[yocto-ab] YP Advisory Board: Minutes 11 Feb 2014

[Osier-mixon, Jeffrey]

The Yocto Project Advisory Board met on 11 February 2014, the first
meeting this year. We had representatives from several memberships,
but we didn't quite make a quorum so there were no actual votes.

These minutes are quite long, as we had a very productive meeting. You
can find individual agenda items by searching for _> or look for
action items by searching for => below.

Attending (* indicates voting member):

Steve Sakoman, Sakoman Inc *
Lieu Ta, Wind River Systems *
Phil Brownfield, Freescale *
Michael Brown, Dell *
Philip Balister, OpenEmbedded Project *
Bill Mills, Texas Instruments *
Dave Stewart, Intel *
Richard Purdie, Linux Foundation
Rudi Streif, Linux Foundation
Jeffrey Osier-Mixon (Intel), Yocto Project

The agenda included:

- YP Participant votes
- automated testing summary
- bug scrub
- internships
- annual budget
- adding Tracey as a nonvoting permanent member
- advocacy team
- summary of action items

________________________________________________________>
YP Participant votes

We discussed two recent applicants, Dynamic Devices and Zenotec.

Dynamic Devices was a shoe-in, and voting was nearly finished before
the meeting.

Zenotec was a great example of a type of applicant we get often - an
organization who is just starting to use YP and wants to increase
their visibility. The AB usually does not vote this type of applicant
in, so I encourage them to join the community and participate visibly
in order to attain Participant status.

Philip Balister mentioned that he still encounters orgs using OE
Classic to create shipping devices, but most of these are moving to OE
Core (and thus YP).

We also discussed the difficulty in estimating the size of the YP
community in terms of users, as a great many YP users are "off the
radar" for several reasons. Steve Sakoman says that he has around 10
heavy users who are not visible in the community, of which 2/3 are
large companies or government organizations and 1/3 are small
companies. In the larger YP community I believe this ratio is
approximately reversed in terms of number, but this ratio is probably
very close in terms of actual shipping products.

As we rarely get a quorum at AB meetings, voting will continue to
happen by email until a more automated web-based voting system is put
in place, hopefully later this year but the priority on this is low
since the current system works.

No direct actions were assigned.

________________________________________________________>
Automated testing summary

Bill Mills provided a summary of the automated testing framework
effort that is ongoing (mailing list at
https://lists.yoctoproject.org/listinfo/automated-testing). This group
meets periodically and is currently discussing physical testing
frameworks for what are now QEMU based targets. Especially under
discussion is the use of Lava, which has been adopted by Linaro.

Contact Bill and/or sign up for the mailing list to participate.

________________________________________________________>
Bug scrub

Richard Purdie provided a summary of the OE community effort to hold a
"bug scrub" weekend. The weekend was not heavily attended, but did
show that a period of focused effort on bugzilla, closing out extant
issues, can be immensely helpful to both the OE and YP communities.
The OE Technical Steering Committee is strongly in favor of holding
these bug scrub events and is looking for help with this activity

Philip Balister encouraged all member orgs to appoint representatives
to show up at these events, or to at least indicate their
availability, as even one day of solid work can yield great results.
Bill Mills discussed the potential cadence of such events (monthly? 4
days long to catch everyone's availability?) - if the events happen
too often they can lose critical mass. Philip suggested that more
advance notice of the event on all relevant mailing lists would help
attendance. Also discussed was whether to host a bug scrub via
yoctoproject.org or in a vm on yp infrastructure.

The next event is being scheduled for the weekend of Feb 22.

=>Jefro to plan bug scrub as one activity at the upcoming ELC hackathon

________________________________________________________>
Internships

Google Summer of Code is seeking member organizations to host
mentorships. However, most YP organizations are already overloaded and
do not have the bandwidth to act as mentors, so we will be skipping
GSoC again this year. However, we will very likely work with the GNOME
Foundation's Outreach Program for Women again, as we had great success
with last year's internship program. The community budget has been
increased to accommodate this internship.

This topic also sparked a discussion about coming up with a task list
for interns or other energetic new users to tackle, as it is
intimidating for new (and experienced) users to simply hunt through
bugzilla looking for appropriate tasks. Philip Balister suggested we
focus on coming up with an idea list based on the current bugzilla
content. Jefro also suggested that when bite-sized tasks are
identified, we could post them on an aggregator site like
http://openhatch.org, with the caveat that very often these tasks
require some guidance from senior developers.

No direct actions were assigned.

________________________________________________________>
Annual budget

Lieu Ta presented an updated assessment of the Yocto Project financial
situation. The wiki page on finances has been updated at
https://wiki.yoctoproject.org/wiki/Yocto_Project_Finances although
there are still some expenses from 2013 that have not yet been
applied, so 2013 is not yet closed.

The good news is that the Advocacy Team has achieved their asking
amount of approximately US$94,000. This will enable the team to
provide advocacy efforts including conference sponsorship, booth
transfer from place to place, materials, and a Developer Day event at
ELCE in the fall. These items are discussed below, and a more detailed
Advocacy budget is forthcoming.

=>Advocacy team to fine-tune 2014 Advocacy budget in next meeting

________________________________________________________>
Tracey Erway

Jefro proposed to invite Tracey Erway to the Advisory Board as a
permanent non-voting member. Tracey is a founder of the Yocto Project
who has been instrumental to the project in terms of advocacy,
messaging, and managing the project's relationships. YP would not be
YP without her influence. Tracey is now working on other projects, but
we very much need to retain her wisdom and advice.

=>Jefro to describe non-voting position for Tracey and call for an AB
vote this week

________________________________________________________>
Advocacy team

NOTE: Advocacy issues were paramount at this month's meeting, so this
section is longer than the rest. Look for _______ to search among
topics, which include:

- Advocacy team charter
- Events
- Demos
- Website
- Messaging
- RTC Supplement

The YP Advocacy Team has been headed by Tracey Erway since its
inception in early 2011. It is responsible for the Yocto Project's
image and message to the outside world. Its activities include:

- organizing and executing events such as conferences and Developer Days
- consistent messaging on materials, the website, articles, etc.
- curating the YP website
- directing the YP Compliance Program
- finding innovative ways to advocate for and promote YP

The first Advocacy Team meeting was held last week, but only gathered
members from three organizations out of the 16 members in the project.
In order for the team to accurately represent the needs of all of the
members, we need participation from every organization, and that
includes meetings and mailing list as well as physical participation
at events. Tracey and I have agreed to contact each member
organization individually this month to determine how each will
participate in the advocacy effort.

In short - if you are reading this, your organization needs to
participate in order to have a voice in how the messages are crafted,
how the events are staffed, and how the project is promoted.

=>All member orgs to provide resources to Advocacy Team by next meeting
_______
Events

Jefro discussed the events coming up in 2014 where YP is planning a
presence of some kind. For those listed as "member booths",
participation depends on member organizations providing some YP
presence in their booths at these events. "Presentations" means that I
am aware of presentations that either have been submitted to a CFP or
are scheduled to appear.

Q1 2014:

- FOSDEM (present in the OpenEmbedded booth)
- Embedded World (presentation)
- Mobile World Congress (presentation)

Q2 2014:

- Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit (meetings only)
- EE Live, was DesignWest (member booths, presentations)
- Embedded Linux Conference North America
  (sponsorship, YP booth, presentations, OE/YP hackathon)
- LinuxCon Japan (member booths, presentations)

Q3 2014:

- OSCON (member booths)
- LinuxCon North America (member booths)

Q4 2014:

- ARM TechCon (member booths, possible sponsorship, presentations)
- Embedded Linux Conference Europe
  (sponsorship, YP booth, presentations, Developer Day)

In addition, some of our member organizations host their own
conferences. We discussed the possibility of participating in
Freescale Tech Forums next year, particularly in China or India where
the attendance is large. Intel often provides "chalk talk"
presentations at Intel Developer Forum events as well. It is strongly
encouraged for all member orgs with corporate conferences to make sure
YP is represented there. We also briefly discussed participating in
Linaro Connect events if possible.

=>Advocacy Team to work out participation details for all events at next meeting
_______
Demos

Product demos are highly useful in starting conversations at
conferences. As Philip Balister pointed out, sometimes it is hard for
a discussion to transition from a fancy gadget to the build system
that created that gadget, though that is easier at developer events
like ELC and ELCE than, for example, than at EE Live. It is important
to always remember to describe the main benefits of the project rather
than just enabling a look at a cool demo.

Philip reports that FOSDEM is a great place for demos, and has
featured many demos this year and in previous years.

It is expected that all member organizations have some sort of product
demo that could feature the Yocto Project as a talking point. However,
the Advocacy Team is aware of very few of these. If you have a demo
that you take to conferences, please let us know.

=>All orgs to create demos and alert Advocacy Team, ongoing
_______
Website

The YP website was overhauled completely last fall in time for ELCE
2013 and our fall release. Not all of its features were complete,
however, and some of its content still requires much work by hand to
maintain. Jefro is the de facto director of the website, and he
recommends that the workload be more distributed. This could mean
participation from member organizations, the hiring of an intern, or
possibly effort from a community volunteer if one appears.

The actual overhaul to the site itself will likely require funds in
order to hire Drupal contractors, and some funds have been allocated
in the budget to accomplish this. Actual requirements and an action
plan still need to be provided.

=>Jefro to organize website overhaul and ongoing updates, present a
plan by next AB meeting
_______
Messaging

One of the most important jobs for the Advocacy Team is to provide
direction for consistent messaging through all the methods that the
project interfaces with the outside world. This includes everything
from the project's taglines and other website features all the way to
technical messages used in articles, the colors and images used in the
booth and in videos on the website, our interface with the Linux
Foundation's advocacy team, and in the messaging for marketing efforts
from individual member organizations. In addition, this also includes
the use of YP logos and badges through the YP Compliance Program,
which is currently administered by the community manager.

The project has had very consistent messaging since its inception,
largely due to the efforts of Tracey Erway. Tracey is not directly
working on advocacy issues this year, so the team needs to step up its
efforts and streamline its processes to make sure these messages are
consistent.

Dave Stewart briefly discussed the YP tagline "It's not an embedded
Linux distribution - it creates a custom one for you". This has been
our tagline for three years and it was very useful during that time to
answer the question "what is the Yocto Project". It has been suggested
that we may need a new tagline as the project matures, although no
action items were immediately created as a result of this discussion.

The current buzz in the industry is focused on expanding vertical
markets: medical devices, aerospace, wearable technology, and the
"internet of things" (IoT). In Advocacy efforts it makes sense to
focus on these areas where the project has very high traction and can
solve problems for many people. Steve Sakoman described that his
projects a few years ago were more focused on aerospace and industrial
devices, while over the last few months they have been much more
geared toward IoT, wearables, and medical devices. Dave Stewart
suggested that we should "tap into the buzz" about these devices where
YP is so strong.

It is worth mentioning that security for embedded devices is a very
hot topic and is present in nearly every article or blog post about
IoT or medical devices, not to mention automotive. Dave Stewart will
present a talk at Embedded World and Mobile World Congress which
addresses security in embedded devices and how the Yocto Project can
help organizations with this effort.

As we move forward with the website overhaul, the Advocacy Team can
update the messaging on the site to address these trends. The team
welcomes and strongly encourages participation from every member
organization on messaging.

=>Advocacy Team to work out project messaging starting at next meeting
_______
RTC supplement

RTC Magazine is a professional publication that goes out to 18,000
subscribers on paper every month. Nearly every issue also contains a
supplement of 24-40 pages focused on a particular aspect of embedded
computing, and generally provided and paid for by an organization. For
example, the most recent supplement featured AMD's lineup of SoCs with
details, articles, and ads from AMD.

Over the past several months, the Advocacy Team has been communicating
with RTC Group to work out an opportunity for the Yocto Project to
create a supplement for RTC magazine. The benefits include a mailing
to 18k people plus distribution at all of RTC's RTECC conferences
worldwide. Reprints are available as well, so individual organizations
can order more of these to use at conferences, giving YP a presence at
events where we would not otherwise be able to participate. In
addition, the supplement would be available as a PDF which we could
distribute through the YP site and through member organization's
websites. We could update and reissue this document on an annual
basis, and worldwide translation is available if we decide that is
desired.

Content would be provided by the YP organizations themselves, and this
is an area where the project can show its flexibility and its ability
to cooperate among many organizations. There are several options for
both creating content and for paying for the supplement. It is of
ultimate importance that all member organizations must get some page
space and positive showing in the supplement, so one idea is to
feature case studies and success stories from each org for the first
half of the document, followed by in-depth articles provided by orgs
through the Advocacy Team. We may also make ad space available to help
pay for the project.

The total for 28 pages is quoted at $36,000, which is in line with
similar projects with printed media. Most are not quite this flexible
- for example, EE Times prefers to write their own articles. RTC is
available to answer any questions we might have, and Jefro can set up
a call with them if needed.

This is a great opportunity for the project to both showcase the
project's strongest attributes - as Richard Purdie says, the
unification and cooperation among silicon manufacturers, OS vendors,
OEM/ODM organizations, and other open source projects - and also
provide a conduit for individual organizations to strut their stuff.
We will need all hands on deck in order for it to succeed.

Bill Mills suggested that RTC Magazine doesn't generally reach TI's
customer base, which is a concern. Also of concern is the cost of the
project, which could be somewhat offset by accepting ads from member
orgs.

=>Jefro to send out summary of RTC opportunity
=>All member orgs to review RTC opportunity and ask questions in
preparation for a go/no-go vote

________________________________________________________
The meeting adjourned after two hours.

Summary of action items:

=>Jefro to plan bug scrub as one activity at the upcoming ELC hackathon
=>Advocacy team to fine-tune 2014 Advocacy budget in next meeting
=>Jefro to describe non-voting position for Tracey and call for an AB
vote this week
=>All member orgs to provide resources to Advocacy Team by next meeting
=>Advocacy Team to work out participation details for all events at next meeting
=>All orgs to create demos and alert Advocacy Team, ongoing
=>Jefro to organize website overhaul and ongoing updates, present a
plan by next AB meeting
=>Advocacy Team to work out project messaging starting at next meeting
=>Jefro to send out summary of RTC opportunity
=>All member orgs to review RTC opportunity and ask questions in
preparation for a go/no-go vote

-- 
Jeff Osier-Mixon @Intel
Yocto Project Community Manager http://yoctoproject.org