Minutes from the Technical Board meeting, 2011-06-02

[Matt Zimmerman]

(also posted at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TechnicalBoard/TeamReports/11/June)

Chair: Matt Zimmerman
Present: Scott James Remnant, Kees Cook
Apologies: Colin Watson, Mark Shuttleworth

A complete meeting transcript with relevant links is available at:
http://www.novarata.net/mootbot/ubuntu-meeting.20110602_1256.html

 * ffmpeg vs. libav

  + The ffmpeg project has forked upstream into ffmpeg and libav
  + Ubuntu is currently shipping libav only, because the ffmpeg package maintainer chose to package this version
  + The consensus of the Technical Board at the meeting was to regard these as separate software projects, which implies:
   - The choice of what to package is rightfully made by the maintainer. The Technical Board does not decide what software individual maintainers choose to package.
   - If another developer wished to package ffmpeg for Ubuntu, this would be welcome
   - If that were to happen, we would address any technical conflicts as they arose

 * Setting the Ubuntu series release manager in Launchpad to ubuntu-release

  + This was proposed in https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-community/+bug/174375/comments/21
  + Bug 451390 is now fixed, so this can proceed
  + The TB members present at this meeting did not feel confident enough to make a decision about whether we should proceed immediately, and wanted more input from members familiar with archive administration
  + Deferred to the next meeting

 * Measuring installation success/failure

  + Evan Dandrea proposed that we collect data on successful vs. failed installation attempts from end users
  + The TB was asked for a policy ruling on whether this would be acceptable, or under what conditions
  + Various concerns have been raised, including:
   - Implementation considerations, such as whether useful data can be collected without leaking identifying information
   - Utility considerations, such as whether this data would in fact be useful for improving the installer
   - Privacy considerations, such as whether it is appropriate require explicit consent from the user before sharing this data
   - Transparency considerations, such as whether the raw data collected should be shared with the general public
  + The discussion in the meeting focused mainly on the privacy concerns
  + No clear consensus was reached, and clearly more discussion is necessary
  + To be continued by email and in the next TB meeting

 * Policy proposal for partner repository

  + Nicolas Barcet submitted a proposal for a technical policy to be applied to packages in the Canonical partner repository: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/technical-board/2011-May/000875.html
  + There was some discussion of whether this policy should be unified across the Canonical partner repositories and the -extras repositories
  + To be continued by email (time pressure)

 * Launchpad stakeholder for Ubuntu project

  + Bryce Harrington confirmed his willingness act as a Launchpad stakeholder on behalf of Ubuntu

 * ubuntu-techboard celebrity in Launchpad

  + Francis Lacoste proposed a code change to Launchpad which would affect the permission model for Ubuntu branches, and asked for input from the technical board
  + No issues were raised other than those already raised by James Westby by email

Chair for the next meeting: Martin Pitt

-- 
 - mdz