FESCo meeting summary for 20090821

[Jon Stanley]

Minutes:
http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2009-08-21/fedora-meeting.2009-08-21-17.00.html
Minutes (text):
http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2009-08-21/fedora-meeting.2009-08-21-17.00.txt
Log:
http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2009-08-21/fedora-meeting.2009-08-21-17.00.log.html

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17:00:03 <jds2001> #startmeeting FESCo meeting 2009-08-21
17:00:06 <jds2001> #chair dgilmore jwb notting nirik sharkcz jds2001
j-rod skvidal Kevin_Kofler
17:00:11 * nirik is here.
17:00:12 <Kevin_Kofler> Present.
17:00:16 * sharkcz here
17:00:16 * jwb is here
17:00:58 <jds2001> seems as though we have some minimal quorum
17:01:12 * notting is here
17:01:22 <jds2001> #topic Moblin feature
17:01:29 <jds2001> .fesco 244
17:01:46 * nirik goes to doublecheck the page now
17:01:58 <Kevin_Kofler> IMHO the rescoped feature is OK.
17:02:18 <jwb> i agree
17:02:20 <Kevin_Kofler> Not quite as exciting as the original
(complete Moblin, spin), but still worth mentioning.
17:02:21 <nirik> yeah, I think so too.
17:02:26 * jds2001 too
17:02:30 <jds2001> +1
17:02:34 <nirik> hopefully if things go well the spin for f13 would be nice. ;)
17:02:37 <notting> works for me
17:02:48 <Kevin_Kofler> +1 to accepting the rescoped feature
17:02:48 <sharkcz> +1
17:02:53 * j-rod here
17:02:56 * mchua lurking
17:03:03 <j-rod> +1, fine with that too
17:03:08 <notting> +1 (making it official)
17:03:11 <jwb> +1
17:03:23 <jds2001> #agreed Re-scoped Moblin feature is accepted for F12
17:03:32 <jwb> yay.  we aren't unreasonable
17:03:43 <jds2001> #topic jjames sponsor nomination
17:03:48 <jds2001> .fesco 242
17:04:03 <jds2001> I didn't see any objections to this.
17:04:25 <Kevin_Kofler> +1, no objections from me nor anyone else AFAIK
17:04:35 <jds2001> +1
17:04:41 <sharkcz> +1
17:04:47 <nirik> +1 from me.
17:04:50 <notting> +1 from me
17:05:05 <jds2001> #agreed jjames sponsor nomination is approved
17:05:08 <jwb> +1, though i think we need to address the NEEDSPONSOR
thing a bit separately
17:05:30 <Kevin_Kofler> Uhm, how? What do you mean?
17:05:46 <jwb> his reasoning for wanting to be a sponsor (which is fine) is:
17:05:50 <Kevin_Kofler> (What's the problem and what's your proposed solution?)
17:06:03 <jwb> "This request is prompted by the large number of times
that I have seen a package submission that I was personally interested
in, only to find that the submitter needed a sponsor."
17:06:17 <jds2001> oh, we need more sponsors :)
17:06:19 <jwb> there is no reason he couldn't have reviewed it without
being a sponsor
17:06:22 <jds2001> we just got one more :)
17:06:26 <nirik> no, we need more active sponsors. ;(
17:06:55 <jwb> anyway, this is a tangent
17:07:03 <jwb> we can come back to it during open discussion
17:07:06 <jds2001> anyhow, next
17:07:13 <jds2001> #topic libvdpau inclusion
17:07:19 <jds2001> .fesco 238
17:07:22 <jds2001> any updates?
17:07:26 <j-rod> no, I suck
17:07:39 * drago01 too
17:07:47 <drago01> but ajax mail is worth reading
17:07:54 <j-rod> was on my TODO list last night
17:08:00 <jds2001> alrighty then, deferred again....
17:08:07 <jwb> drago01, yeah i found that to be a good email
17:08:13 <jds2001> #topic Open floor
17:08:21 <jds2001> that's all i had :)
17:08:31 <Kevin_Kofler> Are there any FPC guidelines pending
ratification? A mail on the fedora-devel-list claimed there are.
17:08:35 <jwb> jds2001, was tomas' provenpackager not included?
17:08:37 <jds2001> there are?
17:08:46 <jds2001> jwb: no, because it came in yesterday
17:08:48 <jwb> ah
17:10:35 <jds2001> therew as a number of FPC guidelines that i didnt
close the ticket for that we considered last week
17:10:40 <Kevin_Kofler> https://fedorahosted.org/fesco/ticket/245
17:10:52 <jds2001> .fesco 245
17:10:58 <Kevin_Kofler> This one is new and wasn't put on the meeting
agenda (with the keyword) for some reason.
17:11:05 <Kevin_Kofler> I don't remember voting over this, at least.
17:11:08 <j-rod> wait... does ajax's argument sway anyone one way or
another wrt libvdpau?
17:11:11 <jds2001> oh, oops
17:11:19 <jds2001> Kevin_Kofler: right, we didn't
17:11:25 <jds2001> sorry abuot that :(
17:12:49 <Kevin_Kofler> The mail talked about multiple ones, but
that's the only open report I'm aware of.
17:13:04 <jds2001> right, I think the other ones were what we did last week
17:13:11 <jds2001> spot: ping
17:13:25 <spot> jds2001: yes?
17:13:28 * jds2001 occasionally sucks at closing old tickets
17:13:41 <jds2001> spot: the only outstanding FPC guideline I'm aware
of is Fortran
17:13:55 * jds2001 forgot to throw that on the agenda today, sorry
17:14:01 <Kevin_Kofler> Yeah, 2 more FPC members confirmed that too to me. :-)
17:14:03 <jds2001> but you mentioned "several" in your mail.
17:14:06 <Kevin_Kofler> So Fortran it is.
17:14:16 <Kevin_Kofler> s/2 more/2/
17:14:21 <spot> jds2001: 241 wasn't closed when i looked before
17:14:38 <jds2001> spot: oh, sorry about that, I sucked at closing
tickets from last weeks meeting\
17:15:02 <Kevin_Kofler> Can we vote over the Fortran guidelines now?
17:15:06 <jds2001> sure thing
17:15:08 <notting> seem reasonable as much as fortran is. +1
17:15:13 <jds2001> #topic Fortran FPC guideline
17:15:18 <nirik> yeah, same here... +1 from me.
17:15:52 <sharkcz> also here ... +1
17:15:56 <Kevin_Kofler> +1, guidelines look sane.
17:16:00 <jwb> fortan is not cutting-edge and not in line with
Fedora's goals.  -1
17:16:08 <jwb> oh wait...  no.
17:16:09 <dgilmore> +1  i think they look fine
17:16:10 <jwb> +1
17:16:11 <jwb> :)
17:16:24 <jds2001> +1
17:16:59 <jds2001> #agreed Fortran guidelines are accepted.
17:17:09 <j-rod> +1
17:17:44 <jds2001> #topic Open Floor again...
17:17:56 <kwizart> !
17:18:06 <Kevin_Kofler> kwizart: ?
17:18:07 <kwizart> About VDPAU, i've contacted Aaron Plattner from
nvidia and more accurately the "freedesktop.org vdpau maintainer" to
ask either or not patentless ffmpeg could implement vdpau, we could
eventually have an answear from nvidia's Legal departement for the
fedora case (then probably other FOOS distro). But that may take
time...
17:18:11 <jds2001> go ahead, just jump in, no formality here
17:18:28 <kwizart> that's all for this week (i'm still in vacation)
17:18:28 <kwizart> eof
17:18:38 <jwb> ok
17:18:40 <Kevin_Kofler> Uh, I don't know how much Nvidia's legal
department is going to be trusted around here. ;-)
17:18:54 <jds2001> :)
17:19:05 <nirik> For the record there are 101 reviews blocking
needsponsor (some multiple packages by the same person, or just not
properly cleaned up from review) and 80 sponsors. If we asked all
sponsors to pick up some review we could clean out the needsponsor
list pretty quick.
17:19:19 <jwb> nirik, so i have a question
17:19:33 <jwb> why can't existing maintainers do the review, and leave
the final approval to a sponsor?
17:19:33 <dgilmore> kwizart: we really should ask fedora legal not nvidia legal
17:19:41 <kwizart> Kevin_Kofler, the problem is a patent problem, not
a free or opensource problem IMO
17:19:41 <jds2001> jwb: they could.
17:19:43 <nirik> jwb: they can.
17:19:44 <dgilmore> jwb: they can
17:19:48 <Kevin_Kofler> Other companies' legal departments can do
strange things for political reasons, like Sun's supposedly claiming
Schilling's mix of CDDL and GPL is legal (though it might just be
Schilling claiming that in their name).
17:19:53 <jwb> exactly.  i think we need to remind people of that
17:20:02 <kwizart> dgilmore, you missunderstood the problem
17:20:03 <dgilmore> jwb: ive done that in the past
17:20:05 <jwb> i see people get scared off of a review because it
blocks on NEEDSPONSOR
17:20:22 <drago01> Kevin_Kofler: or NVIDIA thinks that there driver is
not derivered work of the kernel while some others do
17:20:29 <Kevin_Kofler> That too.
17:20:37 <kwizart> again, i've asked either or not a patenless ffmpeg
version can implement vdpau
17:20:43 <nirik> anyone can comment/provide feedback/whatever on a
review. If it's needsponsor it needs a sponsor to approve it.
Otherwise it needs a packager to approve it.
17:20:47 <dgilmore> jwb: its a great place for people looking to get
sponsored to give feedback also
17:20:59 <drago01> I see no reason why it couldn't for codecs done fully in hw
17:21:03 <drago01> but IANAL
17:21:06 <jwb> dgilmore, right.  so i think i'll send an email to
fedora-devel reminding people of this
17:21:10 <jwb> that's all i meant earlier
17:21:34 <kwizart> if that can be... vdpau is legal in US, then it
became a matter of choice to opt in the wrapper or not
17:21:37 <nirik> jwb: might also remind sponsors to try and approve
those/sponsor people. ;)
17:21:46 <jwb> nirik, fair
17:21:49 <Kevin_Kofler> I still don't think we want to ship something
which only does anything actually useful if you add something
proprietary from elsewhere.
17:21:49 <notting> can we only have one conversation at a time? :)
17:21:54 <jwb> no!
17:22:07 <jwb> notting, mine is done now anyway
17:22:10 <nirik> notting: picky picky. ;)
17:22:23 <Kevin_Kofler> The stuff we ship all at least does SOMETHING
without RPM Fusion stuff.
17:22:34 <kwizart> if a open source wrapper implement a patented part
of h264 codec
17:22:47 <kwizart> then such opensource implementation become illegal in use
17:22:49 <kwizart> US
17:22:50 <Kevin_Kofler> E.g. gnash will decode Flash animations just
fine without patented codecs, only audiovisual content is a problem.
17:23:02 <kwizart> sed wrapper/backend
17:23:05 <drago01> (which makes it useless for most users)
17:23:15 <Kevin_Kofler> So it makes sense to ship gnash in Fedora, it
does something.
17:23:27 <jwb> i'm confused why we're rehashing our legal stance here?
17:23:36 <notting> Kevin_Kofler: libXNVCtrl?
17:23:36 * jds2001 not sure
17:23:41 <drago01> Kevin_Kofler:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-August/msg01117.html
it does something too
17:23:45 <kwizart> flash is patentless unless it use some patentes
codec (such as h264)
17:23:58 <Kevin_Kofler> libXNVCtrl should just go the heck out of Fedora.
17:23:58 <kwizart> and other patents might be involved
17:24:10 <kwizart> why ? it is opensource
17:24:12 <Kevin_Kofler> Just like ancient compat-libstdc++ crap which
nothing in Fedora actually uses.
17:24:23 <drago01> well I doubt that anything but hello world is patentless
17:24:31 <drago01> the US patent system is too broken
17:24:53 <kwizart> we have to fight against patent
17:24:55 <Kevin_Kofler> You can actually crash an application if you
link it against compat-libstdc++ and with ANY C++ library in Fedora
(which in turn links in the regular libstdc++) at the same time.
17:24:57 <nirik> Kevin_Kofler: what about MPD clients?
17:25:14 <Kevin_Kofler> So there are even actual technical arguments
for dropping compat-libstdc++.
17:25:32 <jwb> how on earth have to gotten to dropping compt-libstdc++ here?
17:25:33 <drago01> Kevin_Kofler: well we don't ship closed source apps
but that does not mean that users who want to run them shouldn't
17:25:58 <jwb> notting, i'd like it if a single conversation could
stay on a single topic
17:26:30 <Kevin_Kofler> jwb: All the stuff which only serves to make
proprietary apps run needs to go away.
17:26:40 <jwb> that is your opinion
17:26:42 <Kevin_Kofler> I also alway hated libflashsupport, thankfully
that one is obsolete.
17:26:48 <Kevin_Kofler> *always
17:27:00 <drago01> well nobody forced you to install it
17:27:01 <jwb> are you making a proposal?
17:27:09 <jwb> if not, can we get back to the meeting...
17:27:13 * nirik wonders if we have a topic here. Or shall we end the meeting?
17:27:15 <kwizart> Kevin_Kofler, having closed source content kicked
out from fedora is fine
17:27:19 * jds2001 would very much like to see a written proposal if so.
17:27:26 <jds2001> nirik: im all for ending it
17:27:28 <drago01> kwizart: we don't have any
17:27:32 <jwb> jds2001, i have one final question before we end
17:27:36 <jds2001> jwb: sure
17:27:40 <jds2001> actually i have one too
17:27:49 <kwizart> having closed source content been imposible to run
on fedora, is a really different thing IMO
17:27:50 <nirik> I would like proposals for this to consider MPD as well.
17:27:51 <jwb> drago01, kwizart, Kevin_Kofler: we're moving on.  take
that elsewhere pelase
17:27:56 <kwizart> yes
17:28:07 * kwizart back to hollidays
17:28:12 <drago01> jwb: or to /dev/null
17:28:19 <jwb> jds2001, i'm curious how many of the FESCo members plan
on attending FUDCon Toronto
17:28:27 <jwb> and if we want to attempt a face to face
17:28:27 <notting> jwb: i'm likely o
17:28:31 <notting> jwb: i'm likely to
17:28:36 * jds2001 is likely to
17:28:46 <j-rod> I'm a maybe
17:28:53 * Kevin_Kofler is not, sorry.
17:29:01 * sharkcz is not going there
17:29:05 * nirik is hoping to.
17:29:08 <jwb> i'm undecided
17:29:30 <jwb> dgilmore, ?
17:29:34 <jds2001> jwb: why?
17:29:44 <jwb> jds2001, why what?
17:29:54 <jds2001> why are you undecided?
17:29:58 <jwb> oh :)
17:30:12 <jwb> mostly because i haven't even thought about it, talked
to the family, etc
17:30:15 <jds2001> and why do you want to know, I guess :)
17:30:22 <jwb> face to face FESCo meeting
17:30:32 <jwb> we did that at FUDCon Boston
17:30:35 <jds2001> yes, that worked well last time we had it.
17:30:42 <jwb> well, sort of
17:30:52 <jds2001> but we had a very specific topic that required high
bandwidth discussion
17:31:23 <jwb> i'm sure we could come up with something if enough
members were there to make it worthwhile
17:31:35 <jds2001> and the aftermath of "zomg you guys decided
something in person!"
17:31:38 <Kevin_Kofler> IMHO it's a bad idea, it discriminates against
non-US-based FESCo members.
17:31:53 <jwb> Kevin_Kofler, you can apply for travel assistance
17:32:18 <jwb> and i think discriminates is a slightly strong word there
17:32:42 <Kevin_Kofler> or rather, non-US/Canada-based ones to be more
precise ;-)
17:32:47 * nirik is fine with waiting and seeing how many people will
be there, etc. I don't think we will need to have a regularly
scheduled meeting then.
17:33:00 <jwb> yeah, i was just curious
17:33:26 <notting> although, *if* people are going, we may want to
reschedule the immediately prior meeting if it conflicts with a bunch
of people travelling
17:33:32 <notting> but we can cross that bridge if we come to it
17:33:54 <nirik> yeah, first day is a saturday... so people might well
be traveling that friday.
17:34:07 <jwb> FESCo via airport wireless!
17:35:25 <dgilmore> jwb: ill likely be at fudcon
17:35:40 <jwb> jds2001, ok.  i think you had something else?
17:35:44 <jds2001> yeah
17:35:53 <jds2001> dgilmore: what about that threat assessment?
17:36:02 <dgilmore> jds2001: im a failure
17:36:09 <notting> jds2001: FUDCon: Threat or Menace?
17:36:12 <dgilmore> it needs a minor update
17:36:14 <jds2001> lol
17:36:30 <notting> jds2001: sorry, i'm a little slow on the context switch
17:37:44 <Kevin_Kofler> So, what threat assessment are we talking about?
17:37:59 <Kevin_Kofler> I get it that it has nothing to do with
FUDCon. ;-) But that's all I got...
17:37:59 <jds2001> Kevin_Kofler: the one we want to publish
17:38:16 <nirik> Kevin_Kofler: it was last fesco. We had mmcgrath do a
security/threat assessment.
17:38:35 <nirik> Kevin_Kofler: there were some minor changes that
dgilmore was going to make to it and we were going to make it publicly
available.
17:39:41 * nirik can get Kevin_Kofler and any other new fesco folks a
copy if they would like to look at it before it's published.
17:40:46 * jds2001 is looking for it
17:41:36 <Kevin_Kofler> There's only one other "new FESCo folk", it's
skvidal (who's back in FESCo after a period of not being in it).
17:42:15 <jds2001>
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/private/fedora-extras-steering/2009-April/msg00026.html
17:42:52 <nirik> yeah, there. ;)
17:43:38 <nirik> anyhow? shall we end the meeting?
17:44:00 <jds2001> I think that's all I had.
17:44:12 * jds2001 ends the meeting in 30
17:44:45 <jds2001> #endmeeting