[IAEP] [Sugar-devel] SLOB meeting notes 2020-12-23

[James Cameron]

On Fri, Dec 25, 2020 at 10:54:00PM +0100, Martin Guy wrote:
> On 23/12/2020, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com> wrote:
> > MISSION
> > Sugar Labs® is a volunteer-driven member project of
> > Software Freedom Conservancy, a nonprofit corporation.
> 
> Nice words, but what I see from down here is that the leading
> developers are the paid ones (who not only do the work they're paid to
> do but also shoulder other duties such as board membership. mentoring
> and being a generous knowledge base)

What you say is not what I understand.  I'll say what I understand;

Sugar Labs paid some mentors a stipend this year for Google Summer of
Code.  The remaining mentors did not ask for the stipend.  I did not
ask.  The money came from Google.

Sugar Labs has offered to pay Ibiam to work on some of the Python
activities.  Other than that, Sugar Labs hasn't been paying
developers.

OLPC, Inc pays me to work on OLPC OS, which contains Sugar and a few
other things.

> If that also seems to others to be the reality that we have, that
> suggests an alternative view, to consciously use SL's funds to fund
> development, with openness about what it pays to whom to do what, and
> the developer's duty to itemize in public the hours spent on each
> assigned task, and the progress made as a result, since that seems to
> be a more effective path than simply wailing "We need more
> volunteers!"
> 
> To this end, drawing a line under the past financial accounting,
> taking stock and relaunching it with greater transparency might be one
> way to help SL achieve its technical goals, as well as encouraging
> more and more generous donations when current or potential donors can
> see how cost-effective their funds are.

Yes, further transparency would be welcome.  I'm no longer a member of
the oversight board.  Board members in particular are responsible for
ensuring transparency, but all members should also demonstrate and
seek it.

However, it is possible to gather some of the hours spent on tasks by
using GitHub to monitor specific developers.  When monitoring in this
way, be sure to watch the musicblocks repository, and the sugarizer
repository in the llaske user account.  If you don't watch these two
repositories, you'll miss much of the activity at Sugar Labs.

> 
> Just my 2 cents...
> 
> Season's greetings
> 
>      M
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-- 
James Cameron
https://quozl.linux.org.au/