ltsp local apps + nat + ....

[Jordan Mantha]

On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 9:11 AM, Ace Suares<ace at suares.an> wrote:
> Gavin McCullagh wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> On Thu, 23 Jul 2009, Scott Balneaves wrote:
>>
>>> https://edge.launchpad.net/~edubuntu-members/+members#active
>>
>>> Heck: Gavin, who answers more questions on this list than anyone, isn't even a
>>> member!  Gavin!  What's up with that, dude? :)
>>
>> I don't mean to be smart, but what is the real significance of that list?
>> I can join it if that helps anything but it's not clear to me what that
>> would change.
>>
>> Gavin
>>
>>
>
> Gavin,
>
> Thank you for your interesting observation.
>
> The 'teams' take an important role in the wiki. Lots of explanation how
> a team works, how it is linked to the greater Ubuntu Community, how to
> join, and so on. For a new contributor it seems that teams are very
> important.
>
> Some experiences.
>
> I applied to join the Edubuntu Team but nothing happened - not even a
> mail saying: 'We will consider your application and next Tuesday we have
> a meeting and we will let you know by then.' or something of the like.

The Launchpad teams for Edubuntu a  pretty messed up. We need to get
some help from the Ubuntu Community Council and then hopefully the
Edubuntu Council can take some action cleaning up and defining the
teams more.

The ~edubuntu-members team is a somewhat special team for people who
have demonstrated a significant and sustained contribution to
Edubuntu. It is equivalent to Ubuntu Membership and has the same
rights and responsibilities.

The ~edubuntu  LP team is a historical thing. We'd like to make it an
umbrella team that includes all the various Edubuntu teams and
contributors.

> So the wiki is full of JOIN THIS TEAM JOIN THIS TEAM while in fact
> joining a team does not seem to be easy and it also seems to have very
> few benefits. Having some good talks on IRC gets you much deeper into
> Edubuntu then requesting to join a team.

A Launchpad team *reflects* community and team membership, not creates it.

> Also, there is a list of 4 active members - and 78 waiting for approval.
> So that looks terrible - it says to the new contributer: well you can
> apply all you want but we probably won't let you in. There's already 78
> heads on stakes just out our main gates so be warned :-P

Well, it looks a lot worse than it is. I think you're referring to
~edubuntu and that team is messed up as is. Also there is a lot of
"spam". People and/or bots just join hundreds and hundreds of
Launchpad teams for whatever reason.

> Different experience: the Edubuntu Website team. It has three members
> and none waiting. Within two days I got a mail from Philipp (the leader
> of that team) and he welcomed me into the team AND he offered me a
> password to the website. (www.edubuntu.org). I am *very* happy with this
> swift action, but maybe that's just a bit... hasty. Maybe 'we' are
> attracting crazies again, like someone on IRC said today :-(. And you
> don't want to put the password for a drupal site in crazies hands.

Exactly. It's hard because if we don't let people in right away we're
bureaucratic and mean.  If we let people in right away then we don't
have any standards and up with huge teams that are meaningless.

> It's not clear to me how the Edubuntu Team (a meritocracy I was assured)
> relates to the Website team. Do they function independently? Are the
> members of the website team also members of the Edubuntu Team?

Ideally, ~edubuntu-website would be a member of ~edubuntu. However,
not all people in ~edubuntu-website would necessarily be members of
~edubuntu-members. The idea is that somebody should join a topical
team first. When they've done a "significant and sustained" level of
contribution they apply for ~edubuntu-members.

> All this has to somehow be made VERY clear on the Wiki. If you want to
> attract and keep new contributors, then there should be a minimum of
> confusion about the teams, governance and the meritocracy or ad-hocracy
> that rules the projects.

I'm not sure it needs to be all over the wiki, but somewhere we should
outline how the teams work. I tried a little with the Strategy Doc but
we might need something a bit more explanatory on edubuntu.org once
everything is figured out.

> And I don't think that following twenty different links that lead to
> crappy and non-informative webpages is a good way to explain the
> structure. https://wiki.edubuntu.org/Edubuntu/Launchpad/Teams

Agreed.

> Just look at the Edubuntu Team page: https://launchpad.net/~edubuntu
> Do you *really* think I, or *any* contributor can relate to that page?
> The first and most important  *action* on that page is to set someone
> elses location on a map!

You're not exactly mean to relate to that page right now. It needs
fixing, we just haven't gotten there yet.

> Also it says *mentoring available*. I guess the mentoring is what I have
> been saying this last week: cut up tasks in small pieces and give them
> to people so they can contribute. I thought it was my original idea but
> I see that it's already a LP feature. Good! Now click on the link.
>
> https://launchpad.net/~edubuntu/+mentoring
>
> *Nobody has yet offered to mentor work for Edubuntu.*

The mentoring feature of Launchpad is not really used in Ubuntu. It
just never really worked out well. We could try to make more use of it
if there are mentors and mentorees willing to use it.

>
> So, what is the funtion of the teams? Which teams really work well and
> which not? Do the teams have real procedure in place to welcome and
> invite new contributors?

The function of the various teams is try to organize people and to be
used for permissions, bzr branches, PPAs, etc. I don't think that the
Launchpad team pages themselves are overly helpful to explain
everything about a team. People should more likely go there to join
once they already know they want to be a part of that particular team
(via IRC, mailing list, etc.)

> If there are criteria, are they well defined and near objective? or is
> it just random if A likes you you're in but if B doesn't like you you
> can do all you want you never get in?

The requirements for joining a team are a bit team-specific. With the
exception of ~edubuntu-council, ~edubuntu-members, and ~edubuntu-dev
there should be very few, if any, requirements.

> What are the benefits of joining a team?

It depends on the team. Often it will give you write access to the
team's bzr branches (say for artwork, documentation, website theme,
etc.) upload access to their PPA, etc. Edubuntu Members also gives
cool perks like an @edubuntu.org email address, the right to carry an
official Ubuntu business card, a Linux Weekly News subscription, and
an IRC cloak.  Most importantly though, it reflects participation and
stake in a team.

> BTW The wiki sometimes calls a group OPEN while in fact it's moderated.

Yeah, there are quite a few disconnects that need to be addressed.

-Jordan