Minutes of the Technical Board meeting 2013-02-18

[Kees Cook]

On Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 01:11:05AM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 10:46:09PM +0000, Colin Watson wrote:
> > On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 01:02:02PM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote:
> > > >   * The TB recognizes that requiring already existing upload rights is not
> > > >   * something we can enforce in this case, and that developer merits
> > > >   * should be acquired while working on Kylin instead.  This should be
> > > >   * reviewed in six months, until then the Foundations team has agreed to
> > > >   * be formally responsible for the flavour and help out with mentoring,
> > > >   * sponsoring, and release engineering.
> 
> > > So the actual quote during the meeting appears to have been:
> 
> > >  <stgraber> I guess I'll be talking with slangasek on whether he'd be
> > >             happy to be a temporary flavour lead for Kylin (or have
> > >             Foundations do that) until they are familiar enough with
> > >             everything and have upload rights to do all that themselves
> 
> > > As he and I haven't had that conversation yet, I don't think this has
> > > actually been agreed so far. :-)
> 
> > > Can you clarify what it would mean to be "formally responsible" here? 
> > > Speaking for Foundations we are interested in helping the UbuntuKylin team
> > > get up to speed and integrated into the Ubuntu developer community so they
> > > can be self-sustaining.  I'm a bit concerned that Foundations being
> > > "formally responsible" for anything here could get in the way of that goal,
> > > by leading people to have conversations with us that they should instead be
> > > having directly with the UbuntuKylin folks.  I realize there's a
> > > bootstrapping question here, and that it's hard to ramp up a new flavor if
> > > you're not already an Ubuntu developer, and therefore mentorship and support
> > > will be required.  But I'm keen to ensure it's understood that this *is*
> > > support, not leadership - the real leaders of UbuntuKylin are people in
> > > China like Jack, who have a direct understanding of the requirements.
> 
> > Right, this is more a matter of a sort of regular meta-sponsor rather
> > than a leader.  The point of the UbuntuKylin flavour vs. the current
> > Chinese Edition images is that UbuntuKylin is run by people with their
> > feet on the ground who know what they're doing directly, rather than
> > operating at one remove.
> 
> > We're working our way through https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RecognizedFlavors
> > here, and this is our first test of that process for the task of
> > approving an entirely new flavour.  My feeling is that when we wrote the
> > documentation we were envisaging something like Lubuntu that had been in
> > preparation in the Ubuntu archive for several release cycles before it
> > became official, rather than something like this which started only
> > quite recently and whose developers don't yet have Ubuntu upload
> > permissions and the like.  As a result we have a bit of a bootstrapping
> > problem with clauses such as "Image has track record of community
> > interested in creating, supporting and promoting its use" and "Flavor
> > lead identified and responsive though 6 month cycle".
> 
> > I think what we've settled on is that, with support, we can start
> > getting daily builds up and running based on where UbuntuKylin is right
> > now.  They can't yet operate without sponsorship, advice, and general
> > advice, and I don't think the TB would be acting responsibly in
> > approving a new flavour without making sure that that framework would be
> > in place for them.  But I think we are all on the same page that the
> > goal is for the UbuntuKylin team to meet "Guidelines to become and
> > remain a recognized flavor" on their own merits when we review this in
> > six months' time.
> 
> > My understanding is that "formally responsible" in Martin's minutes
> > should be read as something like "responsible but only for form's sake".
> > A better phrasing would be to say something along the lines of
> > indicating that the Foundations team has agreed to support the flavour
> > until such time as they can fend for themselves.  Would you be OK with
> > that?
> 
> Yes, when it's worded that way that seems perfectly fine.
> 
> I had a follow-up conversation with Stéphane on IRC, where we concluded that
> the next steps for getting UbuntuKylin on its feet should probably be:
> 
>  1) get the correct uploader dev team created in launchpad
>  2) add ubuntu-core-dev to it as the only member (for now)
>  3) ask the DMB for a packageset with this new dev team as its uploading
>     group
>  4) (Foundations) help the UbuntuKylin developers prepare for applying for
>     PPU rights for this package set once it exists
> 
> Would this plan meet with the TB's approval?  My understanding is that steps
> 1-3 are technically very easy, but that Stéphane would like to have the TB's
> formal approval before proceeding.

This seems like the right series of steps to me. +1

> Likewise, my understanding is that we don't have approval yet from the TB to
> begin building daily images of UbuntuKylin.  What further steps are
> necessary before we begin doing so?

No objections to this either. +1

-Kees

-- 
Kees Cook