Desktop team meeting minutes

[Martin Pitt]

This is also available online at
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DesktopTeam/Meeting/2008-09-11

== Present ==

 * Martin Pitt (pitti) -- chair
 * Jonathan Riddell (Riddell)
 * Kenneth Wimer (kwwii)
 * Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)
 * Michael Vogt (mvo)
 * Mirco Müller (MacSlow)
 * Sebastien Bacher (seb128)
 * Ted Gould (tedg)

 * Pedro Villavicencio Garrido (pedro_)
 * Colin Watson (cjwatson)
 * Henrik Omma (heno)

== Apologies ==

 * Scott James Remnant (Keybuk) - sick

== Agenda ==

 * Outstanding actions from last meeting

 * Michael: Do I need a formal feature freeze exception for compiz or is there
 an expection like for GNOME? A release is prepared currently and
 it would be nice to give them up-to-date packages for better
 testing exposure.

 * Jonathan: How to organise FOSSCamp and UDS sponsorships?

 * Jonathan: 8.04 to 9.04 as an upgrade path?

 * Sebastien: the new gnome-session dialog is available in intrepid, do we want to
 use this one?

 * Sebastien: gnome-keyring has a configure option to disable the ACL dialogs
 (http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=533493). Would that be
 something to use in Ubuntu?

 * Sebastien: What is out policy about adding changes to desktop packages?
 gnome-control-center starts having quite some distribution changes for
 example, shouldn't those be sent upstream before being added to Ubuntu?

 * [[http://people.ubuntu.com/~dholbach/sponsoring/|Sponsoring Overview update]]
  * only one outstanding item for the desktop team; Michael applied the patch
  to bzr and unsubscribed u-m-s; will be uploaded when some other changes piled
  up
 * Release Status
 * Review activity reports
 * Next week's meeting
 * Any other business

== Outstanding actions from last meeting ==

 * mvo to talk to QA about the possibility of a "package-failures"
 component and triaging it. -- ''deferred''

 * pitti to ask ArneGoetje about hunspell dictionary dependencies -- ''done, fixed''
 
 * seb128 to update whiteboard of intrepid-menus-review and
 better-login-speed for remaining TODOs -- ''done''

== Actions from this meeting ==

 * mvo to talk to QA about the possibility of a "package-failures"
 component and triaging it

 * mpt to review UI issues in logout/power dialogs and submit them as
 upstream and Launchpad bugs

 * pitti to discuss gnome-keyring confirmation dialog behaviour in
 upstream bug

 * mvo to forward his recent gnome-control-center changes upstream
 (system wide keyboard selection)

== package failure apport reports ==

Michael will still discuss (with the QA team) the idea of reporting
apt/apport bug reports against the "package-failures" project instead
of directly to the ubuntu package. However, general consensus is that
the better way forward is to vastly improve the report generation on
the client side, so that they become eligible for auto-duplication,
have more useful logs, and do a better job of which packages' fault
the failure actually is. (Jaunty material)

== Freeze exception for compiz ==

Since compiz is not part of the official GNOME stack, it does not have
any special standing exception. New upstream versions with new
features need to undergo the normal feature freeze exception process.

== FOSSCamp and UDS sponsorship organization ==

Jonathan was concerned about applications being strictly tied to
brainstorm requests, as indicated by
[[http://www.jonobacon.org/?p=1278 Jono's blog post]], since they only
catch a certain subclass of necessary/useful work.
With Scott not being available, we could not get a definitive answer.
General consensus, which was backed up by Henrik and Colin, was that
applicants should point out clear projects which they want to work on
in Jaunty, which could be tied to blueprints or other project
descriptions as well.

== 8.04 to 9.04 upgrade path ==

Jonathan thinks that Kubuntu Hardy should offer an upgrade to Kubuntu
9.04 when it gets released. He estimates that at this time, KDE 4 has
matured enough to be eligible for widespread upgrades. (Kubuntu 8.04
was not LTS, so the reasons why we don't offer upgrades in Ubuntu do
not apply here).

Since we need to maintain all transitional code for 8.04 -> 10.04
upgrades anyay, it should cost us little to no extra work to
additional support an 8.04 -> 9.04 upgrade path as well. This path
should be tested automatically during the Jaunty development cycle.

Thus there was general concensus that this is possible and efficient,
and to enable the upgrade offer in the KDE update-manager when Jaunty
is released.

== GNOME session dialog ==

Matthew has some reservations about the current (split) logout and
shutdown dialogs, both in terms of workflow and in terms of UI.
However, the old 8.04 one (Ubuntu specific) was equally ugly for
different reasons, and a complete redesign is out of scope for
intrepid.

Martin noted that he generally likes the split between the two
different concepts (changing the user vs. changing the machine power
state), the previous single dialog was way too crowded.

Matthew agreed to do a review of the worst UI issues which can be
fixed in the intrepid time frame and submit a list of issues to
upstream and us (preferably in the form of GNOME bugzilla and
Launchpad bugs).

The top left logout icon in the panel is less useful with the split
dialog, though. However, this functionality got absorbed into f-u-s-a,
thus the logout icon should be removed entirely by default.

== GNOME keyring access security dialog ==

Currently, users get quite a lot of confirmation dialogs about
standard desktop applications which want to access the GNOME keyring,
such as network-manager or Evolution. Those will just cause the user
to routinely click those away, and thus make the question useless.

Fedora proposed a patch to entirely disable the question in
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=533493 . Martin responded
that this is too blunt, since then every malicious/unexpected program
could access the keyring as well. He proposed to suppress the question
only for programs which come from packaged applications, and
approximating this by checking the application's path (/usr/bin,
etc.). Martin will discuss this in the upstream bug.

== Policy of desktop package patches ==

Sebastien mentioned that gnome-control-center suffers from a large
number of Ubuntu patches which constantly need porting to newer
releases. This currently isn't done by the patch authors, but mainly
by Sebastien himself.

The current Policy for newly introduced patches should be the same as
the widely accepted consensus for Ubuntu in general: We shouldn't
block on upstream to accept patches before we apply them, since we
have our own deadlines and specifications to finish, but it is a
requirement to report the patch, discussions, specifications, etc. to
upstream ''before'' or at least at the same time as applying it to the
Ubuntu package, and follow up the discussion upstream.

For the currently existing patches the agreement was that Sebastien
would ask the patch authors to forward the patches upstream now, so
that they'll eventually get integrated/discussed upstream.

== Next week's meeting ==

Next week, a couple of Ubuntu developers will be in Portland at the
Linux Plumber's Conference, including Scott, Matt, and Martin. General
consensus was to skip the meeting next week and discuss matters on
ubuntu-desktop at .

== Activity reports ==

=== Jonathan Riddell (Riddell) ===

done:m
 * language-selector integration with system settings
 * new version of ical
 * fix pinentry's alternative
 * package 4.1.1 l10n
 * update oem-config for KDE 4
 * half day archive admin
 * update amarok codec install for KDE 4
 * update gtk-qt-engine settings for KDE 4
 * Testing Adept beta 2 and integrating software-properties into Adept
 * taking asac through knetworkmanager compile, fingers crossed he can update
 it for new NM API

todo:
 * fix digikam package mess

=== Kenneth Wimer (kwwii) ===

 * fixed a bug in the human theme / ubuntu-artwork pacakages, made new
 packages several times, working out new dependencies/conflicts/replaces.

 * Added a package with new sounds  in my PPA (login/out, question, warning)

 * built new svn snapshot of murrine engine, put in PPA, testing now for
 inclusion in intrepid

 * worked with two theme teams to fix things, finish things...new packages
  almost every day this week in my PPA, pacakged for intrepid, with help from
  pitti this is underway.

 * set up artwork community meeting (http://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Meetings)

 * discussed the infrastructure of the icon theme (code named breathe)
  * http://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/BreatheIconSet/Discussion
  * http://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/BreatheIconSet/Icons

 * updated OOo about and splash header sent to Chris

=== Martin Pitt (pitti) ===

Assigned Intrepid specs:
 * intrepid-device-permissions: implemented
 * gdm-guest-account: beta available, needs some bug fixes
 * jockey-printer-driver-support: got remaining TODO (show license and
 support status of a driver) fixed in trunk, and updated the UI
 workflow and appearance according to mpt's review and improvements
 (thank you!); done in trunk, FFE pending approval from Steve for
 merging into ubuntu

Currently open milestoned bugs:
 - #262228 (8.10-beta, user switching from guest login locks guest
   session): no time yet, not urgent yet

Other non-chores work done:
 * reviewed apport opensuse branch, discussion with author (they are
 very active and eager to adopt apport)
 * reviewed copyrights/contributions of apport and jockey
 * gave mentoring session to StevenK about archive administration
 * ugh, 4 hours of IRC discussions this week
 * worked with Albero to port Jockey from guidance-backends to X-Kit,
 so that guidance can be deprecated soon (not maintained upstream
 any more, Kubuntu guys want to get rid of it); done in trunk, needs
 FFE bug

=== Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt) ===

 * Helped Alexander Sack with designing the Firefox plug-ins window.
 * Redesigned the Hardware Drivers window for Martin Pitt.
 * A little Launchpad work.
 * Arranged to attend the Gnome Boston Summit and preceding user
 experience hackfest.
 * More work on the Keyboard and Network Proxy settings designs for
 Michael Vogt.
 * Reviewed usb-creator for Evan Dandrea.

=== Michael Vogt (mvo) ===

Returned from my vacation last week, the vacation was very nice :)

SystemWidePreferences:
 * work on global keybinding setting code
 * move gnome-control-center into bzr
 * add code to system-service-d to allow global keyboard settings
 * patch gnome-control-centers keyboard capplet to make use of
 the new system-service-d capabilities
 * implemented the global keyboard settings UI design by mpt

UpdateManager:
 * Add some experimental support for "dpkg --set-selections" into update-manager
 * fix release upgrade transition of the landscape.canonical.com repository
 * merge/upload update-manager changes from persia

Misc:
 * lots of mail backlog from my vacation
 * bug triage
 * work on improved frontend for the translated package description
 with sianis, see http://people.ubuntu.com/~mvo/nightmonkey/main-de.html 
 for a example  (https://edge.launchpad.net/ddtp-lp-html)
 * popcon.ubuntu.com maintaince
 * work on language-selector with arne
 * sponsoring/reviewing merge requests/go over the sponsoring queue
 * review/merge/upload app-install-data-commercial update for the ISV people
 * implement the new buy codecs button design by mpt
 * prepare compiz update in bzr
 * discussion about landscae-client and its dependency on smart and what we can do to resolve it

=== Mirco Müller (MacSlow) ===

login-experience/gdm-face-browser:
 * issue with $XDG_SESSION_COOKIE not being set solved, 
 thanks to pitti regarding help with dbus

 * retrieving user-info (login-id, name, shell etc) via UID works

 * listing of users once the "users-loaded" signal is emitted not working
 yet, returned list is NULL, still debugging

 * started to move to more current gdm-upstream code, in order to make
 use of the introduced gconf-key for greeter-selection
 (gdm-simple-greeter, gdm-graphical-greeter)

Misc:
 * gtk+ conference-call with numerous members from the GNOME-foundation,
 gtk+ upstream and other projects/companies

 * small fix to clutter-PPA, used wrong dependency in pc-file

 * small mockup for fusa

=== Sebastien Bacher (seb128) ===

 * GNOME 2.23.92 updates

 * joined the upstream phone conference about GTK3, nothing really new
 since GUADEC and the following discussions on the topic

=== Ted Gould (tedg) ===

FUSA Applet:
 * Work with mpt on UI design
 * Implement changes to user menu so that users are under "Switch
 User..." and now bold if logged in
 * Continued to debug status issues
 * Debug issues on Live CD (no resolution yet)  LP: #266931
 * Build for Hardy in PPA for interested folks

Misc:
 * Build package for GPM.  This took longer than expected with a
 few community delivered patches that were good, but required
 cleaning.  Also pushed upstream, which required more scrubbing.
 Some patches may be candidates for SRU depending on success in
 Intrepid.  (critical battery action not taken depending on
 accuracy of battery profile)
 * Helped art community working on Breathe icon set with a script
 to break apart an SVG into a set of icons.
 * FFe for xscreensaver got accepted.  Needs sponsoring LP: #262422
 * Set up meeting with Lexington folks after Boston GNOME Summit
 * Attended GTK+ 3.0 roadmap call (punchline: no roadmap yet)
 * Watching the forecasts to see how much rain we're going to get
 from Ike.  Currently unlikely to cause work issues.

-- 
Martin Pitt                        | http://www.piware.de
Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com)  | Debian Developer  (www.debian.org)
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