== Meeting information == * #ubuntu-meeting: Community Council, 02 Oct at 17:13 — 18:22 UTC * Full logs at [[http://ubottu.com/meetingology/logs/ubuntu-meeting/2014/ubuntu-meeting.2014-10-02-17.13.log.html]] == Meeting summary == ''LINK:'' https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CommunityCouncilAgenda === Kubuntu Council check-up === The discussion about "Kubuntu Council check-up" started at 17:41. * ''LINK:'' https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-website/+bug/1339508 "Misspelling in insights article" * ''LINK:'' http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html === Any other business === The discussion about "Any other business" started at 18:22. == Vote results == == Done items == * (none) == People present (lines said) == * popey (70) * pleia2 (65) * Riddell (62) * valorie (23) * YokoZar (20) * elfy (19) * czajkowski (16) * hggdh (10) * beuno (5) * meetingology (4) * shadeslayer (3) * ubottu (2) * sgclark (1) * mdeslaur (1) * marcoceppi (1) == Full Log == 17:13 #startmeeting Community Council 17:13 Meeting started Thu Oct 2 17:13:42 2014 UTC. The chair is pleia2. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.ubuntu.com/meetingology. 17:13 17:13 Available commands: action commands idea info link nick 17:13 running a bit late, but we're here :) 17:13 hi 17:13 aloha 17:13 #chair elfy YokoZar czajkowski 17:13 Current chairs: YokoZar czajkowski elfy pleia2 17:14 #link https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CommunityCouncilAgenda 17:15 so, anyone from the Membership board or Kubuntu around? 17:15 popey might be 17:15 * popey awakens 17:16 wassup? 17:17 hggdh, jared, marcoceppi, cyphermox_, about? 17:17 pleia2: aye 17:17 just checking in with the membership board, seeing how things are going, if there's anything we can do to help 17:18 Sorry, I wasn't prepared for this, didn't realise we were going to be called to chat. 17:18 especially I suspect - are meetings being held with another members for quorum now in general? 17:18 However I have some comments if you want them ☻ 17:18 sure that would be great thanks popey 17:18 o/ 17:19 valorie: yay :) can you stick around for a few minutes so we can chat about kubuntu after membership board? 17:19 sure 17:19 hiya 17:19 * shadeslayer passes around some blueberry icecream 17:19 shadeslayer: we're second on the agenda 17:20 yum! 17:20 cool :) 17:20 popey: comments? 17:20 So my observations being back in the membership board... 17:20 1) Not may people are applying. 17:20 yeah, that's been the case for a couple years now :( 17:20 2) Those that do apply aren't motivated to actually turn up to meetings 17:21 the second seems odd 17:22 yeah, I don't know why that would be 17:23 I have a theory ☻ 17:23 That there's less cache with being an ubuntu member now 17:23 it's not "special" 17:23 real life perhaps - but if it was me - I'd contact the board to at least say so 17:23 so why bother 17:23 i mean, in the past we always had no-shows. 17:23 and I don't have hard data for how many we had then vs now 17:24 I guess it's more obvious now, when you have only one person apply, and they don't turn up... 17:24 * pleia2 nods 17:24 popey: do you think more of a fan fair needs to be made or moe visability of what happens? 17:25 Not sure of the solution. 17:25 I think it's probably a symptom of a general decline in contributions 17:25 was just going to say similar 17:26 that's something that almost everyone without exception has said in these catch ups 17:26 hola 17:27 I did think at one point meeting should be less frequent and do them in larger bunches so people cna tune in and watch 17:27 so more people may become excited about the process 17:27 Riddell: ola once membership is over we'll move to Kubuntu cheers. 17:27 maybe quarterly 17:28 then you get the problem that "I applied 3 months ago..." 17:28 trouble with that is life/timezones get in the way and they miss one chance... 17:28 yeah 17:29 pleia2: nods 17:29 and its not much effort for us to turn up to irc once a month and say "Hello?" if nobody is tehre 17:29 could see about encouraging more community members to attend in general, I know I don't really attend anymore :\ 17:29 I may've asked this question before, but does it even need to be a meeting? 17:29 or we could do a monthly meeting adn once a quarter the CC joins the meeting to meet the new people and welcome them 17:29 YokoZar: transparency is nice 17:29 what about moving it to a hangout ? 17:30 or at least an option of a hangout 17:30 pleia2: I meant as opposed to something like asynchronous public emails. czajkowski's suggestion would make it more personal, which could be an interesting twist in the other direction 17:30 hangouts are not an option for younger folks or those on slower connections 17:30 and seems more intimidating to me :) 17:30 pleia2: I don;t think moving completely away from IRC would be good 17:30 4 people judging me is bad enough, when they're looknig at me, eek! 17:31 trying to find a middle ground 17:31 I dont think its a problem with the meeting 17:31 also rough on non-native speakers who are better at typing (and we can google translate) 17:31 I think it's a problem with us having no new contributors 17:31 no "pipeline" as they say 17:31 yeah, it does seem like a broader issue 17:32 nods 17:32 newcomers who I see doing great work are going for membership, there just aren't many of them 17:32 popey: do you know if folks working on phones are going for membership? 17:32 Well, thats two areas. 17:32 that's where Canonical's team has moved focus to, but I don't see much of them 17:33 1) people working on the phone platform 17:33 2) people working on apps 17:33 I see them as two distinct areas 17:33 I'm thinking apps 17:33 yes, we encourage core apps contributors to go for membership 17:33 and some have already 17:33 (and got it) 17:33 that's good :) 17:33 e.g. people working on clock, email client etc have got their membership as a direct result of phone contributions 17:34 which isn't just "making apps" but providing good feedback / bugs to SDK & platform developers 17:34 we invited some along to sprints as well, which is quite a commitment for them 17:34 mmm 17:35 so no-one out in the wider community is going to know about that 17:35 about what? 17:35 popey: aye saw that in peoples blogs and on G+ 17:35 I tend to announce like a lunatic when a core app dev gets membership 17:35 popey: ones getting membership directly 17:35 and turn up and cheer 17:35 "directly?" 17:35 popey: oh ok - not seen it 17:35 they go through the same process as anyone else 17:35 yes - but do they go to meetings? 17:35 yes 17:35 same process 17:36 no different at all 17:36 aah ok - read it wrong then - sorry :) 17:36 np 17:36 but traditionally speaking a member was someonw working on the platform 17:36 not someone creating apps _for_ the platform 17:36 Maybe this decline in contribution isn't as big a problem as we think. Maybe people are shifting to upstream contribution, or we have fewer problems drawing active demand, or similar 17:36 Maybe it's good to be a functional boring piece of software. 17:36 but core apps are a bit "special" in that many ship by default on the device which is quite a big contribution 17:37 as far as I can see we have fewer people working on things like ubiquity or unity or other desktop bits 17:38 I believe many desktops / distros have this problem. 17:38 (maybe I'm wrong)? 17:38 I don't think we'll come to much of a conclusion here 17:39 indeed. 17:39 we should continue a discussion about whether contributions are a problem and how to improve things though, maybe on the new community discussion list 17:40 ubuntu-community-team@lists.ubuntu.com 17:40 happy to start that 17:40 thanks popey 17:40 popey: excellent! 17:40 shall we move on to Kubuntu Council? 17:41 #topic Kubuntu Council check-up 17:41 hola chicos 17:41 hey valorie, shadeslayer and Riddell! 17:41 hi 17:41 shadeslayer gone home but sgclark also here from kubuntu 17:41 ah ok, hi sgclark :) 17:42 greets 17:42 during these once-per-cycle checkins, we try to see how things are going with the team, and if you need us in any way 17:42 so, how are things? 17:43 some points I came up with.. 17:43 exciting times for us imo 17:43 We seem to be getting funds from the ubuntu community donations in acceptable time and I see the latest report has been published which is good 17:43 Our Kubuntu Plasma5 images are being produced from a PPA and being published on cdimages which is great 17:43 \o/ 17:43 the ubuntu website uses the deprecating term 17:44 "derivatives" for ubuntu flavours such as ourselves 17:44 would be good to have that fixed http://www.ubuntu.com/about/about-ubuntu/derivatives 17:44 is there an open bug for it on ubuntu-website in lp? I can chime in 17:44 nope, I can file one 17:44 (this is something I worked to fix in the latest Official Ubuntu Book, it was a lot of s/derivatives/flavors!) 17:44 this was discussed years ago 17:45 Riddell: thanks 17:45 and I thought the whole "derivitives" word was banished 17:45 yeah, I did too, totally feel your pain here 17:45 The technical problems that I feared from Canonical moving away from 17:45 community made software are coming true, KDE is recommending SDDM 17:45 having moved away from LightDM because of the need to agree to a 17:45 special licence to Canonical. I'm now having trouble making SDDM work 17:45 with our images and have nowhere in Ubuntu to turn to for help. 17:46 And you've already discussed the lack of new community members which I feel is also due to canonical moving away from community made software 17:46 I think it's a sane business decision but I do worry we'll come across a problem in future such as with wayland that we won't be able to fix 17:47 yeah 17:47 me too 17:48 this article is about a massive Kubuntu rollout https://insights.ubuntu.com/2014/07/07/ubuntu-and-open-source-help-the-city-of-munich-save-millions/ 17:48 but doesn't mention kubuntu once 17:48 :\ 17:48 canonical needs to credit the community that builds ubuntu 17:48 I didn't realize it was Kubuntu either 17:48 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-website/+bug/1339508 "Misspelling in insights article" 17:48 Launchpad bug 1339508 in Ubuntu Website "Misspelling in insights article" [Undecided,In progress] 17:49 it's actually a really great process there, they come to akademy and we're have sprints in munich which effectively replace UDS 17:49 they didn't contact either munich or us when they wrote that article 17:49 that's unfortunate to hear 17:50 Reviewing the licence policy situation the Ubuntu liceensing page says all the right stuff http://www.ubuntu.com/about/about-ubuntu/licensing "Must allow these rights to be passed on along with the software. You should be able to have exactly the same rights to the software as we do." 17:50 which is correct. 17:50 The Canonical IP policy continues to be incorrect however http://www.canonical.com/intellectual-property-rights-policy "Any redistribution of modified versions...will need to recompile the source code to create your own binaries" 17:50 This is incorrect, as all software is free software once it is 17:50 distributed to someone that person can further distribute it all they 17:50 want under the relevant free software licence. To claim otherwise is 17:50 an insult to the copyright holders, the upstreams who write our 17:50 software, and goes against the Ubuntu policy above. It causes worry for our 17:50 supporters and is one reason why Blue Systems are looking at other 17:50 distributions. It needs to be changed and I strongly feel it is the 17:50 task of the community council to stand up to Canonical on this topic. 17:50 we don't seem to have dholbach or mhall119 here today, so I'll be sure to point them at this log to see what can be done to follow up with Canonical on this 17:51 (I'm not sure who to contact) 17:52 to your last point, this is really difficult, we've tried interacting with lawyers but it seems to be their lawyer language we can't get past 17:52 it worries me to see Canonical stop pushing freedom as a value 17:52 other CC members should chime in here, but we've spent months on this, mostly banging our heads against the wall 17:52 this could be basic as to why we're not drawing new people 17:52 pleia2, I think dpm is the person to talk to nowadays 17:52 so I assure you we have stood up to canonical, we just don't get anywhere 17:53 if they continue to claim something which isn't true the CC should put out a statement saying so 17:53 pleia2: agree witht hat 17:53 we don't actually have any power when it comes to canonical IP, trademarks, etc 17:53 the CC statement that was put out was as wishy washy as canonical's public statements on the topic 17:53 talking about how lawyers are needed and copyright law is complex is a poor excuse 17:53 that's because it was really really hard to write 17:54 it's the truth 17:54 we can only do so much :( 17:54 the canonical IP statment is incorrect, it's that simple 17:54 it claims restrictions which go against the core values of ubuntu and free software 17:54 it's badly hurting our community 17:55 I agree 17:55 and I'm astonished that nobody outside of kubuntu thinks this is an issue 17:56 I think most are confused, or just turn off when the whole idea of intellectual property is discussed 17:56 but ignoring it just weakens the freedoms we have 17:57 * Riddell reports bug 1376860 17:57 bug 1376860 in Ubuntu Website "Use of term "derivatives" to describe flavours" [Undecided,New] https://launchpad.net/bugs/1376860 17:57 if we don't stand up for our own rights, who will? 17:57 I should comment. 17:57 Riddell: thanks 17:57 pleia2: I am here now, if you need me 17:58 hggdh: thanks, we had some other membership board folks turn up so we don't :) 17:59 As a non-canonical CC member, I independently checked Canonical's copyright claims with my own legal consultation from a copyright expert. 17:59 yeah, just read the backlog -- I agree with popey, FWIW 17:59 It is "unclear" whether stuff like the build infrastructure (mere compiling) generates a new copyright, particular in non-US copyright situations. 18:00 I have never heard of anyone anywhere suggesting that a compiler adds extra copyright restrictions 18:00 some tools like yacc do because they copy their own code into the output, compilers do not 18:01 even if they did, to then claim further restrictions would be against the GPL 18:01 I am 100% with you tehre Riddell 18:01 and if it was to be added to BSD type licenced packages only then that would need to be stated before that copy is given 18:01 The new copyright would obviously be a derivative of the code itself 18:01 but it's not, ubuntu is distributed around the world on hundreds of mirrors 18:01 there is no extra copyright licence added to it 18:02 Riddell: it specifically says "modified versions" 18:02 mirrors are not making modified versions 18:02 I review every package in the archive as an archive admin and none of them have any extra restrictions from canonical 18:02 popey: regarless, this is free software, you can modify all you like 18:02 else it's not free software 18:02 This is a trademark issue though surely? 18:02 <- not a lawyer 18:02 sure 18:02 And arguably any package built this way is being licensed the same as its code via the license attached to it. 18:02 the canonical IP policy talks about that and that's fine 18:02 not a software licensing issue 18:03 http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html 18:03 this has nothing technically to do with licensing the software, its use of the name 18:03 "Ubuntu" 18:03 but it also talks about needing to recompile binaries, which is nonsense 18:03 Riddell: how else do you remove the trademarks? 18:03 that sounds like anti-mint-ification to me 18:03 The problem is that "arguably" in there. The only context this came up was in granting Mint a license to keep doing what they were doing for free and not actually contest it, so I didn't see it as a particular issue at the time 18:03 "Freedom to distribute (freedoms 2 and 3) means you are free to redistribute copies, either with or without modifications, either gratis or charging a fee for distribution, to anyone anywhere. Being free to do these things means (among other things) that you do not have to ask or pay for permission to do so. " 18:04 that popey and YokoZar are talking about different laws suggests this issue is just deliberately made murky by canonical in the hope of putting off anyone from making a derivative distro 18:04 it isn't 18:04 and there's no evidence to that 18:04 indeed, it's not. 18:05 I wasn't involved in the discussion, so my input here is speculation and interpretation. 18:05 YokoZar: no, the context I care about is support from Blue Systems who are worried by what it means for kubuntu's freedom 18:05 Riddell: I doubt it is canonical murkying it -- copyright, etc is extremely murky due to pressure from old players 18:05 This needs input from Steve George IMO. 18:05 directly. 18:05 hggdh: they are making it murky by not stating where the extra restrictions are and if they are copyright of trademark 18:05 His team "owns" that document. 18:06 If it's inaccurate or misleading, or against a license we use, then he is the person who should be accountable for that. 18:06 Riddell: On the particular copyright issue, my best belief is that there is a colorable legal argument to Canonical's claim that you need to recompile to wash away all their rights. They might lose in court though, but it won't be tossed instantly. 18:06 Riddell: ack. I suld suggest the CC pinging canonical's legal 18:06 (as popey just stated, BTW) 18:07 I don't think it's about recompiling, it's about re-packaging things so they don't have "ubuntu" in the name 18:07 And I don't particularly ascribe any maliciousness here, as so far I haven't seen any actual action come out of that policy other than granting Mint 100% permission. If they took a stand against Blue Systems I'd probably join your side Riddell 18:07 Indeed, this sounds very much like Red Hat -> CentOS rebuilding of yore to me. 18:08 yeah 18:08 beuno: The trademark issues are well-established. But hypothetically they wouldn't require recompiling to remove the branded marks, merely covering them up (eg dpkg-diversions) 18:09 On another technical note, this whole issue gets mooted by reproducible builds 18:09 sure 18:10 in copyrights and trademarks experience has shown that a lot of times what could be ascribed to malice is actually a communication issue 18:11 I'm not sure that a short catch up meeting with us will do this subject service, we can do as popey suggests and contact Steve George 18:11 And lawyers speak an entirely different language. 18:11 +1 (FWIW) 18:11 it's not like this is a new issue; rather a long-simmering one 18:12 I think Riddell's questions are important enough to be looked at 18:12 The specific question I'd have will be regarding how reproducible builds will be affected by copyright (ie, in a world where anyone produces identical binaries to the canonical infrastructure) 18:12 I can only imagine that clarifying they're free 18:12 or, rather, the same license as the package itself 18:12 valorie: indeed, and we really have put a lot of work and discussion into this 18:13 I would expect the CC to ask that the statement that derivatives "will need to recompile the source code to create your own binaries" be removed 18:13 which won't happen, this is hardly a new issue 18:13 But you're not a derivative, so why does this affect you? 18:13 in which case ask for exactly what restriction allows this to be claimed and how it's compatible with the ubuntu licence policy 18:14 popey: because I care about my derivatives 18:14 Riddell: at least a more expanded explanation of why this is considered as needed 18:14 okay. 18:14 we are a derivitive according to the derivitives page 18:14 we have large rollouts and people interested in using and investing in kubuntu and I don't want them to be put off as they are being 18:14 unfortunately 18:14 It does explicitly say you're a special kind of derivative, a flavour, although also spells it flavor. 18:15 Ok, understood. 18:15 lol 18:15 valorie: kubuntu is a flavor, the derivitives page is a bug :) 18:15 I disagree 18:15 heh 18:16 ☻ 18:19 alright, we'll start a thread on the CC list to have other CC members look at this too, I don't know that we can come up with any other conclusion at this point 18:20 I think YokoZar has some todo list items too 18:21 Yeah I'm gonna consult independent copyright experts again (not Canonical-legal, who must "zealously" represent Canonical only) 18:21 I hope you can make the needle move 18:21 thanks YokoZar 18:21 thanks YokoZar 18:21 because this is definitely a problem for us 18:21 we know valorie 18:21 thanks for coming valorie, Riddell and sgclark, you all do great work 18:22 #topic Any other business 18:22 do we having anything else? 18:22 not here 18:22 ok, thanks everyone 18:22 #endmeeting Generated by MeetBot 0.1.5 (http://wiki.ubuntu.com/meetingology)