya> there you go
<njerichelimo> housewifehacker: threebeans: I need to learn them too! :)
<Dereckson> Hi terrrydactyl.
<terrrydactyl> hi Dereckson 
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<mitevam> hi everyone 
<wowsig> Hello everyone!
<aleta> hello all!
<ladquin1> vkmc has a PhD in irc, very recommended
<tsabi> Hello everyone! 
<fabiana> hello hello everyone
<anteaya> o/
<terrrydactyl> Dereckson: i got sparse checkout to work, btw. :D i just need to do some testing before i put it into gerrit.
<vkmc> Hi everyone o/
<vkmc> ladquin1, Oh I should add it to my CV :P
<annegentle> lol
<smanuel16> hello!
* ladquin1 is now known as ladquin
* mizmo waves
<ladquin> vkmc, I'd back it ;)
<marina> hi all! let's get started with the meeting!
<Dereckson> terrrydactyl: nice! :)
<marina> thank you for attending from places where it's early and from places where it's late :)
<marina> our plan is
<marina> 1) updates from interns about their work 2:05-2:30
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<marina> 2) 8 minute presentations from 5 orgs during which people can ask questions, though the presenters might leave some questions to be anwered during the general Q&A
<marina> the presenters and the order is
<marina> Wikimedia - Sumana Harihareswara
<marina> Fedora - Máirín Duffy and Ralph Bean 
<marina> JBoss - Anil Saldhana and Jonathan Fuerth
<marina> OpenStack - Anne Gentle and Julie Pichon 
<marina> Open Technology Institute - Jonathan Baldwin
<marina> so that's 2:30-3:10
<marina> 3) general Q&A - 3:10-3:30
* APexilI (~you@174-29-150-29.hlrn.qwest.net) has joined #opw
<marina> so let's start with 1) - interns, please talk about what you have accomplished in the first half of the internships and what task(s) are you working on this week
<salarcon> Marina: maybe  alphabetical order by handle?
<marina> salarcon: you can all talk at once :)
<wowsig> Hello, I am working with Gnome and after having finalized my research questions, I am currently working on a usability testing for GNOME 3. This week I am building personas of people who would be GNOME's users and writing interview scripts after building sample scenarios.
* aleta is drafting her update.  It takes some time.
<Dereckson> wowsig: do you have a link where we can read these personas and scripts?
<housewifehacker> With Fedora's datanommer, we pushed my code changes live. Ive been using a lot of python, sqlalchemy, and alembic migration scripts as well as adding a lot of test coverage to new features. 
* Isarra_ is now known as Isarra
<wowsig> dereckson, I am updating everything on the blog, http://openthedesign.posterous.com/
<Dereckson> Thank you.
<priyanka_nag> Hello, I am Priyanka, a Wikimedia intern. The past one and half months of my internship was a real great learning. We began with documentation work initially, but after slowly have now drifted to making changes in the code itself. Its a lot of learning and a great fun. Got a chance to meet my mentor face-to-face last week which actually added to the enthusiasm of work.
<salarcon> Hi! My task is to integrate the Tor anonymizing software with the Commotion mesh networking platform developed by the Open Technology Institute, based on OpenWRT.   I found and was shown projects that are doing similar things, and built a version of Commotion with Tor by pulling in some pre-built packages.  Now I'm documenting what I've learned, testing a transparent proxy, and developing a second use case with Tor and Commotion.
<Isarra> I totally didn't forget about this meeting.
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<Dereckson> (your cards are excellent wowsig!)
<satabdi> Hi, I am an intern with Gnome. I am working on GeoIP and Wifi Geolocation server and client libraries. I wrote the server and client libraries for IP based Geolocation in the first half. Now I am working on the Wifi part and also little bit of improvements that can be brought in GeoIP server and client. Here's the link to the code - http://git.gnome.org/browse/geocode-glib
<aleta> hi Isarra, each of the interns is posting an update on our work: what you have accomplished in the first half of the internships and what task(s) are you working on this week
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<wowsig> Thank you, dereckson :)
<terrrydactyl> the first half of the internship was a whirlwind. there was so much to learn. i knew how to program, but php was a new language and i had never worked in an actual work environment before so it was all new to me. at first, learning about how to navigate the work environment didn't seem like learning, but i now realize how integral it was to a developer. a good developer needs to know his/her tools.
<terrrydactyl> as for the project, i have worked with closely Dereckson (who is tireless of my questions), and managed to finish a prototype of my extension. for those who don't know, it takes code/text from an existing git repository and puts it onto a wiki page. in the last week or so, i learned about git sparse checkout which allows you to use only parts of the repository. this was a pretty mind-blowing discovery for me as i'm learning that git is 
<terrrydactyl> more complex than i have realized.
<Petra> I learned how to use Maven, GWT, erraii and to do concurrency coding and junit testing. I am working on performance testing of errai this week. I am working on errai of JBoss.
<Isarra> aleta: Aye, thanks... unfortunately I'm so caught off gaurd by this entire thing I'm not sure what to make up.
<mitevam> Hi, I’m Mariya with Wikimedia. So far I have been working under sumanah’s mentorship on outreach to third-party MediaWiki(the software behind Wikipedia) users and building the community, learning about their issues and communicating them to the broader Wikimedia community, reviving their mailing list, giving them visibility on mediawiki.org, encouraging commu
<anteaya> Hi, I'm Anita, working on OpenStack here are my stats: blueprints - 1
<anteaya> merged patches - 8
<anteaya> patches in review - 2
<anteaya> bug reports filed - 3
<anteaya> bugs fixed - 4
<anteaya> bugs closed - 6
<anteaya> reviews - 4
<wowsig> although its weird to brainstorm with yourself, dereckson
<anteaya> affected repos - 11
<anteaya> launchpad karma - 292
<smanuel16> Hi, I'm working with Mairin Duffy at Fedora and I created a usability test for Anaconda (the installer for Fedora). The usability tests will be taking place this weekend in the Czech Republic. Since I've finished that I've been working on several usability blogs and creating mockups. This week I've started reviewing some dialogs for LibreOffice. I wrote a blog post the other day with a more detailed update https://opwsmanuel.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/opw-inter
<anteaya> blog - 14 posts. Right now I am learning from the infrastructure team about our release cycle and how to use a good code review workflow.
<marija> a little bit of work on all mockups included in the plan. Some of them are almost done, but changes to design broke some of the code, so now I'm working on the code, and trying to get functions to work with the new design.
<valeriej> I'm working at Wikimedia in bug management. We just had our second bugday and addressed about 25 of 70 Git/Gerrit reports. Our first bugday addressed 30 of 250 'stale' reports. I'm working on a blog post about reporting bugs to Wikimedia's bugzilla and another one about out bugdays.
<mitevam> oops I will try this again 
<sumanah> Petra: if you know some GWT I think you and I should talk after the meeting about some possible opportunities :-)
<ladquin> Hi folks, after learning git (a common tool 'round here), Gerrit review workflow and OpenStack basics, I've been working on the REST API documentation, for which I learned a bit about DocBookx and Maven (the plugin we use to build docs), right now I'm testing some patching for the source XMLs.  Here's where I keep some more details: https://etherpad.openstack.org/2hFZSSJ9k2
<njerichelimo> I've been interning with Deltacloud - working on CIMI Webapp. The plans I had for the internship were: 1) Get the app working again. 2) Change the code so that URLs in the app are not hardcoded, but use the URLs the server gives it. (As it is currently, the app cannot work with all CIMI providers. 3) Help out in writing tests for the cod I write. So far, I got most of the app working. Found a few bugs in the backend, which have slowed me down a lil, bu
<njerichelimo> t still ok. This week I'll still be getting the app to work as expected and get into the URL issues the coming week. 
<aleta> My project is Planeteria; unlike many of the other internship projects, it's very small, there are only TWO contributors, including me. There are many things that could be improved about Planeteria, and mostly just me to work on them.  So a lot of my time so far has been spent getting acquainted with it, gathering a lot of input, identifying the issues and potential new features, and figuring out what's realistic for me to accomplish for thi
<aleta> internship.
<aleta> I've improved the README file so others can contribute more easily, and I'm now working on a redesign of the site in Twitter Bootstrap.  I hope to at least build a solid foundation for some of the features I've discussed with people but they may or may not be implemented with this redesign, it's still TBD.
<mitevam> Hi, I’m Mariya with Wikimedia. So far I have been working under sumanah’s mentorship on outreach to third-party MediaWiki(the software behind Wikipedia) users and building the community, learning about their issues and communicating them to the broader Wikimedia community, 
<valeriej> I've also been investigating Mozilla's and Ubuntu's feedback channels and will create a high level diagram about their feedback channels. I recently got a couple of suggestions on other projects to look at, and will investigate those.
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<mitevam> reviving their mailing list, giving them visibility on mediawiki.org, encouraging communication, updating some documentation, etc Currently I am wrapping up this part of my internship and looking for people to continue my efforts after my internship and starting to do some product management work( currently setting the TODOs). 
<karenesq> Isarra: no worries about forgetting, just give us a  few sentences on where you're at in your work so that we get a sense of what you're doing in your internship
<Dereckson> what kind of product management exactly mitevam?
<valeriej> Y'know, ladquin, you just gave me the idea to keep notes in an etherpad. I hadn't thought of that before, thanks. Right now I have text files I organize 'later.' 
<mitevam> yes etherpad is great, I hadn't used it before the internship 
<tsabi> Hi everyone, I'm working on producing a guidelines document on usability and internationalization in open source software, with emphasis on censorship circumvention tools. So far I have completed my initial research in the areas of usability in open source, internalisation, circumvention tools, producing an overview document that shall form the basis of our guidelines. This week I've been working on surveys that we are rolling out next week to developers and user
<tsabi>  
<Isarra> I've been working on a project with Wikimedia involving replacing talkpages with a real discussion system. At this point we're purely on the design stages, and also the convincing the users that yeah, they really do need a real discussion system. As such I've been working on some user tests showing just how bad it can be... meantime I've also been trying to improve layouts of watchlists and other changesList implementations working with the Editor Engagement team. So
<ladquin> valeriej, I know the feeling, it's hard to find a format that help you stay organized, I needed to use more that one, like google spreadsheets too
<terrrydactyl> everyone's projects are so impressive.
<Isarra> I'm also not entirely sure what week it is and thoroughly dosed on cold medicine.
<tunabananas> hi all! jenny here, working with the Open Technology Institute on Tidepools, a community mapping application for mesh networks (like Commotion).  I've been documenting my research process here: http://wiki.tidepools.co, and am currently interviewing 1) people working on mesh networking projects, and 2) people involved in local/grassroots community organizations to develop use cases and user stories for Tidepools. I'm also spearheading the resuscitation of 510
<aleta> Oh, I've also been helping curate the Women in Free Software Planet, with an attempt to make sure that the content is engaging and useful to the readers, and mostly on topic (though some personal posts are totally fine)
<mitevam> Dereckson: this is currently being decided but some work on Wikimedia's data sources( mostly https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data_dumps) 
<mizmo> Isarra, that sounds like an awesome project, mediawiki would be so much nicer with a real disucssion system
<salarcon> tunabananas: what's 510?
<Isarra> Cold medicine is awesome. I can just stare at a wall for hours and it never gets old... 
<Isarra> mizmo: Yeah, really. >.<
<Deindre> Hello to all! I'm working with GNOME Marketing team, with Karen and Sriram. During last weeks I've prepared some interview and wrote a pair of articles for gnome.org.   But my main task has been a study about outreaches: working on Kevin Carrillo data, I've accomplished  a preliminary study of problems that newcomers in GNOME could encounter and resources GNOME offers to newcomers. Results of my work are available on http://deindre.wordpress.com/201
<Deindre>  During the second part of my outreach, I'm planning to draft a new path that could welcome newcomers.  
<tunabananas> http://510pen.org - pronounced "five-one-open"
<tunabananas> ^^ salarcon
<aleta> all of the intern blogs are fed to the Women in Free Software planet.  You can read it here: http://planeteria.org/wfs/
<tunabananas> 510 is the area code in these parts =)
<Dereckson> mitevam: that would be very nice if we could improve dump support, this is requested by a lot of people
<vkmc> Hi, I'm Victoria and I'm working on OpenStack Dashboard codename Horizon. I've learned a lot about how open source communities work and the technologies used - git, launchpad, gerrit, django, wsgi, python... and the list goes on -. I has been working on adding a new feature (tenant deletion) to the Dashboard and also got involved with the community filing, triaging, reviewing and providing fixes for bugs. I still have a lot to code and test to acc
<vkmc> omplish the mentioned feature so that will be my main goal during next weeks. I'm also planning to set up different translation teams for OpenStack and starting to create a mockup for a future begginers guide for OpenStack. That latter task is supported by my colleages anteaya and ladquin.
<mitevam> Deindre: that sounds very interesting, I will look at your work 
<valeriej> ladquin: Yeah, I use wikipages, but an etherpad is easier to edit, and then I export it to post on a wiki page. I'm excited now, ha ha.
<terrrydactyl> tunabananas: i was thinking 510 sounded familiar. didn't realize you were in the bay!
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<Deindre> mitevam: :) thank you 
<sumanah> njerichelimo: what languages are you using?
<Dereckson> Isarra: I sympathize, I spent a very bad week from the 8 to +- the 15.
<mitevam> Dereckson: will do my best :)
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<gbg> hello :)
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<Isarra> Dereckson: Terry-induced?
<Dereckson> Isarra: oh no! She's lovely! Cold-induced.
<mitevam> Deindre: the link you posted is broken 
<njerichelimo> sumanah: Mainly Ruby and haml for the views. The Webapp is using Sinatra.
<gbg> Hello all :)
<anteaya> vkmc, I didn't know you were working on settiing up translation teams, way to go! that sounds interesting!
<Dereckson> Isarra: my fault, spent the 7 outdoor, with a weather switching from snow to rain to sun
<marina> gbg: hello! the questions for interns is  talk about what you have accomplished in the first half of the internships and what task(s) are you working on this week
<karenesq> Isarra: if you're too sick to participate that's understandable. I hope you feel better soon!
<Isarra> Dereckson: Sorry, bad joke. And yeah, sick sucks.
<terrrydactyl> valeriej: i've been keeping links on my user page, but ether pad would be so much easier
<sumanah> vkmc: transifex, translatewiki, or other, for the translation teams?
<Isarra> karenesq: This is me getting better! My brain just isn't entirely working. But thanks.
<Deindre> mitevam: it seems to work... but ok, retry http://deindre.wordpress.com/2013/02/11/outreach-survey-report
<valeriej> terrrydactyl: Exactly. 
<marina> sucheta: same, so we ask interns to talk  about what you have accomplished in the first half of the internships and what task(s) are you working on this week
<marina> ingu and llmelon: if you are around, please let us know what you've been up to too :)
<vkmc> sumanah, I have to discuss about this with the project leader, but we want to organize OpenStack translation in a better way, with teams and software that eases that work. Right now we're using Transifex
<sumanah> Got it :)
<terrrydactyl> valeriej: sometimes the easiest solutions are right under our noses, haha
<asaldhan> Petra: do you like gwt now?
<karenesq> Isarra: ok! Well, if you are up to working on a few sentence report of where you're at in your work, it's ok for you to post it later in the meeting too, if having time helps. And we don't mind if there are cold induced typos either :)
<gbg> I'm only in week 4 because the Norovirus took me on a cruise (who needs a ship anyway?)  However, I've been working on the Subversion Build System to add an external component, and as a sideline am workong on documenting the build system.  I also am adding a guide to the Subversion web page how to contribute contents to the web pages.
<mitevam> Deindre: now it does, it got cut halfway for me earlier :) thanks
<Isarra> I did post something. *pouty face*
<housewifehacker> terrrydactyl, tunabananas: Im moving to the bay in 3 weeks. Havent picked a city or neighborhood yet but hubby will be working in Palo Alto
<terrrydactyl> housewifehacker: that's super close to me
<Petra> I don't know GWT well yet to know.
<terrrydactyl> housewifehacker: i live in redwood city right now!
<valeriej> terrrydactyl: I know! Again, thanks ladquin for inspiring me, ha ha.
<karenesq> oh Isarra, sorry! I must have missed it in the flood of other responses!
<asaldhan> Petra: GWT, Concurrent Programming is valuable experience
<ladquin> valeriej, glad to "help" :P
<karenesq> thanks, Isarra, read it now! :D
<Isarra> karenesq: It's definitely easy t miss things here. Especially if you're not using a client with a good interface. 
* Isarra can't follow this worth squat because irssi sucks.
<aleta> housewifehacker: I've talked with terrrydactyl and tunabananas about doing a little OPW meetup in mid-March when I'll be in Santa Clara for PyCon.  If you've landed by then, you should join us!
* terrrydactyl pets Isarra
<marina> you'll all get a nice static log afterwards :)
<terrrydactyl> it goes really fast
<aleta> if there's anyone else in the bay area who would like to join, please identify yourself!
<Isarra> And there aren't any colours!
<terrrydactyl> yeah! i would love to meet more people!
* karenesq loves the log :)
<njerichelimo> marina: yay! :)
<housewifehacker> aleta: Im attending PyCon also :)
<salarcon> isarra: pidgin works great as an irc client
<Dereckson> Isarra: actually, irssi helps you to focus on the text, removing other widgets; I wonder if your problem is not client-agnostic, like to be able to focus on the chat (and for me, the related pages I read e.g. blog posts).
<aleta> housewifehacker: sweet!   There is a former OPW intern who will be attending from the UK who would like to meet up with us as well.
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<Dereckson> (to be able to focus on the chat as quickly as the session goes)
<Isarra> The layout prevents easy scanning, however - names are bunched up with the text and when everything is moving it makes it impossible to follow especially without other visual cues like colour coding.
<marina> thank you for updates everyone!
<tunabananas> aleta, terrrydactyl, housewifehacker - i'm in West Oakland. Aleta, do you have our email addresses? We should pick a date asap ;)
<terrrydactyl> email: <...>
<aleta> tunabananas: good point. mine is <...>
<marina> ingu, llmelon, sucheta: if you are around later, you can give your updates during the Q&A!
<marina> sumanah: are you ready for your presentation?
<Isarra> I love irssi half to death, of course, but it ain't so good here. Unfortunately my paranoia and incompetence with bouncers leaves me little choice.
<sumanah> Yes
<Dereckson> Isarra: https://www.google.com/search?q=irssi&tbm=isch -> http://gallery.spoofedpacket.net/misc-images/irssi-revolution.png

Wikimedia Presentation

<marina> sumanah: ok, you have 8 minutes
<sumanah> Hi! Sumana  from Wikimedia here.
<sumanah> we're such a huge software project and institution with so many nooks and crannies that I cannot possibly hope to COVER everything, but I can at least give an overview of what it takes to make this software & deliver it to the users
<sumanah> (and thus what skills are out there to learn, like release management, systems administration, bug triage, community management, user experience design & product management, testing & QA automation & process work....)
<Isarra> Ow.
<sumanah> Our main goal is to keep our websites up and serving our readers & contributors.  So we have a strong systems administration team, which is unusual in open source.
<marina> everyone: please postpone your discussion till later and feel free to ask sumanah questions once she prompts for them
<sumanah> Here's some of what they do:
<sumanah> automation - using tools like Cron or open grid engine (sorry, not sure of name) to make things happen on a schedule
<sumanah> monitoring - a server just crashed! (Nagios is our tool for this - it sends SMSes, emails, and IRC messages)
<sumanah> troubleshooting -- why did that server crash?  People need to know their systems to investigate this!
<sumanah> Profiling -- we use Graphite & Ganglia to get information about what amount of memory, CPU, etc ought to be taken up by processes, so we can see if something's started going wrong, and figure out what to optimize
<sumanah> Increasing capacity -- which means investigating what hardware to buy and what software to install.  We are trying to install our media storage capacity right now and have thought about Swift & Ceph.
<sumanah> Upgrading (we are using Puppet to store configuations to make that easier - part of automation also)
<sumanah> More on all that in https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/01/from-duct-tape-to-puppets/ and https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/05/how-the-technical-operations-team-stops-problems-in-their-tracks/
<sumanah> Now, let's talk about "development." :-) (code)
<sumanah> We're a weird enough project that there are sort of two ways people add code to our repositories:
<sumanah> First, there are multi-person projects where designers, product managers, developers, testers, & system administrators work together (including some volunteers & an OPW intern, but often all paid people at Wikimedia Foundation or Wikimedia Germany).
<sumanah> So the designers and product managers and developers and so on help create prototypes, maybe design documents, etc., and this happens iteratively in teams.  For instance you heard what Isarra  is doing in her OPw internship in design.
<sumanah> The second style is more what you are used to in open source projects as a whole, less directed and more anarchic... single-person or small-team projects, often with a mix of paid and volunteer developers; a lot more autonomy but that means less direction and support.  I think Sucheta's and Teresa's OPW internships are more like this.  No dedicated design/product management people work on these.  I have mixed feelings about that!
<sumanah> sucheta: terrrydactyl ^
<sumanah> We have back-end coders who do a lot of PHP/MySQL or even sometimes have to do stuff involving the Linux kernel, and we have front-end coders who use a lot of jQuery & JavaScript.
<sumanah> Now let's talk about internationalisation, localisation, language engineering, translation, or whatever you want to call it :-)
<sumanah> We need to *make the software translatable* (so, when someone uses a string in a user-visible message, it needs to not just be an English string but a call to the messages file, for instance) and also need to *help people do that translation and ensure those translations get deployed quickly* and also need to *help people actually use the software in multiple languages & input entry methods*.
<sumanah> (please pm karenesq & marina to tell them whether I am going too fast, too slow, or this is useful?)
<sumanah> There's a lot there -- try checking out https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Language_engineering and https://translatewiki.net/
<sumanah> Now:
<sumanah> Quality Assurance is a big topic.
<sumanah> There's manual/exploratory testing, test automation, test environments, and process improvement in general.  https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/QA & https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Testing_portal have more.
<sumanah> (you don't have to follow those links now of course, sumanah realizes she may be misleading by including them)
<sumanah> Customization is one reason this is a big job.
<sumanah> Wikimedia Foundation runs the servers for HUNDREDS of wikis - English Wikipedia, French Wikisource, Wikimedia Commons, etc.  The communities of volunteers administer them on the content level.
<sumanah> They can ask us to install particular "extensions" (plugins) for additional functionality -- sometimes the Foundation has to say no, or has to do a lot of code review and code improvement in order to make sure the extension doesn't have security holes and won't slow down the servers too much.
<sumanah> And so we have to test stuff and review code that other people wrote, sometimes without guidance...
<sumanah> We let the community-chosen administrators of every wiki choose what "gadget" and other customizations to run, so it's like we have to support 400 different configurations!  Sometimes this can be hard.
<sumanah> At Wikimedia, we have some paid and some volunteer people who try to find bugs via all of these methods.  And sometimes volunteers just tell us about problems without really thinking they are "volunteering" - they're just complaining, right? :-)
<sumanah> But we do need to make sure that our bug database is useful to us -- that every bug report is reproducible, properly prioritized, and actually specifies a bit of work a developer could do.
<sumanah> So we have a fulltime bug wrangler who works with volunteers (and with an OPW intern, valeriej) to *manage* bug reports & feature requests.
<marina> sumanah: two pms I got were that speed is good :)
<sumanah> What about deciding when a new version of the software should go up on the website?  Well, right now we have a multistage "deployment" process
<sumanah> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.21/Roadmap sort of is a good explanation of how we upgrade smaller and less visible sites first, then check for bugs, then to English Wikipedia & other Wikipedias.
<sumanah> As of Monday, we at the Wikimedia Foundation have a paid release manager who looks for bad bugs that need solving before the next upgrade of the code on Wikimedia sites, and who is trying to make it so that it's not just "let's run the upgrade script every few days" -- instead we'll be doing "continuous integration" where the sites get updated every time a new commit gets merged into master!
<sumanah> This will be hard.  Greg and colleagues have to work on setting up the continuous integration systems (including a bunch of automated testing), and responding to errors & fixing them so the deployment can move forward.  There are jobs in Continuous Integration!
<sumanah> And I should also mention "release".
<sumanah> MediaWiki is also software that other sysadmins to grab and use to run their own wikis.
<sumanah> The Foundation used to produce the installation "tarball" for those sysadmins.  Now we encourage a community member do this.  Packaging software so it works properly on a lot of different environments is a skill worth learning and that employers value :-)
<sumanah> Finally: we work in public. We want to share what we're doing and learn from the world
<sumanah> So we write a lot, and give talks at conferences like Open Source Bridge and Grace Hopper, and have conference calls, and write emails on mailing lists, and so on
<sumanah> so, one of the skills to learn is -- how do you communicate about your work and ask questions and persuade people :)
<marina> sumanah: 1 more minute - everyone if you have questions for sumanah, post them into the channel now and she will prepare the answers for Q&A in the end
<sumanah> Thanks for listening 
* sumanah is done
<marina> thanks sumanah!
<terrrydactyl> thanks sumanah! that was really interesting
<gbg> How many people overall are taking part in this project?
<marina> actually post your questions to sumanah via pm, but she will only answer them during Q&A so that everyone can see the question and answer
<sumanah> gbg: in MediaWiki? Depends on how you define it .... oh I shall wait to answer :-)
<sumanah> (but at least hundreds if not thousands.)
<marina> mizmo and threebean: are you ready to go?
<wowsig> sumanah: Are there designers working with separate engineering teams? Or people take up multiple design projects? What are the most crucial areas where wikimedia needs designers?

Fedora Presentation

<mizmo> sure, threebean, ill go first and take 4 minutes, you could take the other 4?
<threebean> marina: yes
* threebean nods
<threebean> mizmo: sounds good.
<mizmo> okay hi everybody im Máirín Duffy from the Fedora project
<marina> ok, the channel is now open to mizmo and threebean!
<sucheta> sumanah, :-)
<mizmo> Fedora is a linux distro, so it's kind of hard to talk about our software development process since it really depends which component you're developing
<mizmo> so let me talk about the components we deal with first
<mizmo> 1) upstream code
<mizmo> so a distro essentially is a packaging of upstream code. fedora project members don't necessarily (but often do) write the upstream code
<mizmo> however, fedora project members package the upstream code
<mizmo> so one example of this that you're probably familiar with is gnome :)
<mizmo> there are a lot of folks who are fedora project members who also are upstream gnome project developers
<mizmo> the software development process for gnome happens upstream in the gnome community, not the fedora community
<mizmo> and when gnome releases the code, then the fedora packagers take notice, grab the code, and build it into fedora
<mizmo> fedora has its own release cycle, so depending on when an upstream project's release happens in reference to fedora's release cycle, it may take from a couple weeks to a few months (no more than 6, since our release cycle is every 6 months) for the upstream code to land in fedora
<mizmo> so if there's a component of fedora the distro itself you'd like to work on
<mizmo> the first thing you need to do is to figure out which upstream project it came from, and get involved in the software development process
<mizmo> or, you could get involved in fedora's process for packaging
<mizmo> it
<mizmo> okay so the next component
<mizmo> 2) code where fedora is the upstream
<mizmo> so for some bits of fedora, again we're talking about the distro / OS itself
<mizmo> the upstream of the code is in fedora itself
<mizmo> a good example of this is anaconda, which smanuel16 is working on usability test development for
<mizmo> anaconda is the installer for fedora and a few other fedora/red hat based distros, but the fedora project itself is the upstream for the code
<mizmo> we recently completely rewrote anaconda and released it in fedora 18. the entire project took about 2 years or so
<mizmo> we started by interviewing current users and doing research on bugs that the old code base had
<mizmo> we had a few brainstorming sessions - one which was a week long - where all of the developers and me the designer got together and tried to figure out how to solve the issues
<mizmo> then we had a long multi-month process where we mocked up ideas on how to solve the issues with screen designs and iterated back and forth
<mizmo> a lot of this took place in IRC and the development mailing list
<mizmo> now that we have the first cut of running code released, with smanuel16's help we're going back and evaluating how effective it was with the usability tests. from the data we get back from the test, we'll propose more improvements to address issues that came up
<mizmo> so that's kind of the process we follow on that
<mizmo> the next component, which i'm going to let three bean talk about is
<mizmo> 3) fedora's infrastructure
<threebean> :)
<mizmo> we have a lot of infrastructure that has code that isn't part of the OS itself
<mizmo> but it really critical and essential to making the os happen
<mizmo> okay threebean :)
<threebean> cool.
<marina> threebean: 2 more minutes then
<threebean> we run (and develop) a number of web services to support the first two components that mizmo talked about..
<threebean> (for reference, here's a landing page that links to most all of them: https://apps.fedoraproject.org/ )
<qgil> gbg, re: "How many people overall are taking part in this project?" What project do you mean?
<threebean> When new versions of upstream projects are released and they are packaged for fedora..
<marina> qgil, gbg: please use pm
<threebean> ..we want to build them on different architectures, run tests on them, provide mechanisms for quality assurance and feedback, have discussions about it all.. etc.
<threebean> Fedora Infrastructure is pretty remarkable in my opinion in its sort of "wild west" setup.
<threebean> lots of community volunteers have put in time as systems administrators and application developers, each building lots of pieces of this big "how an upstream package becomes a part of Fedora" puzzle.
<threebean> the work that we've been doing recently is an attempt to unite some of the more disconnected pieces of that infrastructure.
<threebean> so housewifehacker, for instance, has been building a service called "datanommer" that listens to the unified message bus we've been building; it stores all app activity in a db for later analysis.
<marina> threebean: are you ok to wrap this up and maybe add more details during Q&A?
<threebean> marija: has been working on improving the "Fedora Packages" webapp (https://apps.fedoraproject.org/packages) which is a high-level view at each part of the infrastructure.
<threebean> marina: sure.  :)
<marina> thanks mizmo and threebean!
<marina> everyone please feel free to pm your questions to them to be answered later during the Q&A

JBoss Presentation

<marina> asaldhan: are you ready to present?
<asaldhan> beginning now
<asaldhan> Anil Saldhana from JBoss Community   (http://www.jboss.org)
<marina> asaldhan: thanks!
<asaldhan> JBoss community is a community of open source projects primarily targeting the middleware space.
<asaldhan> Even though the primary development language used by our projects is Java, we do have many projects based on Ruby, Python, Scala, Javascript etc. 
<asaldhan> We breathe and operate in Open Source.  All our discussions and design happens in the open via IRC, mailing lists, forums etc.
<asaldhan> Some of the prominent projects in the community are  JBoss Application Server (JavaEE),  Drools (Rules),   Hibernate (ORM),  Aerogear (Mobile), TorqueBox (Ruby on Java platform)
<asaldhan> Infinispan (Data Grids), RESTEasy  (Rest), Errai (GWT/CDI/Usability) and PicketLink (Security)
<asaldhan> Our source control is typically github  but we also have projects using codehaus and repositories hosted by JBoss community. Some projects depend on the Apache Software Foundation projects. So the source control will be at ASL.
<asaldhan> SVN and Git are primary repository formats.  In the past, we have used CVS.
<asaldhan> Build can be maven, ant, ivy, gradle depending on the project.  We use JIRA as our primary bug tracking.
<asaldhan> Volunteers usually do development,  QA/testing,  documentation,   how-to-guides  or participate-in-the-forums.  If you want to participate, best is to
<asaldhan> join any of IRC, forums, mailing lists or contact the developers of a project.
<asaldhan> JUDCon (http://www.jboss.org/events/JUDCon) is the user conference held around the world. Next one is in Sao Paulo (April), Boston (June).  
<asaldhan> Other places include India.  If you are close by to JUDCon location, try to attend to learn more about JBoss community projects and meet developers/users.
<asaldhan> As examples of design discussion happening, I created the following 2 pages in the last 24 hours
<asaldhan> https://community.jboss.org/wiki/AS8JBossSecurityManagerDiscussion
<asaldhan> https://community.jboss.org/wiki/AS8JBossSecurityManagerImplementationPlan
<asaldhan> We do have mailing lists .  You can subscribe to them at https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo
<asaldhan> ========================
<asaldhan> I am done
<marina> time for questions!
<marina> one minute for questions in channel
<sumanah> :-)
<sumanah> asaldhan: what bug tracker do you use?
<sumanah> and asaldhan how long has JBoss been around?
<marina> ok looks like these questions will be answered later - everyone please feel free to pm asaldhan your questions to be answered later
<marina> thanks asaldhan!
<asaldhan> sumanah: JIRA is our primary bug tracker.  Some projects may use other bug trackers (I think it is mostly JIRA).  JBoss started maybe around 1999.
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OpenStack Presentation

<marina> annegentle and jpich: are you ready to go?
<annegentle> marina: yep!
<marina> ok, now annegentle and jpich presentation time!
<annegentle> hi all, Anne from OpenStack, http://www.openstack.org
<annegentle> OpenStack encompasses many projects -- it started with 2 in 2010 and now has over 9 of them, which are all released at the same time as part of integrated timed releases, every 6 months.
<annegentle> This is all managed by one Release Manager, who is employed by the OpenStack Foundation
<annegentle> Our development model is open, everything is released under the Apache 2.0 licence. We do request that our contributors sign a Contributor's  Agreement. 
<annegentle> license
<annegentle> Likewise, our design process is open and welcome to all, during the Design Summit which is held every 6 months. Next one is in Portland in April. And, we got funding from our Foundation to host our three interns at the Summit. Woo!
<jpich> \o/
<annegentle> We have an open community and we dedicate many resources to our very  active developer and user community. Open processes are required.
<annegentle> As for our general release process, every 6 months it starts with planning, the bulk of which is done at the Design Summit. Out of this in-person meeting come many blueprints (pretty much like feature requests) to be implemented over the release cycle.
<annegentle> We use Github to store source code, Launchpad to track bugs and blueprints, and a review system called Gerrit for code review and commits.
<annegentle> We have a fairly solid and amazing Continuous Integration system that runs unit tests over every single commit, as well as integration tests to make sure it doesn't break anything in any of the projects that are part of the integrated release.
<annegentle> (Jenkins is the system for CI)
<annegentle> We use open documentation systems that are also continuously integrated so docs are published immediately after review, just like the code.
<annegentle> There'll be usually 3 "milestone releases" during a cycle, then at the end a few weeks before the release date we'll have a feature freeze, release candidates with major bug fixes, leading to the final release.
<annegentle> Then we start again :)
<annegentle> Users of OpenStack are in two groups -- those who deploy OpenStack to offer cloud services, and those who consume the cloud services. 
<annegentle> So to get OpenStack used, we have to ensure operators and devops know how to install and configure it. We're fortunate that major distros have packagers continually working on packages. <3 to packagers
<annegentle> There's an ecosystem of businesses making OpenStack easier to deploy and manage. Think: startups, enterprise companies, consultants.
<annegentle> There are also public OpenStack clouds for consumers. A large number of OpenStack clouds are also in use in research and university environments.
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<annegentle> and now I will drop a long list of links for your distraction and reading enjoyment
<annegentle> #link https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Releases
<annegentle> #link https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Release_Cycle
<annegentle> #link http://review.openstack.org
<annegentle> #link https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/HowToContribute
<annegentle> #link https://www.openstack.org/summit/portland-2013/
<annegentle> Whew that was a lot of info.
<jpich> Thanks Anne :)
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<annegentle> wow left you all speechless huh
<sumanah> :-)
<anteaya> annegentle, jpich nice job
<annegentle> sumanah: :)
<vkmc> Thanks annegentle, jpich :)
<marina> 4 minutes for questions!
<salarcon> can you give an example of a cloud user need?
<salarcon> like, how an AWS user might use OpenStack?
<sumanah> annegentle: so, what is OpenStack (the FLOSS community) doing well at, and where are bottlenecks/backlogs/pain points?
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<terrrydactyl> general question to all: how does your organization make money? i think a common misconception is that open source doesn't make any money and hence you can't get a job in it (which is obviously wrong.)
<annegentle> salarcon: sure, let's say you run a huge event each year like a golf tournament, your website needs to handle heavy load on that day but not so much other days. So you procure and pay for more servers that day, but not the rest of the year. 
<annegentle> salarcon: we are an open AWS alternative but do enable people to use some of the AWS APIs 
<annegentle> sumanah: we're so young it's like we are a toddler. 
<marina> terrrydactyl: now only OpenStack is taking questions, but it's an excellent question for after the last presentation!
<annegentle> sumanah: but people think we're a young adult
<annegentle> sumanah: so expectations are high :)
<annegentle> terrrydactyl: the OpenStack Foundation has membership levels, that funds the foundation itself which must put on these Summits every six months.
<mizmo> when should we answer questions?
<annegentle> mizmo: I just am cuz there was time
<annegentle> we can go to PM for questions now
<marina> mizmo: there is one more presentation from Open Technology Institute, and then everyone can ask and answer questions
<marina> thank you annegentle and jpich!
<marina> everyone please feel free to pm your questions to them
<terrrydactyl> marina: when we do Q&A in the end, it might be good to do it in order of presenters to keep it from getting too confusing
<annegentle> marina: glad to!

Open Technology Institute Presentation

<marina> jrbaldwin and georgiabullen: are you ready to go?
<jrbaldwin> yep
<tunabananas> \o/
<jrbaldwin> Hey I'm Jonathan from Open Technology Institute (OTI) working with Georgia in our NYC office. 
<jrbaldwin> The interns we're working with are tunabananas (Jenny) and LittleBohemian (Lisa). OTI is made up of three parts, the field team, tech team, and policy team. We work directly with both the field team and tech team. 
<jrbaldwin> A large focus of OTIs work is around the digital divide and community access to internet. Specifically in the area of mesh networks, of which the tech team has been developing Commotion. 
<jrbaldwin> A custom version of the linux build OpenWRT with plug-and-play style configuration for rapid mesh network deployment in communities and more ad hoc situations.
<jrbaldwin> In the NYC office, we work mainly with the Red Hook community, through the community center, Red Hook Initiative (RHI). Red Hook is in an isolated area of Brooklyn, with little access to other forms of WiFi or internet, aside from mobile service (which is sparse), so a mesh is an ideal scenario to increase access. 
<jrbaldwin> Along with working with RHI to engage folks in the community and build up the physical mesh network (using Commotion) that currently covers part of the neighborhood, we've been developing a series of local, front-end applications that run on top of the mesh itself. 
<jrbaldwin> These have been developed through an extensive community design process, including brainstorming sessions and iterative prototyping/testing  with community groups at RHI. 
<jrbaldwin> The primary goal has been to create a unique experience for folks using the mesh in Red Hook, with apps, events and landmarks powered by an interactive mapping platform running on a local server (running Ubuntu). 
<jrbaldwin> The server talks to the mesh networked nodes around the community, and, when someone connects to the wifi, a splash screen pops up with data (latest news/upcoming events/available apps) from the server. 
<jrbaldwin> The data hub for this community generated system is called Tidepools, existing primarily as a map interface for tablet/desktop users, with a more minimal interface being developed at the moment for mobile devices, focused on the community apps, upcoming events, and shout box feeds. 
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<jrbaldwin> Tidepools is meant to be re-skinnable (custom map layers, landmarks, etc.) for any community that adopts it, so it can take on the look & feel of the neighborhood it resides in. 
<jrbaldwin> It's a collaborative mobile mapping platform for gathering and sharing hyperlocal information and culture through expressive, community maps and data feeds, enabling greater connectivity and communication among neighbors and local organizations. 
<jrbaldwin> Tidepools bridges the digital and physical space of a neighborhood, storing its data on local servers and broadcasted over WiFi so it can run even without reliance on an Internet connection. It integrates location-specific civic data in situ, including real time transit notifications and community safety issues. 
<jrbaldwin> Community members can share events, user-created map layers and landmarks, and other local temporal information, creating a historical geospatial community database.
<jrbaldwin> The back end of Tidepools is built in PHP and MongoDB, while the frontend is Javascript and jQuery. 
<jrbaldwin> Some examples of apps that simplify adding / receiving / interacting with data from Tidepools.
<jrbaldwin> Where's the B61 Bus? Integrating MTA Bus Time API data to show the nearest, closest bus in the neighborhood.
<jrbaldwin> Stop & Frisks: Reporting geo-located Stop & Frisks, based off a Red Hook Initiative (RHI) Questionnaire.
<jrbaldwin> Status: Developed after Sandy for RHI, let's residents send reports by text message to a public map. Responders can monitor and respond to texts through Tidepools. (using a SMS to Tropo to Tidepools API)
<jrbaldwin> Going forward, our process has always been community design focused, so as we continue building out the map interface and move onto the mobile, we are continually working with folks in the Red Hook neighborhood to ensure Tidepools' relevance and usability. 
<jrbaldwin> Here's an overview: http://wiki.tidepools.co/Mobile_Feedback
<jrbaldwin> And: http://tidepools.co
<jrbaldwin> that's all :)
<mizmo> it's http://wiki.tidepools.co/view/Mobile_Feedback (first url 404s)
<mizmo> (sorry)
<marina> 4 minutes for questions to jrbaldwin!
<sumanah> jrbaldwin: so I'll ask you the same question
<sumanah> jrbaldwin:  what is your FLOSS community doing well at, and where are bottlenecks/backlogs/pain points?
<sumanah> (I'm actually sitting right next to jrbaldwin right now in New York City so this is kind of farcical in a good way) :-)
<jrbaldwin> :) i'll respond to that in a sec
<terrrydactyl> jrbaldwin: the project sounds amazing! thanks for the introduction
<jrbaldwin> :)
<jrbaldwin> the bottlenecks relate back to the process from the tech level down the community level, and the overall design process in between those areas. the iterative prototyping we've been doing that ties back into the real world problems dealing with mesh network reliance and QoS slowed it down
<sumanah> Commotion is http://oti.newamerica.net/commotion_wireless_0  If you love hardware there's probably room working on that :-)
<jrbaldwin> the FLOSS community is doing well at being a pool of great resources that we can rely on and pull from (code and support wise)
<jrbaldwin> and being extremely enthusiastic :D
<ladquin> jrbaldwin, looks great, how scalable is it? what are the constraints?
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<marina> thank you jrbaldwin!
<terrrydactyl> jrbaldwin: what tools/languages do you use?
<jrbaldwin> ladquin: we're starting to deploy separate tidepools instances in other communities in other cities, so those are metrics we're just figuring out

General Q&A

<marina> terrrydactyl: I'm afraid we'll have to do a free-for-all now to save time; we might allocate longer times for each presentation in the next batch to include time for questions
<annegentle> jrbaldwin: what criteria do you use to choose communities (or do they come to you?)
<marina> so free-for-all starts now!!!
<sumanah> ok!
<sumanah> terrrydactyl asked me to elaborate on "making software translatable" -- take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalization_and_localization for more details.  In short - when a developer starts writing software, unless she thinks ahead, she'll automatically write user-visible text in her native language -- "Help," "submit," "on/off," "username" etc.  Instead, the best practice is to say something like $help-description, and then point to a fil
<sumanah> e like https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/gitweb?p=mediawiki/extensions/CommunityHiring.git;a=blob;f=Messages.php;h=6fa7833516a62f96a4d71043124e1e1e13139297 that says what key points to what value for each language.
<sumanah> OPW intern Priyanka Nag is working right now https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Priyanka_Nag on taking some MediaWiki templates and customizations that people wrote in specific languages and refactoring them so that they can be used someplace where the written language is, say, Tamil, or Kannada
<sumanah> I am just gonna spam the channel now, fair warning
<marina> everyone, please ask your questions and if you received a question via pm please paste it here!
<sumanah> <gbg> How many people overall are taking part in this project?
<sumanah> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Community_metrics/December_2012 & https://www.ohloh.net/orgs/wikimedia -- basically, hundreds or thousands.
<marina> please feel free to add anything you missed during your presentation time
<marina> cheat-sheet for people
<sumanah> For Wikimedia:
<sumanah> <terrrydactyl> oh also! who does the security checks? someone mentioned they might be interested in my library, but mark said it would have to go through intensive security checks before it would get deployed, does QA also do security or is it a designated team?
<sumanah> We have a group of approximately 80 core maintainers who have the ability to merge code into MediaWiki.  (to oversimplify.)  Every one of those people is supposed to check new commits for security (and for performance -- not slowing down the database or web server) before they merge things.  This is part of code review.  https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_review_guide
<sumanah> There are about 4 people in that group who are ESPECIALLY good at finding security problems, and so sometimes we specifically ask them to do those checks.  Chris Steipp, our chief security engineer, is one of them.  WMF's QA team does not do the security checks.  I probably confused things by mentioning this in the testing section.
<mizmo> terrrydactyl asked me what is meant by 'upstream': an 'upstream' is basically a different community that you grab code from. so for example, if you use jquery in your software app, the jquery community is an 'upstream' for you. no project starts with a 100% blank slate, the upstreams are those who work on components you rely on
<marina> Wikimedia: sumanah and qgil; also andre, Dereckson, marktrauceur
<marina> Fedora: mizmo and threebean
<marina> JBoss: asaldhan
<marina> OpenStack: annegentle and jpich, also iccha, reed
<marina> Open Technology Institute: jrbaldwin and georgiabullen
<sumanah> OK, I'm gonna answer design-related questions now that are about Wikimedia
<asaldhan> Sumana asked My question would be: what are the urgent or important questions that the JBoss community is currently confronting?  where are the bottlenecks or backlogs?   ANSWER:  we primarily deal in the middleware space.  We usually provide OSS solutions to enterprise problems
<sumanah> <ladquin> you said you had mixed feeling about:
<sumanah> "The second style is more what you are used to in open source projects as a whole, less directed and more anarchic... single-person or small-team projects, often with a mix of paid and volunteer developers; a lot more autonomy but that means less direction and support.  I think Sucheta's and Teresa's OPW internships are more like this.  No dedicated design/product management people work on these."
<sumanah> <ladquin> why is that?
<sumanah> So, I think that user experience design, QA, and product management are incredibly useful -- that's one reason. Collaboration with interaction designers, testers, and people who can help prioritize feature development from the user's point of view, from the start of a project, makes it stronger.
<sumanah> I think developers who work without the benefit of that collaboration can move faster but it's riskier.  You run a higher risk of building the wrong thing.  And if you don't work with systems administrators along the way, you run a higher risk of showing them your finished work and hearing "there's no way we will run that on our servers"
<marina> everyone, please be sure to answer <terrrydactyl> general question to all: how does your organization make money? i think a common misconception is that open source doesn't make any money and hence you can't get a job in it (which is obviously wrong.)
<sumanah> (will do, marina)
<sumanah> But the Wikimedia community has way more developers than designers and product managers and testers and sysadmins, so I can't ask the developers to just wait and sit on their hands.  Instead we are trying to grow and teach more PMs and designers and testers and sysadmins.
<sumanah> ladquin: I hope that answers that at least for a start
<sumanah> <wowsig> sumanah: Are there designers working with separate engineering teams? Or people take up multiple design projects? What are the most crucial areas where wikimedia needs designers?
<mizmo> terrrydactyl also asked all the organizations how they make money. fedora doesn't make money, but it is a used as a base on top of which Red Hat Enterprise Linux is built, which is Red Hat's flagship OS product. Red Hat charges a subscription fee for support and services around it (and other 'downstream' software Red Hat provides) and that's how funding and support go back into making Fedora happen
<sumanah> Right now, paid WMF designers are mostly working on the Editor Engagement projects to help encourage people to contribute to our sites (like editing Wikipedia), on language engineering work (like, making it easier to pick the language you want to view a website in, especially on mobile), and recently on our mobile apps for iOS and Android.
<sumanah> So at Wikimedia Foundation, paid designers work with specific engineering teams, although some designers are working on multiple projects and thus spend their time split among different teams.
<sumanah> Check out https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Design
<marina> (only people from organization that presented - we can be sure to answer some of the same questions in the next orgs batch)
<sumanah> For *crucial* stuff we are trying to hire people to ensure it gets done -- we are hiring a director of user experience, for instance.  https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings
<sumanah> I think some of the most useful places where Wikimedia needs designers is *working with volunteer developers to help them think through what they're making* -- see https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design and https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User_experience_review_queue for places to start, and #wikimedia-design on Freenode
<sumanah> Maybe Isarra has thoughts on this since she is a designer and hangs out with the design team and has a more informed perspective than I do on this
<ladquin> sumanah, yeah, thanks!
<sumanah> wowsig: I hope this begins to answer that, sorry that I don't have more precise info
<wowsig> thanks, sumanah
<APexilI> The design team has no care for volunteer developers.
<mizmo> another thought about making money - Red Hat is in the fortune 500 and hit $1 billion of profit annually recently, so working on open source doesn't mean not making a sustainable living
<sumanah> APexilI: I am surprised to hear that and can we talk about that in about 10 or 20 min?
<sumanah> There are about 150 paid people at the Wikimedia Foundation, funded mostly by user donations and partly by grants from governments & charities.
<sumanah> There are people who make their money off hosting, installing, customizing, and maintaining MediaWiki installations for other people: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Professional_development_and_consultancy and https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Hosting_services and Wikia are examples.
<sumanah> (and also Intel & VistaPrint and some other companies have big MediaWiki installations so they have in-house sysadmins or even MediaWiki extension developers)
<asaldhan> How does JBoss Community make money and developers stay employed?  ANSWER:  Primary sponsor of JBoss Community is Red Hat.  Red Hat provides hosting and employment to many of the developers in JBoss Community.  Red Hat uses many of the projects in its middleware products.
<APexilI> Sorry, didn't mean to say that aloud.
<sumanah> APexilI: It sounds like a problem I'd like to hear about and help fix, please do talk with me about it
<Isarra> Hmm?
<threebean> sorry if this is off-topic for the moment, but njerichelimo asked about what languages the Fedora devs use, and the answer (for infrastructure) is:  Python, everywhere.
<georgiabullen> OTI is a non-profit, so our funding comes from grants, foundation support, and partnerships
<marina> threebean: everything is on-topic now!
<marina> :)
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<threebean> :)
<njerichelimo> threebean: thanks for the answer! :)
<sumanah> (I am done answering questions I received)
<threebean> Although.. I originally misunderstood her questions -> https://twitter.com/NjeriChelimo/status/304684506844119040
<jrbaldwin> terrrydactyl asked: "what tools/languages do you use?"
<jrbaldwin> we primarily use php and mongodb on the backend, javascript / jquery on the front
<njerichelimo> threebean: glad I did not have to unveil that myself! :)
<jrbaldwin> with some tools like tilemill to customize map tiles
<threebean> ;)
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<mizmo> oh i misspoke earlier, sorry, Red Hat is in the S&P 500 not Fortune 500 
<jrbaldwin> annegentle asked: "what criteria do you use to choose communities (or do they come to you?)"
<terrrydactyl> sorry if this comes out a bit rude, but what exactly do designers do? cc: sumanah, Isarra 
<Isarra> sumanah: What wikimedia needs with designers is more communication. Or at least more effective communication. Whether that means working with volunteers or whoever doesn't seem to be such an issue.
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<jrbaldwin> we have worked directly with communities we have working relationships with for certain reasons, while others to come to us and work off the code themselves
<mizmo> designers and open communication (or lack thereof) seems to be common issue across floss projects
<sumanah> georgiabullen: feel free to answer "what do designers do?"
<threebean> ladquin also asked about what continuous integration services Fedora devs use.  the infrastructure team uses half-and-half travis-ci and jenkins.  The OS developers use http://autotest.github.com/ though.
<Isarra> terrrydactyl: Exactly my point!
<sumanah> I feel like as a person with terrible-to-nonexistent user experience/design skills I don't want to say "here's what they do" and get things wrong, but I will try -- please correct me, designers
<Isarra> They need to get out more, work with folks more, write things down in sane places and actually discuss them...
<ladquin> threebean, :) thanks
<annegentle> Also, I can expand on how people in the OpenStack community make money - companies need cloud deployers and operators for public and private clouds built with OpenStack. Plus there's a need for development of OpenStack itself. Also developers and cloud infrastructure architects are making money by knowing OpenStack APIs and making cloud-y applications.

Open Design Discussion

<sumanah> in terms of role: designers and product managers put themselves in the role of the user and figure out what the user REALLY NEEDS and not just what they think they want https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/11/21/lead-development-process-product-adviser-manager/
<jrbaldwin> and create a translation between how tech functions and how a user functions
<georgiabullen> jrbaldwin: do you want to answer what do designers do?
<Isarra> Really?
<georgiabullen> I just got a phone call!
<georgiabullen> _afk_
<sumanah> In terms of specific tasks designers do: user studies, mockups, interviews, "persona"s, and lots of research, I think
<terrrydactyl> do the designers just work with core?
<jrbaldwin> yep, and then sketching, paper prototyping, wireframing, working with tech, assessing how users interact with the wireframes, develop more robust prototypes and assess how well they work
<jrbaldwin> then go into production, but its all about listening to the user
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<sumanah> terrrydactyl: with MediaWiki core? no, designers also work with MediaWiki extensions such as NewPagesFeed, and with templates, gadgets, & some other stuff less often
<sumanah> (I think)
<sumanah> terrrydactyl: However that's descriptive not prescriptive.
<marina> ingu, sucheta, llmelon: are you around to give your update?
<mizmo> the key thing about listening to the users, as a designer - users are the experts in what they are trying to get accomplished. they aren't the experts in the best way to accomplish that - the devs are. so the designer is a bit of an ambassador between the two, negotiating between what the users are trying to accomplish - often filtering out their implementation suggestions - and working with the developers to make the users' goals possible given the con
<mizmo> straints of the technology
<terrrydactyl> sumanah: Isarra, honestly, i didn't even realize that there were actual dedicated designers. i thought it was just sorta designed through what the community reacts to.
<terrrydactyl> but they seem to have a really important role.
<sumanah> The MediaWiki community & WMF would be reasonably fine with designers working on core, on DevOps, and in other places, after a bit of workflow adjustment :-) (I hope)
<aleta> I have to take off… thanks everyone!
<sumanah> terrrydactyl: check out https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff?showall=1
<terrrydactyl> bye aleta!
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<Isarra> terrrydactyl: They have an important role, but do not fully realise it - this is, indeed, why you probably didn't even realise they were there.
<Isarra> But then anyone acting as dev or designer or anything in between with wikimedia generally rightfully fears the communities...
<jrbaldwin> an example of a lack of design process can be seen in one laptop per child, where the end user wasn't directly involved, so adoptability has been low
<marina> since we are already a bit overtime - thanks again for attending everyone!!! Please feel free to continue the conversation, but if you have a question for someone who has to leave please feel free to follow up via e-mail after I send the log
<mizmo> actually at least initially there was a pretty strong design process behind olpc...
<marina> I'll send the log once the conversation here wraps up
<karenesq> thanks marina for the great moderation! :) and to all the presenters
<jrbaldwin> yeah, very big, but not designing for micro communities
<jrbaldwin> just as an overall standard design process
<terrrydactyl> it was really interesting to hear more about the different organizations!
<mizmo> there were other reasons why it ran into problems, in my honest opinion political ones
<jrbaldwin> "traditionally good design" etc
<fabiana> thanks a lot to everyone, this was a really great meeting to follow!
<marina> also, please give us feedback on how this presentation format from organizations worked and what we can change - this is the first time we are doing it - thanks sumanah for the idea!!!
<marina> we will do another meeting with presentations from Deltacloud, GNOME, Mozilla, OpenITP, and Subversion in a few weeks
<marina> and are open to a different format
<marina> karenesq: you are welcome :)
<marina> BIG thanks to the presenters!
<threebean> :)
<marina> and out interns ROCK too!
<terrrydactyl> i really liked the format, though the Q&A session was a bit harrowing 
<Dereckson> That were indeed an interestign overview of the projects, thanks.
<Deindre> thank you all, it has been very interesting!
<njerichelimo> marina: presenters: BIG thanks :)
<ladquin> +1
<sucheta> marina, I have been following the whole conversation. It was a pleasure to know about so many new things. Thanks :) 
<Deindre>  I'm going to write a blogpost about this meeting and your work... Someone disagree?  
<mitevam> it was very interesting 
<valeriej> Maybe an etherpad for questions next time?
<marina> terrrydactyl: would you rather we allocated 15 minutes to each presentation next time, with 7 of these dedicated to Q&A with each presenter?
<mitevam> but a little hard to follow at the end (QA)..I don't know what would be a better format for that though 
<fabiana> marina: thanks a lot for organizing this
<salarcon> I'd love to see an etiquette guide or code of conduct for irc meeting facilitation
<sumanah> I personally would love to hear more from jrbaldwin mizmo georgiabullen Isarra and other designers here about what open source design means and how it can work (and stuff others need to learn in order to work with designers better)
<terrrydactyl> marina: it might be better that way so the questions are more fresh. maybe even do the PM questions while the presenter is going through it and they can answer what they'd like, don't know if that's too much multitasking though.
<anteaya> marina, let's try not to make the meeting longer that it already is
<marina> sucheta: would you like to answer the question now, which interns were answering in the beginning, which is what have you accomplished so far and what task(s) are you working on this week?
<salarcon> something that 1) establishes what our community standards are, and if it seems like it would work, gives out roles like gatekeeper
<salarcon> and 2) gives us permission and direction about non-meeting talk
<mizmo> id love to have a longer discussion about open source design, it's not something commonly talked about except via end user frustration :) i'd love that to change
<marina> anteaya: we don't need to have updates from interns in the next meeting if it is in two weeks
<njerichelimo> mizmo: +1
<jrbaldwin> mizmo:  i very much agree
<sumanah> (blog post or separate IRC conversation would be totally pleasing to me re FLOSS design, I don't want to keep people in this meeting longer than is pleasant)
<mizmo> actually
<mizmo> i have a good reference
<mizmo> one sec
<terrrydactyl> do designers usually get assigned to a project or do developers come up to them with ideas?
<marina> mizmo: you can feel free to continue this discussion now or set up another meeting that would be optional, but open to all interested interns and mentors
<mizmo> we had an open source day at ACM SIG CHI 
<mizmo> and i wrote this big paper about open source design -
<mizmo> http://duffy.fedorapeople.org/presentations/chi%202010%20floss%20hci%20workshop/duffy-flossdesign6.pdf
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<jrbaldwin> oh awesome
<wowsig> mizmo,  I am very very interested.
<mizmo> here's the blog post that goes with it http://blog.linuxgrrl.com/2010/04/06/contributing-to-free-open-source-software-as-a-designer/
<anteaya> marina, thanks, good to know
<sumanah> terrrydactyl: do you mean within Wikimedia for maybe also for OTI, OpenStack, JBoss, Fedora, and so on?
<jrbaldwin> terrrydactyl: i approached tidepools originally from a design perspective when i started on it for thesis 
<annegentle> mizmo: great research, thanks for sharing.
<terrrydactyl> just in general. i feel like each organization would have a different approach
<sumanah> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_Meeting_Recommendations -- salarcon is this of interest to you? cc marina 
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<sucheta> marina, Oh right. My accomplishments have been described in my last blog post. I was outside last week, at language engineering Summit. Worked on jquery.ime. This week, I shall be focusing on a new bug ( Adding a user preference for enabling the extension by default) , which should improve the interface of the extension. 
<Isarra> What's the difference between open source design and otherwise? Isn't design design, just with different considerations according to project?
<jrbaldwin> thanks for the links mizmo, ive been stressing open source design and didn't know others were too :)
<mizmo> Isarra, oh it's real different. you have to have a continuous open dialog with your user community or you get branded as bad bad evil and undermined (and sometimes the open dialog doesn't always help with the bad bad evil ;-) )
<Isarra> terrrydactyl: Either. Both.
<mizmo> jrbaldwin, oh absolutely, i worry about it all the time
<mizmo> especially when bringing new designers on board - it's a skillset that isn't really part of traditional UX training at all
<Isarra> mizmo: And for proper user-centered design you need dialogues open anyway. And anything with a community requires communication - open or closed source...
<mizmo> traditional UX training tends to focus on working for a design firm, even, not as in-house. open source designers are more 'in-house' in mentality in additional to all of the community management and communication skills needed
<Isarra> Although the extent of undermining probably would differ... o_O
<wowsig> Isarra, I used to think the same, but since there is no central physical location where you can coordinate with designers and developers. The typical brainstorming exercises that are taken for granted in other design projects become a little difficult.
<mizmo> Isarra, yes but for traditional UCD those dialogues are things like on-site customer interviews covered by non-disclosure agreements, and all of the research is properietary and only shared amongst the staff within the company, not publicly
<jrbaldwin> i started at in-house firms, had to shift the way i approached design when working from a local community + open source angle
<wowsig> marina: Will this discussion be included in the transcript?
<Isarra> If traditional UX training was what yielded some of the folks I have had to work with elsewhere, I would hope that's a changing tradition.
<marina> sucheta: thanks, I guess the idea was to have everyone summarize their accomplishments in a sentence or two - I really appreciate everyone blogging, but we want to make sure we all get the most important bits
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<mizmo> Isarra, for traditional UX processes you're communicating to stakeholders of which there's a limited set. for open source, you're essentially communicating to a user community that is infinitely larger and has a healthy distrust of you since you're a newb in their eyes
<Isarra> Ah.
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<marina> wowsig: it will be - I will only send the transcript when this channel goes quiet :) 
<sumanah> Here's an interview with one of the Wikimedia Foundation's designers and one of our OPW mentors: https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/11/02/designing-for-connection-on-wikipedia-an-interview-with-heather-walls/
<mizmo> Isarra, the other thing about traditional UX training is the taught dependency on proprietary apps and platforms like Mac this, Adobe that, which is really incompatible with an open design process. e.g. it's kind of BS to tell people they can participate in the design of your FLOSS project if they need a $2500 creative suite + a $2000+ mac to play
<mizmo> but i know im a bit of an obnoxious radical on that position
<mizmo> in fedora we try to use open source tools only for design assets, using open formats and open licenses
<Isarra> Such dependency is ridiculous. 
<sucheta> marina, Sorry :) I concentrated on two very important features. Removed one existing not-so-necessary feature, which solved several bugs. 
<mizmo> (and folks who use macs are perfectly welcome, we just ask that they use the FLOSS tools and open formats so we can collaborate with them)
<Isarra> Most FOSS design tools suck, but there also tend to be much cheaper proprietary ones available thet work just fine.
<marina> sucheta: which features were those?
<mizmo> inkscape is awesome and makes illustrator poop its pants when it comes to a good ux design tool
<wowsig> Isarra, what tools are you talking about? Any particular ones?
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<sumanah> I'm going to linkspam a little now re other stuff WMF design has worked on:
<sumanah> https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/05/21/introducing-designs-for-the-universal-language-selector/
<sumanah> https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/09/25/page-curation-launch/
<sumanah> https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/10/24/wikipedia-mobile-gets-a-new-look/
<sumanah> https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/10/05/testing-new-signup-page-for-wikipedia/
<wowsig> sumanah, this is drool level stuff :)
<sumanah> and terrrydactyl and others - https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/10/29/designing-for-multilingual-web/
<sumanah> "Design tools generally have poor support for non-Latin scripts. Moreover, creating screens and prototypes in languages that you don’t speak is hard. But since the world needs these language tools, we can’t wait for our design software to improve, we just need to figure out our own ways to get things done...."
<mizmo> sumanah, so those first few blog links seem to be announcing design changes that are already happening, is there another place where folks can participate while they're 'in progress' and not fully 'baked' ?
<Isarra> wowsig: Inkscape is the only thing I have found to be worth its salt. If you want general image manipulation for mockups and the like, GIMP is severly lacking, and there is generally nothing for wireframes or various other more specialised purposes.
<mizmo> Isarra, which version of gimp are you using?
* mizmo loves gimp
<sumanah> mizmo: we generally do local announcements "onwiki" (in the local communities) to ask people to look at prototypes of things that will affect them
<mizmo> im using a 2.9 build with the 16/32 bit precision support, but 2.8 is pretty sweet
<Isarra> 2.6, 2.8... both are extremely unweildy.
<Dereckson> wowsig: Your post-it media would be a nice addition to Wikimedia Commons, our media repository. They illustrate both computer activities and software usability testing topics, so have an educative value, beyond GNOME scope.
<sucheta> marina, Having multiple pad per page, and naturally there's no such thing called 'session list' anymore.:)
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<njerichelimo> mizmo: +1 for gimp love!! :)
<mizmo> im not sure i quite agree; it has its own way of doing things but its an extremely effective tool once you get used to it
<sumanah> Sometimes we also announce "please give us feedback on these mockups/prototypes" on the blog or via social media - @wikimedia, @wikipedia , Google+, Facebook
<Isarra> I have been using GIMP since it had balloons.
<mizmo> sumanah, that's really good. i've found that the less-baked the design assets when we make those kind of calls for feedback, the less complaints we get in the end when the final design is released
<marina> sucheta: cool, thank you!
<sumanah> mizmo: you're quite right of course.
<wowsig> dereckson: That will be so great. I am adding on to them too. How do I add it to the media repository?
<mizmo> i used it before balloons! i used it during 1.x days
<Isarra> 1.2, apparently... dzang. And it had such potential...
<Isarra> It really did.
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* Isarra stares at it forlornly.
<mizmo> i think 2.8 is great and 2.9 is going to be awesome
<mizmo> the development is really, really active now
<Dereckson> wowsig: basically creating an account and go to http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:UploadWizard
<sumanah> mizmo: Sometimes we are not as consistent as we ought to be about community collaboration .  https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Design/How_to_give_design_feedback is an interesting guide for non-designers who want to be able to provide useful feedback to designers
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<Dereckson> wowsig: (this is the upload file link, in the left menu)
<wowsig> Dereckson, will do that :)
<Isarra> Active development can be good or bad. Unfortunately the folks who really would be a good audience to bring over and cater to are just using photoshop or whatever.
<marina> hi hbons: design discussion going on! what some of the backlog?
<Isarra> Personally I just gave up entirely on any of that. 
<sumanah> terrrydactyl: you may find it edifying to look at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Design/How_to_give_design_feedback#Design_process which details what designers do in a (simplified) 5-step process
<Dereckson> wowsig: We've spaces on our server, and we like to offer high resolution pictures, so don't hesitate to upload originals instead of downsized versions.
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<wowsig> dereckson: Sure. 
<hbons> marina: sure. i was lured by rumours on twitter :)
<mizmo> Isarra, are you familiar with any of the UX efforts on gimp or the latest development stuff? i was more pessimistic until I talked with a lot of those folks at LGM and saw the progress they're making
<marina> he-he :) hope these rumors used #fossopw hashtag :)
<mizmo> Isarra, the goal is definitely not to cater to photoshop users
<Isarra> I will become less passimistiv when I see the results.
<Isarra> And in that case then there is little chance of it ever being a viable alternative for FOSS designers.
<mizmo> single-window mode and on-canvas editing isn't results enough in 3.8? :(
<mizmo> well im a foss designer and i and others on my team use it just fine to get our jobs done, so maybe you're overstating the case a little bit there :)
<Isarra> Single-windowed mode is actually a downgradein some window managers, but I'm talking more about how the interface affects workflows than the particular appearance..
<Dereckson> I talked about graphics software, with Sam Hocevar, former Debian project leader. He considers both Gimp and Photoshop lack the usability and the ergonomics required to correctly translate the user's ideas and will into actions.
<njerichelimo> hbons: checking the rumors..
<mizmo> on-canvas editing is pretty impactful to workflow....
<Dereckson> I were a little afraid during this talk the ideal graphics software should be able to read our brain and see how we want to edit the picture.
<Isarra> I really have no idea what that is.
<mizmo> one of the big changes in 2.8 was that a number of tools were given the ability for on-canvas editing, rather than restricting you to the respective 'tool options' palette
<Isarra> Could you not edit stuff in the canvas before?
<wowsig> nirbheek: you came along following the tweet? 
<mizmo> for instance, now when you use the text tool on canvas, options like font selection, font size, etc. are on canvas right where you're typing the text so you don't have to fly between the text and tool options to muck with it
<nirbheek> wowsig, I did indeed; out of curiosity :)
<mizmo> it was a pretty major change, maybe you should take a closer look at the release notes for 2.8
<marina> hbons: sent - you'll want to find a place in the log when it started :)
<hbons> marina: thank you :)
<mizmo> you really don't understand the differences between the versions until you try to teach a gimp class to a room ful of 20 people who have 2.6 installed and realize how far it's come :)
* nirbheek is hoping that someone will post a complete log in the channel topic at the end of all this
* marktraceur wouldn't mind
<wowsig> nirbheek, there are some very interesting links and research shared here, will send it to you.
<marina> nirbheek: I can send you the log so far now if you are interested
<nirbheek> marina, That would be lovely, thank you :)
<marina> nirbheek: let me know what your e-mail is
<nirbheek> <...>
<marina> would people want the log to be public?
<nirbheek> (My email is public)
<wowsig> Sure, marina.
<marina> I could double check with everyone via e-mail if the general consensus is for it to be public
<sumanah> What was the magical tweet that lured people here? :)
<mizmo> i dont think i said anything too incriminating, public is fine with me :)
<marina> mizmo: I'll send a log to the original list and will ask people to let me know if they want something taking out
<sumanah> public is fine with me; too late to regret anything I've said here, I think
<sumanah> thank you all
<njerichelimo> sumanah: I'm also curious about that tweet!
<Isarra> Oh, like the thing with the text?
<marktraceur> I could pretty easily copy the log to a webserver
* nirbheek came here through this: https://twitter.com/sia_steel/status/304695631082033152
<mizmo> Isarra, yes the text tool was one of the tools affected there
<Isarra> I found that mostly just got in the way.
<mizmo> well, you seem to be very negative about gimp so i guess we'll have to agree to disagree. sorry :(
<Isarra> Although that the text tool didn't even work anymore was part of why I just gave up on it entirely.
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<marina> marktraceur: I have the log - I could post it on the wiki
<mizmo> this is one of the problems though with floss design
<mizmo> you work on redesigning something like that and you get very negative user reactions
<marktraceur> mizmo: I commend you for trying as hard as you did; sorry it didn't work out
<njerichelimo> nirbheek: thanks for the link!
<marina> wowsig: yes, thanks for using #fossopw hashtag!
<Isarra> I am negative. The ability to quickly toggle between colours, brush sizes, etc was taken away and replaced with stuff that didn't help me at all. Call me selfish, but that was my experience. Others have their own complaints, and they're the ones you'd want to talk to because they at least aren't bitter about having lost the thing.
<marina> s/yes/yay
<wowsig> marina, :)
<sumanah> I wanted to mention an upcoming informal "job fair" this weekend, online, where people will share job opportunities http://copperbadge.dreamwidth.org/742432.html
<mizmo> yeh, i dont have any problems with toggling between those quickly at all
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<nirbheek> njerichelimo, No problem :)
<Isarra> If you want a specific brush size, you type it in. Proper is having a range of them where you just select the right one. Gimp used to have this, though clunkily. Photoshop also had this last I checked, and it was also clunky, but it is needed.
<sumanah> and folks who have free time next week and own smartphones can help us test the new "upload a photo right from your phone to Wikimedia Commons" feature: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mobile_QA/Commons_uploads
<wowsig> mizmo, IMO, I don't consider it disheartening at all. I believe all the other projects would give their ears to have users to comment on their usability or design. People use a product or don't. Open Source projects are lucky in that case. 
<mizmo> you can still have a range where you select them - you just select a different brush head instead of modifying the brush width, not too hard
<sumanah> I love that in open source I can help people I've never even met
<mizmo> wowsig, it's true, and the feedback loop is so quick
<mizmo> i've worked on proprietary apps before, the feedback loop with users is ridiculously long. months, if you're lucky
<sumanah> like, I can help people while I sleep
<mizmo> in floss you can get feedback the same day you did the mockups
<mizmo> the price you pay though is in the negativity of the feedback
<wowsig> Although it does become very overwhelming to collate all the data from all the sources and derive meaning out of it.
<mizmo> for example, last week i got a usability bug that said i must not have a college education and am quite stupid
<mizmo> they get personal and mean :(
<sumanah> this is where bug triage & feedback wranglers like valeriej are handy
<Isarra> It used to be that way - select a brush of the right size and use it. Now all brushes are the same size and there is a slider. That is not usable.
<mizmo> it's hard to, exactly right, to collate the data and derive meaning
<sumanah> they learn the skill of looking at feedback like that, constructively engaging where possible, and passing *useful* bug reports on to contributors
<mizmo> Isarra, you can still do that....
<wowsig> mizmo, aah! That is just not right, I label such comments with the keyword, no-relevant-feedback and move on.
<mizmo> the thing we try to drive in the usability bugs is to have the users tell us what they were trying to do, what their goal is. a lot of time they comment that they don't like something and we should change it back, but have no rationale
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<nirbheek> marina, Thank you for the log! It was indeed quite useful. :)
<marina> nirbheek: you read fast :)
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<mizmo> sometimes when you unpack that, you find out what the user was trying to do was perfectly reasonable but they had been using a hacky way of getting it done, and we can explain the better way to do it
<vkmc> Thanks every intern and presenter to let me know how things are going and interesting information about their job environments, I'm calling a day :)
<sumanah> mizmo: that's awesome and I am glad it's a Best Practice that's being followed!
<sumanah> I'm also heading off for now. Thanks all
<mizmo> Isarra, if you really wanted you could grab /usr/share/gimp/brushes from an older version and get all the various size brushes installed on your current copy, i think that's what i did
<sumanah> Glad people liked the implementation of my idea, and liked learning about Wikimedia
<sumanah> We are hiring https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings
<nirbheek> marina, A side-effect of being on too many IRC channels ;)
* sumanah flees  :-)
<vkmc> Hope to read more about your cool projects soon! I'll check the log later @¿@
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<marina> vkmc: thanks for attending! and also wanted to say thank you for being so helpful in GNOME channels!
<nirbheek> mizmo, That blog post + paper on FOSS design is going to be very useful for me to give to a couple of friends who've wanted to get involved, thank you!
<marina> vkmc: it's nice to know you have time for both OpenStack and GNOME :)
<vkmc> marina, Np, I really enjoy it :) Thanks you for organizing this meeting! 
<mizmo> nirbheek, sure thing, i'm very happy it's of use to you!
<marina> vkmc: you are welcome :)
<vkmc> marina, Oh I wish I had more time to also contribute to coding :) Thanks again 
<vkmc> See you all later! 
* vkmc waves
<marina> vkmc: bye!
<Isarra> mizmo: That is not possible. All the brush sizes are overridden by the slider. The slider is fine, but not enough - having an assortment of definable presets is needed.
<marina> vkmc: and it's good to focus on one thing - helping in the channel is already a lot
<mizmo> Isarra, uhhh i definitely am not seeing that in my copy of gimp
<marina> we need more people doing that
<wowsig> I think we should have another meeting on designing in the open :)
<mizmo> Isarra, sec lemme show you
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<mizmo> Isarra, http://imgur.com/76tkgUi
<mizmo> see my brushes palette
<llmelon> hey guys, sorry I missed the meeting, my flight back to Sydney got delayed and I overslept *REGRETS* can i reply to marina's email?
<mizmo> i've got a bunch of circular brushes there of all sizes
<marina> llmelon: no problem! I know it was very early for you!
<mizmo> you might want to try installing gimp painter too, it gives you the multiple sized brushes plus a bunch of really handy ones
<Deindre> sorry! My connection failed!
<marina> llmelon: would you like to just reply now in the channel?
<Isarra> mizmo: The slider overrides all and is common for each brush. My brushes are all different sizes, but in 2.8 it overrides them. Is this going back to the way it was in 2.9 then?
<terrrydactyl> i tried using GIMP a while back and the learning curve was too steep for me and i didn't have the patience to try and figure it out. :(
<Isarra> The slider is in the tool options.
<llmelon> sure!
<mizmo> Isarra, it really sounds like your copy of gimp is busted or something
<Isarra> It has been this way on every machine on which I have installed it, on multiple OSs.
<njerichelimo> terrrydactyl: I used the docs on the first day, and things were really great from then on! Try the docs. :)
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<Isarra> Now I always have the tool options window open - too many things require it, and with fluxbox random windows are easily enough accessed, but if that is what is causing it that is a rather problematic bug.
<njerichelimo> Everyone: Thoroughly enjoyed the meeting. I have to run now - My way into my Friday ;)
* njerichelimo is off
<Isarra> But that is just one thing I have personally had trouble with. Others have other problems.
<marina> terrrydactyl: mizmo's materials for girl scouts and middle school children about GIMP and Inkscape are good for everyone! http://blog.linuxgrrl.com/category/inkscape-class
<terrrydactyl> njerichelimo: maybe i'll give it another try!
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<njerichelimo> terrrydactyl: yay!
<marina> and 
<marina> http://blog.linuxgrrl.com/category/girl-scouts-class - that one has GIMP
* marina tested :)
<terrrydactyl> i have lots of links to look at after this meeting! my tabs are indistinguishable, heh
<Deindre> To all: it becomes to be late here....thank you very much for meeting :) You rock! :)
<mizmo> either way when im doing UX work the brush options aren't really that much of a concern
<marktraceur> Isarra: I don't want to debate, but can I ask what interests you about Wikimedia projects? Why do you contribute? (it's all right if you would rather not talk about it, but I think it could be interesting)
<mizmo> you might wanna set up some shortcuts to up or lower the brush size to get around using the slider, if the brush selection isnt working for you http://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-concepts-shortcuts.html
<Deindre> marina: karenesq  bye bye goodnight
<marina> Deindre: bye-bye!
<Isarra> marktraceur: They're sexy.
<karenesq> bye Deindre!
<salarcon> mizmo: re: the inkscape class, is it ok for other people to use the materials to teach a class? 
<mizmo> salarcon, absolutely! they are all cc licensed, please feel free
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<salarcon> i can see that being a good fit for our hackerspace
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<mizmo> i have a post that has all of the class materials listed together, one sec
<mizmo> http://opensource.com/education/10/4/introducing-open-source-middle-school  <= salarcon
<salarcon> do you know if the license would allow us to charge a nominal amount for delivering the class?
<mizmo> scroll to the bottom of that and it has all the materials neatly arranged
<Isarra> marktraceur: Alternately, I like them. And more importantly I like the people. This isn't exactly interesting, sorry.
<marktraceur> Isarra: You're right, it's not as interesting as I expected :)
<salarcon> mizmo: awesome.  I have been needing some vector graphic knowhow for a long time.
<mizmo> salarcon, they're CC-BY-SA 3.0... i dont know if the SA restricts you in that way, but as the sole creator of the materials I can override that by granting you an OK to charge the nominal fee
<wowsig> I am off! Thanks, marina for another great meetup :)
<Isarra> marktraceur: What did you expect?
<marina> wowsig: bye! it's all you folks :)
<marktraceur> Isarra: I don't know; a lot of people seem interested in the free culture aspect, or in the sharing, or in the value of education. I never really considered that it could be motivated purely by an amiable community.
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<salarcon> mizmo: awesome!  If we do the class I will definitely let you know and give you credit.
<Isarra> The other things contribute to it being likable, and also to the people being likeable as well.
<mizmo> salarcon, cool sounds good :)
<llmelon> hi everyone, i'm lianne and i'm an intern at Mozilla through OPW. My work revolves around creating an internal dashboard for the release management team, so that they can track the progress of their products (i.e. which ones can be released, still awaiting bug fixes, etc.). Currently I'm working with Mozilla's Bugzilla REST API to pull bugs with more complex queries that the interface can...
<llmelon> ...handle to be shown on my web application, which hasn't been deployed. Since I achieved my milestones for individual views and dashboard views for each product/component, I am currently spending this week to figure out an attractive way to display these views, before I move on to views for Mozilla's various teams.  Will update you guys as soon as I have hosted the project, but right now it...
<llmelon> ...is sitting on https://github.com/lianne719/relmandash if anyone is interested :)
<salarcon> like most volunteer organizations we're working on a million things without a lot of people hours to cover it, so a lot of good ideas don't get done.  
<mizmo> salarcon, the difference between the link marina sent you and the one i sent you is the one marina sent is a mix of inkscape and gimp, the one i sent you is only inkscape
<llmelon> sorry for the late one again
<mizmo> salarcon, the inkscape one is also longer i think. the difference is the inkscape ones were developed for a class taught during school hours - the girl scout materials were developed for a bunch of girls coming to class voluntarily on a friday night :) 
<marktraceur> Isarra: I guess I have trouble remembering that people can be a motivating factor :)
<marina> mizmo: could you share the link in the channel? it'd be great for everyone to have it!
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<salarcon> mizmo: gotcha!
* Isarra points to wikis.
<Isarra> People.
<Isarra> Motivating.
<marina> mizmo: your materials are just so awesome!
<terrrydactyl> marktraceur: i got interested in open source primarily to do something with my time and to be able to showcase some code i've written. OPW was the kick in the butt for me to take it more seriously and actually start looking. free culture/software was more of a side thing. but now that i've been doing it for a month, i really enjoy it.
<terrrydactyl> everyone has different motivating factors. :)
<mizmo> the girl scout ones (mix of inkscape and gimp) are here: http://blog.linuxgrrl.com/category/girl-scouts-class/
<terrrydactyl> sadly mine aren't entirely selfless
<mizmo> and the inkscape ones (from the middle school class) are here: http://opensource.com/education/10/4/introducing-open-source-middle-school
<marina> llmelon: thanks for the update!
<Isarra> Actually my primary motivating factors seem to be boredom and alhohol these days.
<Isarra> So... yeah.
<Isarra> I blame the alcohol on wikimedians. Terrible influence.
<terrrydactyl> i find myself to be more productive with a bit of wine
<terrrydactyl> i coded most of my initial application slightly buzzed
<marktraceur> Isarra: We are, it's true
<salarcon> so, i'm a train ride away from OTI, the org I was placed with.  I was there 3 weeks ago and my favorite quote was, "Hey Stephanie, there's whiskey and chocolate is Awesome Space.  You should head over."
<salarcon> i have a draft blog post about the culture there that's been languishing.
<terrrydactyl> i have so many blog ideas that are dead because i'm too lazy to write it.
<marktraceur> Isarra: I'd say that at least some of the people working on wikis, and on free software and free culture in general, are motivated by personal need combined with at least some concern for the freedom or education of others
<Isarra> It certainly adds to the environment.
<Isarra> And yes. You know the reason I'm really loitering around wikimedia... well, it's... nevermind.
<valeriej> terrrydactyl: I know what you mean. I have drafts in my head and it feels like it's too late to write them.
<salarcon> mizmo: I'm reading that you had a good experience with your local girl scouts.  my hackerspace recently did an electronic jewelry class with our local girl scout troup and also had a great time.  there were like 50 girls and I'm told they were curious, polite, and awesome.
<tunabananas> salarcon: lirl. that description almost makes me want to move back to the east coast ;)
<terrrydactyl> valeriej: i feel like the ideas fly away once i sit at my computer to type them out.
<salarcon> tunabananas:  you should definitely come visit!
<mizmo> salarcon, yeh definitely. they made it easy too, they provided the facility with the computer lab and everything. and since the class was on friday nights, the girls who showed up wanted to be there
<tunabananas> salarcon: i'm doing a cross-country hackerspace tour in the summer, so it'd hafta be then unless otherwise funded 

Making Connections

<terrrydactyl> tunabananas, housewifehacker if you guys are still interested in getting together, can you give me your emails (either here or pm) so we can try to make it happen? :)
<salarcon> re: girl scouts, however, several of us were kind of scandalized by their "science" badge track that has things like "the science of fashion" and "the science of happiness".   one of our not-secret agendas is to help them overhaul.
<salarcon> tunabananas: re: summer, sweet!  oti will still be there, and it'll be great to see you in Philly WHEN (not if) you visit!
<valeriej> terrrydactyl: Yep. I think I edit before I can type, so it's hard to get the words down. For my last post I wrote  it down first, and I think that helped.
<marktraceur> Isarra: If you want to talk about it, I'm sure anyone at the Foundation would be pleased to. Or at least be able to find someone who would listen.
* valeriej is now known as valeriej|away
<Isarra> Wikimedians know what they're doing. I wanted to learn.
<Isarra> That's the polite way to put it.
<Isarra> But that was years ago. Now... who knows.
<terrrydactyl> tunabananas: i don't know if you're still around, but 510pen seems really interesting. is there anything i can do to help?
<tunabananas> terrrydactyl: I'm sending an email to y'all now :)
<terrrydactyl> awesomesauce. 
<tunabananas> salarcon: I'm especially looking forward to visiting the Hacktory :D
<marktraceur> Isarra: I guess soon, you'll be the person who knows what to do, teaching the next iteration of people how to do things.
<Isarra> I wouldn't count on that. Everything changes. There is always more to learn...
<terrrydactyl> Isarra: how long have you been part of the community?
<Isarra> Hard to say.
<Isarra> I've been stalking some wikipedians for years, though.
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<terrrydactyl> i've only started being part of the community during the application process so there's still so much to learn
<Isarra> And there are so many communities, too.
<Isarra> Not just infrastructure, development, design, but chapters and localities, and each project, each language...
* Isarra cowers.
<Dereckson> Did you found a Wikimedia community where you feel at home?
<marktraceur> Isarra: Don't try to do it all :)
<Isarra> I ventured into Commons once. Never got the hang of that one.
<Isarra> These days I loiter mostly in cabals.
<Isarra> Yaaay, cabals.
* valeriej|away is now known as valeriej
<terrrydactyl> do all these communities have different areas that they congregate? i just hang out in #mediawiki but i didn't realize there was much more beyond that
* terrrydactyl is trying to go through sumanah's links from earlier
<marktraceur> terrrydactyl: Well, there are a bunch of wiki pages on e.g. en.wikipedia.org where people talk about meta stuff.
<valeriej> terrrydactyl: More info than you're asking for probably: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC/Channels
<terrrydactyl> what is meta? i just see it thrown around and never really understood it. :x
<marktraceur> terrrydactyl: And the same on every wiki--wikinews has its water cooler, enwp its village pump, and the like. There are also IRC channels for many projects.
<terrrydactyl> valeriej: thanks! didn't realize there were so many different channels
<valeriej> terrrydactyl: Np. I'm on #wikimedia-dev and #wikimedia-tech, but they're not always active.
<terrrydactyl> valeriej: ah! i think i joined #mediawiki-dev by mistake. sometimes the naming is a bit confusing.
<APexiI> meta is the gathering place for cross-project stuff that isn't the software 
<valeriej> terrrydactyl: Ah, yeah, I think I joined #opw on freenode once, ha ha.
<marktraceur> Oh, terrrydactyl, I just meant "meta" in the normal english sense
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<Petra> jfuerth: Now things have slowed down.
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<Petra> jfuerth: They send out a log.
<jfuerth> Petra: thanks. I'll read that!
<jfuerth> I read the last one too, where you introduced yourself
<Petra> jfuerth: You can introduce yourself.
<jfuerth> Hi everyone. I'm Jonathan Fuerth, and I work on the Errai framework at JBoss
<jfuerth> (I'm Petra's mentor for this round of the OPW program, but you've probably guessed that by now) :)
<Petra> I gave him hell for not showing up earlier.
<ladquin> hi, jfuerth, welcome
<ladquin> hehe
<jfuerth> thanks ladquin
<jfuerth> I'm not sure what asaldhan said about JBoss in my absence, but I'm happy to chat and answer any questions you have!
<Petra> jfuerth: Did you see where lincolntree said on #errai that you eat interns. Is this true? Good thing I'm in Texas and you're in Toronto.
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<marina> jfuerth: hi! thanks for introducing yourself!
<marina> jfuerth: I will send a log shortly
<marina> asaldhan gave an excellent introduction of JBoss!
<jfuerth> marina: great. my apologies once again for the scheduling conflict
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<jfuerth> Petra: only very occasionally. you probably have nothing to worry about. probably. :-P
<marina> jfuerth: no problem at all! it was just hard (even impossible) to find a time that would work for everyone
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<jfuerth> marina: of course

Mailed-in Status Updates

ingu:

I'm an intern with the GNOME documentation team :-) I am working on writing help pages using Mallard (a markup language) for GNOME Terminal and GNOME Dictionary. I am halfway done with GNOME Terminal as my mentor has reviewed. You can see daily HTML builds of how the help is shaping up here:
http://sindhus.bitbucket.org/docs/gnome-terminal/index.html

My mentor and I have decided that I should start working on GNOME Dictionary and other applications that need a bit of work such as Gedit and Empathy simultaneously when I will be working on Dictionary in March, the last leg of the internship.

I have had a lot to learn about Terminal, emulators, shell, command line in general, grammar, paying attention to detail and basically doing everything practically that the GDP Style Guide prescribes! (http://developer.gnome.org/gdp-style-guide/stable/) and my mentor has been the most patient with me in writing this, thank you, Kat!

LittleBohemian:

I'm working on the TidePools project through the Open Technology Institute.  During the first half of my internship:

  * I refreshed and updated my knowledge of Apache and PHP and learned how to make them play nicely with MongoDB as I set up a development machine on which to do my work.  I carefully documented this process, repeated it using my own documentation to ensure that nothing was left out, and posted it to the GitHub wiki.  My team is using both Ubuntu and MacOS, so I worked with them to coordinate which versions of the applications we would use in order to ensure consistent results.  I made a list of system information we would need from the MacOS users and posted a skeleton page to provide a starting point for documentation on that platform.
  * I learned a great deal about the tools of the programming trade, from development tools like IDEs and frameworks, to version control with Git/GitHub, to more general project management tools such as Trello.  I tested a variety of development tools and found the ones that work best for me.  I'm entirely new to Git and GitHub, and there's been a significant learning curve.  I set up two branches on GitHub (one for debugging and code standardation, one for search engine integration), and have worked from them to collaborate with the lead developer and make contributions to the code.
  * I learned about coding standards, and why they are important for consistency within a collaborative project.  I researched options for the PHP and JavaScript, made suggestions based on my research, and worked to bring the PHP code closer in line with the chosen standard.  (I'm not as familiar with JavaScript yet and am working on that.)
  * I learned how to wrap Mongo code in try/catch blocks to catch errors and assist in debugging, and implemented this throughout the PHP.
  * I helped to set up a wiki.tidepools.co subdomain on the project's main site, for the purpose of sharing resources, use cases, and other research.
  * I set up a testbed at tidepools.co/testbed, and am periodically posting the newest code changes there, so that teammates and others can test the latest features and bugfixes without having to maintain a local server.
  * I did some code refactoring, to enhance readability and performance and make it easier to add functionality in the future.

Currently, I am juggling my time between:

  * Learning how HTML, jQuery, JSON, and PHP work together in the current setup, and using that understanding to integrate the search engine I wrote during my OPW application process into the existing map interface.
  * A blog entry documenting what I did to get my search engine's geospatial search function to work properly; specifically, getting PHP to formulate its queries to play nicely with MongoDB's built-in geospatial search function.
  * Making minor adjustments to the Ubuntu setup documentation for completeness and clarity.
  * Next up: Writing a user-configurable API to enable pulling live data feeds from a variety of JSON sources.  I will start by writing a Twitter-specific API, and then find ways to make it easily tweakable to work with other sources.

That's it for now.  It's hard to believe how much I've learned in just a few short weeks, and I'm really excited about where this project is headed!  Many thanks to my mentors and all of the organizers for making all of this possible!

Note: In the above IRC log a participant references http://planeteria.org/ the url for that resource has changed to: http://planeteria.info/outreach/

OutreachProgramForWomen/Meetings/20130221 (last edited 2014-12-29 19:21:44 by BlakeGirardot)