[yocto] RFC: Joint, monthly, and online forum for developer discussion

[Joshua Lock]

Hi Sean,

On 09/01/12 17:49, Hudson, Sean wrote:
> I propose having a monthly, online developer forum that promotes
> discussion on longer term technical issues that impact both Yocto and
> OpenEmbedded. This would supplement the already existing mailing list
> and irc communication channels. In order to facilitate this, I’d like to
> propose a telephone/web conference, which my employer has agreed to host.
> This forum would help provide an additional way for the community to
> discuss technical issues and share information about planned work and
> works in progress.

I really like the intent here, a lot of people don't like IRC/mailing 
lists and I'd like to enable as many people as possible to participate 
in the project.

Two things worry me about a telephone/web conference:
1) Our projects have participants spread across many time-zones and it 
will be difficult to accommodate more than one or two of those in any 
such real-time discussion.
2) In my experience as the number of participants in a call increases 
the ability for individuals to comment decreases. Generally I find calls 
with more than half a dozen or so participants difficult to participate 
in. I suspect I'm not alone.

Additionally, with respect to 1), I worry about how we might enable 
folks unable to attend to, if not participate in the discussion, at 
least be aware of what was discussed.

I'm not sure that minutes would be sufficient for more technical topics.

With that said I do think such conversations are important and would be 
happy to join in. I simply want to raise my concerns early and see if 
anyone has ideas which might help here.

> Initial Topics for Discussion might include:
>
>  1. layering definitions – discussion on what exists today and how to
>     make it better
>  2. discussions on techniques to make working with oe/yocto better
>  3. oe/yocto disconnects (opportunities for better alignment)
>  4. common new user issues
>  5. documentation (standards, lacks, etc)
>  6. ?

I think this is a great set of topics, and very worthy of discussion. 
I'd certainly like to be involved in 2,3&4.

Cheers,
Joshua
-- 
Joshua Lock
         Yocto Project "Johannes factotum"
         Intel Open Source Technology Centre