Dot article on activities needed, maybe more?

[Cornelius Schumacher]

Let me add my point of view to this discussion.

We are in the wonderful position that KDE e.V. is able to support developer 
meetings, so that those dedicated people who are working on KDE can meet to 
get amazing stuff done. I see that as removing obstacles and enabling KDE 
contributors to make best use of their time, passion and skills. We all know 
how much of a difference it makes to meet in person, and all of us who had the 
opportunity to attend a KDE sprint know of that special atmosphere it is to 
meet these KDE people you only knew via email or IRC in person. It's still 
amazing to me, that these meetings always feel like meeting old friends, even 
if you have never met in real life before. This demonstrates on what a high 
level of community we operate.

In the last years we have greatly increased the number size and frequency of 
developer sprints in KDE. This is a fantastic result of a lot of good work 
which happened in the community which makes it worthwhile in the eyes of many 
people to invest in sprints. This is great, and I think we should do whatever 
we can do to sustain it, even if it takes an increasingly bigger effort in 
times of financial and organizational resources.

One very important aspect of this is that we have to raise money for sprints, 
and for doing this we need to convince people that it's a good thing to invest 
in them. So as we are doing all these great sprints, we have a tremendous 
opportunity here simply by showing what happened at these sprints and 
communicating some bit of the special atmosphere, the frantic productivity, 
how these events breed ideas, visions, and great technology.

It's a waste, if we don't make use of this opportunity. So I think we should 
happily go the extra step of creating some reports and telling the world about 
what happened. This shouldn't feel like an obligation. It's a natural 
extension of what we are doing at these sprints. It's an essential part of our 
culture and the way we work. It's an important part of sharing, which is the 
essence of free software in general, and KDE in particular.

So let's do this as a group, community, sprint participants and organizers, 
e.V. members and board. Let's just get this done, and make sure our sprints 
are visible and reflected well in our communication.

On Sunday 04 April 2010 Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> On April 4, 2010, Sebastian Kügler wrote:
> > For Tokamak 4, I'm still looking for someone to write an article about
> > the work on activities that has been done there. I've not followed these
> > sessions myself, and I'm also having a hard time to wrap my head around
> > the topic on mailing list discussions. That means that someone else has
> > to write this article.
> 
> as you already know, this one is on my plate. and i actually have time for
>  it now that the javascript jam is all but wrapped up. i'll get it done in
>  the next few days.
> 
> > Also, please don't forget that by asking the KDE e.V. for sponsoring this
> > event (which has been the most expensive (non-Akademy) developer meeting
> > in its history so far) we agreed to properly report on what we're doing
> > and what has been achieved during the meeting.
> 
> to be perfectly frank, phrasing it in terms of "KDE e.V. gives us more
>  money, now you have to provide more documentatin on the other side" is not
>  the most useful way for the board to go about it. i also find it very
>  distasteful how we are fairly constantly reminded how this was the most
>  expensive meeting, as if we got away with something here or don't
>  "deserve" it. this is especially galling as it isn't about deserving or
>  not deserving at all. it's about investing where we think it's worthwhile
>  to do so. i'd be completely fine if the board decided not to invest as
>  much financial capital in Tokamak, and i've said so in previous emails.
>  but when the board does put out that money, do not tie such strings to it.
> 
> KDE e.V. is not contracting out or investing in a third party. we are
> investing in ourselves. and the people we are investing in already give an
> amazing amount to the community and world at large through their efforts in
> KDE> it would be good to treat it like that rather than use "this is our
>  (KDE e.V.'s) money, now you (contributors to KDE) earn it" language.
> 
> personally, i'd position it more as a "here are the commitments we make to
> ourselves when use our resources to hold these events. this gives us a good
> way to measure our own progress, communicate our exciting developments to
>  the outside world and reassure our investors that they are doing the right
>  thing." this puts the "us-them" line outside of KDE (it's KDE and the
>  public; KDE and our investors). the result is that it will create a lot
>  less stress between people inside KDE since we will be working together on
>  it, rather than trying to meet the expectations of our task masters.
> 
> yes, it's the same end result in either case, but these things actually do
> matter when trying to get people to do things in a timely manner with
>  quality.
> 
> putting pressure will also have the reverse effect desired here, i think.
> unless, of course, the desire is to do fewer and smaller KDE developer
>  sprints in the future. (that's a valid goal, perhaps, depending on the
>  budget expetations)
> 
> as it stands, i've already personally decided that the next tokamak will be
> dramatically smaller. i said as much to kevin on one of the days at T4 when
>  he and i went for a walk to discuss various matters related to KDE. a
>  smaller even will be easier to manage, we won't have to go looking for
>  resources that quite evidently are not there for us to use and we won't
>  have to deal with the "now you owe even more!" stuff.
> 
> > My personal stance (both as
> > KDE e.V. Board member and Plasma hacker) is that we're lagging, again
> > time-constraints on my side being the obvious reason, but then I've
> > received very little in the sense of help with the work ahead, so I've
> > been chipping away on it when my time allowed it. The bottom-line is that
> 
> and it's greatly appreciated.
> 
> > didn't meet the expectations of the KDE e.V. for sponsoring such an
> > event, and secondly, because if we fail in reporting, it's harder to get
> > companies to donate to the e.V. resulting in not enough available funds
> > to fly everyone in to such an event.
> 
> yes. however, we're (the people at the sprints) only the first step in the
> reporting chain. that we don't have quarterly reports coming out of KDE
>  e.V. atm doesn't help. that http://ev.kde.org/activities/devmeetings/
>  lists no meetings for 2010 and only 3 in 2009 (none of which are Tokamaks)
>  doesn't help either.
> 
> > already), but it won't work in the future, and it's falling apart right
> > now as you can see.
> 
> that's mildly dramatic, but i think we get your point.
> 

-- 
Cornelius Schumacher <schumacher at kde.org>