2007-05-31

Introduction

This is a summary of the Kubuntu Developers' Meeting that took place on 2007-05-31 starting at 21:00 UTC.

Team Page: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kubuntu
Meeting Log(s): http://people.ubuntu.com/~fabbione/irclogs/ubuntu-meeting-2007-05-31.html
Meeting Chair: Jonathan Riddell (Riddell)
Meeting Minutes by: Martin Böhm (mhb)

Present

The following were present during this meeting:

Kubuntu Council Members Present

Jonathan Riddell (Riddell)
Sarah Hobbs (Hobbsee)
Tom Albers (toma) -- left the Council
Richard Johnson (nixternal) -- newly appointed
Kenneth Wimer (kwwii) -- newly appointed
Luka Renko (Lure) -- newly appointed

Kubuntu Members Present

Juan Carlos Torres (Jucato)
Mike Stemle, Jr. (manchicken)
Ryan Kavanagh (ryanakca)
Jonathan Jesse (jjesse)
Frode Doeving (fdoving)
Martin Böhm (mhb)
Cyril Breuil (marseillai) -- joined at this meeting
Stefan Skotte (_StefanS_) -- joined at this meeting

Others Present

Eike Hein (Sho_) - representing the Konversation developers
Yuriy Kozlov (yuriy)
DaSkreech

Membership Requests

The following people have requested and interview for membership:

Cyril is well-known for his packaging contributions, while Stefan has gained fame by creating the new Kubuntu logout dialog. Congratulations to both of them, for achieving membership status.

Agenda Items

The following agendas were proposed for this meeting:

Discuss and decide Kubuntu's widget style (Polyester) improvements for Gutsy Gibbon.
With more and more Qt4 apps, do we need to style Qt4 widgets too?
Make KMilo's appearance customizable
Users aren't able to find the right thing the first time (KMenu and System Menu discussion)
One-click fix solution as suggested by Mike Stemle
Upstream concerns with the Konversation package, particularly its default settings.

Some of the agenda points proposed were later called off and will be discussed elsewhere. Those are:

Consider moving Kubuntu documentation that normally sits on help.ubuntu.com over to kubuntu.org
Would like to see some feedback to the TopicBasedHelp changes that were made in Feisty and will be continued in Gutsy?

Proceedings

Meeting called to order at 21:02 UTC, by Meeting Chair, Jonathan Riddell

Agenda

The following is a break down of the entire meeting by agenda items.

Kubuntu Council Changes

Presented by: Jonathan Riddell

It has been decided at the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Seville that the Kubuntu Council should rotate 3 of its members. Tom Albers, Raphaël Pinson and Achim Bonnet have decided to step down. The Kubuntu members and other participants from the community have chosen Richard Johnson, Luka Renko and Kenneth Wimer to join the Council. The next Kubuntu Council change will most likely happen in 1 year.

We thank the former Kubuntu Council Members for their outstanding work in the Council and we congratulate to the newly appointed Members.

11:02   Riddell first item isn't on the agenda though, which is to discuss the kubuntu council membership
11:03   nixternal       Riddell: who is leaving or planning on leaving the KCC?
11:03   Riddell well, the plan we discussed at UDS was to rotate half the CC

11:04   Riddell toma e-mailed that he wanted out
11:04   Riddell raphink says he's busy these days
11:05   Riddell and at UDS both tonio and allee said they could step down if it ment a change of hands
11:05   Riddell but tonio since said he wanted to stay

11:06   Lure    what will be rotation time - one release?
11:06   Riddell Lure: a year was suggested
(...)
11:20   Riddell so for lack of imbrandon, I'd propose the three longest kubuntu memberships we have proposed which is nixternal, kwwii and Lure
11:21   mhb     +1 for them all from me
11:21   Jucato  +1 from me for the 3
11:24   yuriy   whole community == members?
11:24   Riddell yuriy: you can have an opinion too :)
11:25   yuriy   ok well +1 from me for all 3
11:30   toma    Riddell: ok, if Hobbsee agrees, and allee and raphink know what is going on, I'am fine. If this comes as a surprise to them, I am against a decision now.
(...)
11:33   Riddell thanks to the previous members for the last years contributions
11:33   Riddell and long may they continue contributing
11:33   nixternal       Riddell: ditto...awesome job for the previous members!

Widget Style Improvements for Gutsy Gibbon

Presented by: Martin Böhm

Martin Böhm suggested several minor Polyester widget style improvements. Polyester widget style was compared with some other modern widget styles, such as Domino. The work on Polyester widget style for KDE4/Qt4 has started and the development occurs on the Launchpad platform.

Outcome: Martin Böhm will work with Kenneth Wimer on the widget style. The version of Polyester for Qt4 should be finished in time for Gutsy Gibbon.

11:57   mhb     Discuss and decide Kubuntu's widget style (Polyester) improvements for Gutsy Gibbon.
11:57   mhb     some screenshots here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MartinB%c3%b6hm/Meetings/KubuntuGutsyPolyester
11:57   kwwii   mhb: I think this is a great idea and would like to help in any way possible
11:57   kwwii   we can certainly improve things
11:58   mhb     I guess we could make the lines and borders smoother, similar to Domino
11:58   Lure    mhb: and we need qt4 theme too
11:58   kwwii   mhb: although the improved screens you show seem to dark to me, I think that you are right on with the line change
11:58   Lure    we have more and more qt4 apps with default look
11:59   mhb     Lure: the author of polyester started the port
11:59   mhb     Lure: to qt/kde4
11:59   Lure    mhb: any ETA for release?
12:00   mhb     Lure: not yet, but the code is on Launchpad and I'll try to help him so we can make it for gutsy
12:02   kwwii   mhb and myself can work on it and then we'll shove it down your throat :p
12:02   Hobbsee kwwii: when do you plan starting to get a tleast some of hte artwork into gutsy?
12:02   kwwii   Hobbsee: as soon as sabdfl lets me work on other projects (probably sometime in the next month)

KMilo UI Patches

Presented by: Juan Carlos Torres and Ryan Kavanagh

Juan and Ryan have presented patches that improve the user interface of KMilo (volume control pop-ups) and make it configurable. Ryan has made several package for testing there patches. The community agreed that this improvement should be included in Gutsy.

Outcome: "Approved"

12:06   ryanakca        The patch makes KMilo look more compact, and cleaner. It also makes it "themeable", so kwwii can theme it in the future, if he wishes
12:07   Riddell Jucato: is there anything to discuss, seems someone just needs to upload that patch
12:07   Jucato  Riddell: nope. everything's good to go :)
12:07   Lure    Riddell: just upload it
12:07   ryanakca        We wanted to see if anybody liked the patch, or if we should scrap the idea
12:08   fdoving i'bve been using a patched kmilo for a while now, it works and looks good :)

KMenu and System Menu Usability

Presented by: Ryan Kavanagh

Ryan has conducted a little usability review of KMenu at his school. He thinks the KMenu is confusing, especially with a "System" and a "System Settings" menu item. Some people agreed with him; a short discussion about K Menu and System Menu usability took place afterwards.

Outcome:

Ryan will consult usability problems of the K Menu and the System Menu with Celeste Lyn Paul (seele).
Kickoff will not be present in Kubuntu 7.10 by default

12:09   ryanakca        At school, I did a couple usability tests on the kubuntu machine we have, and a couple things often came up
12:10   ryanakca        They didn't know the difference between the "System" menu, and "System Settings
12:10   Hobbsee +1.  that's confusing
12:10   kwwii   ryanakca: very good point - my wife didn't get that either
12:11   ryanakca        They often looked for System settings stuff in the menu. Is it possible to rename "System" to "administration"?
12:11   Riddell not all the things in System are for administration, e.g. hardware database

12:11   Hobbsee but then again, we're planning kickoff for this release, arent we?
12:12   Riddell Hobbsee: no plans to have it as default

12:13   ryanakca        So, what do we do about the naming issue?
12:13   Riddell ryanakca: I usually refer to seele on usability stuff, if you can convince her it's the way to go then I do it

12:13   mhb     I like "Places" instead of the System Menu
12:13   ryanakca        ok. Another confusing item
12:13   Riddell mhb: me too
12:14   fdoving i'm with mhb on "Places"
12:14   _StefanS_       places is good
12:14   Riddell we have to consider that whenever we change a string it breaks translations

12:15   Riddell ryanakca: would you be happy asking seele for a recommendation (when she gets back from berlin) and we can go with that
12:16   ryanakca        Riddell: sure, for both of them I guessL

One-Click Fixes

Presented by: Mike Stemle, Jr.

Mike suggested an application that will use command-line scripts to fix the most common problems in Kubuntu. Fixing dpkg lock trouble was one of the prominent examples. Several arguments for and against such application were raised; some of the developers preferred to fix the applications instead of creating workarounds. Also some other, similar ideas have been discussed.

12:18   manchicken      I'm proposing a very simple, easy to understand program where VERY common issues are listed, and with one click you could solve the problem.
12:18   _StefanS_       help center thingy..
12:18   manchicken      Not really that...
2:19    Lure    manchicken: I like the idea to not need console, but I do not think this should be central place for fixes - rather applications should cope with such cases better
12:19   mhb     I'm with Lure on that one
12:19   Lure    for your example: adept should propose to run dpkg-configure
12:20   Hobbsee but a generic "fix my wifi" is a bit....well, if it's using knetworkmanager - often that requires killing NetworkManager, starting it again, then doing other buggery.  also, you'd need root for that
12:20   Riddell it wouldn't be hard to change adept to offer that fix(/hack) as an option
12:21   DaSkreech       manchicken: do you think this will come across as a We know this is broken we aren't going to fix it here is a band aid ?
12:21   manchicken      Lure: I think writing a collection of well-presented shell scripts will be easier than making knetworkmanager reload network interfaces and renew DHCP leases.
12:23   Hobbsee *** can we look at what we can add, and how, as opposed to whether this is a good idea or not?  it seems most people, at least, think it's a good idea ***
12:23   yuriy   Lure: i think when issues are "more common" that's when workarounds are NOT fine. for rare issues, workarounds are fine

12:31   Riddell well, I see lots of potential problems with it, but of course if someone codes it we can't stop them, and it would be interesting to see the feedback that gets
12:33   Riddell our main focus should be on actually fixing the issues, the adept one does seem entirely fixable even if with a hack in adept rather than outwith it
12:33   Riddell so code away if you want, but no guarantees it'll ever go on the CD
(...)
12:24   mhb     I don't want to discuss it now, but I had an idea based on this one ... a collection of one-time scripts people can use with one click
12:24   mhb     http://img177.imageshack.us/my.php?image=oneclickmockupoc3.png
12:24   kwwii   mhb: might be a good idea as long as it does not fsck things worse than before
12:31   Riddell mhb's mockup does look interesting
12:31   Riddell you could even do hot new stuff to update it after release (scary idea)
12:32   fdoving Riddell: very scary, as i guess most scripts will need root access.
12:32   mhb     Riddell: yes, something like that ... but I know it's scary

Konversation Package - Developer Feedback

Presented by: Eike Hein (Sho_) - Konversation maintainer

The developers of Konversation are unhappy about some of the settings the Kubuntu package uses. Eike noted that many people judge Konversation by the Kubuntu default settings and therefore the upstream developers suggest ["http://konversation.kde.org/kubuntu-issues.txt" some changes]. The relationship between Kubuntu and KDE was mentioned as well. Outcome:

Konversation will have its tray icon disabled by default.
Other issues related to usability will be discussed with the Kubuntu Usability Experts, who were not present at the meeting.

12:35   Sho_    The issue at hand is that Kubuntu ships a bunch of default settings and modifications to Konversation which deviate from upstream, and which upstream (that is me and my co-developers) are unhappy with
12:36   Sho_    We've previously been talking to our Kubuntu liason Hobbsee who has agreed to bring those issues up, but as things have stagnated for a while I've decided to become a little more proactive
12:36   Sho_    Here's some detail on what exactly we have problems with: http://konversation.kde.org/kubuntu-issues.txt
12:36   Riddell ooh system tray shouldn't be on by default? yay!
12:36   toma    Sho_: the list looks sane to me, we should fix some things.
12:37   Lure    Sho_: first: I did not agree with some default changes, however I am not sure how can upstream really work with distro about such customization of defaults
12:38   Hobbsee 3 tonio_ will argue with you over, that the default theme doesnt make implicit sense - but i'm not sure that terms like "voice" etc do either

12:38   manchicken_     Sho_: So why is it such a big deal?
12:39   Sho_    manchicken_: Fact is, Kubuntu is the KDE-centric desktop distro people go for these days, and whatever Konvi Kubuntu ships shapes the public image of Konvi to a great degree
12:40   kwwii   we should definitely ask usability peeps about tab placement
12:40   Lure    kwwii: +1 - left side channels are really useful for heavy irc users
12:40   Sho_    manchicken_: Our stance is that we spend more time thinking about our defaults than distributions and that distributions shouldn't change what we come up with on a whim

IRC meeting with Debian developers

Presented by: Tom Albers

Tom Albers suggested a meeting with people from the Debian projects. Some of them have been criticising our KDE packages and the lack of cooperation. Tom and others want to improve that.