Free Software activities

This page holds info on Jeremiah Foster's Free Software activities.

April 2022

This was the last month that I was active in Freexian as I joined Intel in Spring of 2022.

In April Freexian added a new release to the supported Long Term releases, more information on that will be coming shortly.
The LTS team sent out the survey to Debian Developers and received a good response rate. The survey is quite detailed and is still available for those who've not taken it yet. Please take it if you can, it doesn't take more than 15 minutes or so.
Thanks to Anton who ran the April meeting in my stead. LTS meeting minutes Contact myself, jeremiah@freexian.com, or raphael@freexian.com if you'd like to get involved.
For half of April I was in Sweden on a family trip and didn't get much time to work on Debian LTS tasks. The work I did do was mostly routine administration.
I spent 9.5 hours on the LTS / ELTS project, thanks to the LTS / ELTS sponsors for enabling this.

April was my last month working for Purism as Director of PureOS. I now work for Intel as an Open Source Program Manager.

March 2022

In March the project funding work was mostly administrative; updating the web site, reviewing issues, and the like. Overall it was pretty quiet. But there are two pages of ideas for funded projects on the Grow Your Ideas git repo and many of them are really good, so I expect the upcoming months to have numerous projects and be quite busy.
Here's another quick reminder about the LTS meeting meeting minutes where you can get insight into the kind of work the team does. The LTS and ELTS folks are made up of Debian contributors who're interested in making sure that older versions of Debian are still useful and still receive security support. Contact myself, jeremiah@freexian.com, or raphael@freexian.com if you'd like to get involved.
I worked on some automation for administrative tasks around reporting. This offers a nice respite from simple administrative work since it involves a little coding and source code review.
Minor work on the survey that has been released.
Documentation of internal roles and processes.
I spent 13 hours on the LTS / ELTS project, thanks to the LTS / ELTS sponsors for enabling this.

February 2022

At the end of January and in the beginning of February the LTS team approved another funded project, the third so far, for the Tryton ERP tool.

The Tryton project was added in February. That project as well as the gradle packaging project can be followed on the Freexian project page.
LTS administration is mostly about coordinating the work of the various Debian contributors who work on LTS, ELTS, and Debian in general. You can follow along by reading our meeting minutes and you can join us as well. The LTS and ELTS folks are made up of Debian contributors who're interested in making sure that older versions of Debian are still useful and still receive security support. Contact myself, jeremiah@freexian.com, or raphael@freexian.com if you'd like to get involved.
One of the ways that the LTS folks are using to improve Debian in general is through the use of direct project funding. My role in the project funding is to shepard projects from idea to completion. That process is pretty straight forward; one submits a proposal, we review it, decide whether or not to fund it, and then provide money while the submitter provides the time and effort. This benefits everyone who uses Debian since the projects are Debian projects. In February we brought in a second funded project for Tryton and I set up the poll, created issues, and communicated the process to the LTS folks and then to the project submitter. You can submit your Debian project as well, a good place to start is Grow Your Ideas.
Aside from working on various LTS and ELTS activities, Freexian encourages colleagues to work on Debian itself. This is an enlightened idea. I hope to spend consierably more time doing that but at least in February I got a chance to do a little work in that department. I hope to bring in a couple of things to Debian that I care about.
In addition to the glamours adventures, I also slog through email, try to read various Debian mailing lists, do routine reporting, administrative housekeeping for the LTS and ELTS teams, prepare meetings, write reminders, and other general coordination that I hope is helpful.
My Gitlab and Salsa profiles show my activity as well, though not the activity in private repos, so you'll have to just trust me that these images are "real".

January 2022

January was spent working with Freexian on LTS / ELTS administration and these funded projects;

The Tryton project was added in January. That project as well as the gradle packaging project can be followed on the Freexian project page.
LTS administration involved preparing for and hosting the monthly meeting, dispatching and ensuring hours are reported. Discussions on the Front Desk role, how to automate parts of our administrative work and work on a survey of Debian developers.
There is also a fair amount of email communication in LTS / ELTS and there's been some wiki gardening as well.
I'm pretty excited about the ideas presented in grow your ideas. The issues got some attention after a recent email to the Debian developers mailing list.
My Gitlab profile, including the Salsa profile show my activity as well.
Overall I spent more than 20 hours on LTS and ELTS administration and more than 8 hours on project funding. I expect both those numbers to go up in February.

December 2021

December was spent working on Debian on these projects;

The enterprise gradle project has a cost and time estimate and become a funded project. There's a fair amount of work yet to do but the first status report has been posted. The next steps are project execution planning which will be challenging because there is ongoing Debian Security work which can be time sensitive to consider as well.
The LTS team has done work on the Front Desk role in LTS. This role is important because the person who is the "Front Desk" is the first line of contact during their time as FD. This means one has to monitor incoming issues and be prepared to be available and make sure things flow smoothly. Making sure this role is equitably distributed has been a key priority for both the LTS and ELTS teams.
There's a variety of other administration that I've been doing around LTS. Fortunately, lots of the work can be done with small shell or python scripts, and indeed there already exist a number of small tools to help me do a great deal of the administration. Automating them and making new ones where need has taken some of my time last month and will occupy me a bit in January as well.
Lastly, I've been reading up on some of the previsous discussions on the use of funding in Debian. There must be a way to use money to improve the project directly. Hopefully there is a way to do this that is both appropriate and useful and I look forward to the results of the planned LTS survey on the topic.

November 2021

November was spent working on the following Debian projects;

The enterprise gradle project continues despite the fact that it hasn't yet been formally approved. Formal approval requires a somewhat precise idea of how much time and cost is involved. That can be a difficult estimate without doing the considerable work of understanding the exact situation that the various software components are in and how they fit together in Debian. Meanwhile, kotlin has arrived in Debian which may have a bearing on this project but is significant on it's own.
Other project funding work has been done in preparation as well. There's been excellent communication regarding a potential funded project around the Tryton project amongst other work. If you're interested in seeing potential projects percolate into fruition, you can check in now and then on the "Grow Your Ideas" project.
There was a fair amount of administrative work and a long agenda around the monthly LTS meeting. It's important that I thank everyone for their participation, the input has been valuable. I realize that many folks don't like meetings but I've found the LTS meetings quite productive. November's meeting was two hours long and a great deal was accomplished.
Reading about Debian Security team roles, like Front Desk and the triaging process.
Work on tooling for LTS hour reporting, some specification work, project management with Roberto, and hacking a little on a tool to create reports.
Email, IRC, and now Matrix/Element communication. Project coordination happens on these platforms.

I spent 20 hours on the LTS / ELTS project, thanks to the LTS / ELTS sponsors for enabling this. I also spent 9 hours working on the funded project in October, thanks to sponsors and the LTS team for setting aside these hours for projects to get done, it is having concrete and beneficial impact on Debian.

October 2021

October was spent working on the following Debian projects;

Published various notices about the enterprise gradle project
Various emails sent to Debian lists regarding our project funding.
Administrative work for LTS. Now following the schedule agreed to for hours reporting.
Received access and finally sent out a timely semi-automatic unclaim.
Read up on security-tracker, Debian Security process.
Co-ordinated with Holger regarding administrative tools.
Reviewed documentation and instructions from Raphaël regarding timekeeping ledger.
Monthly LTS meeting on video (jitsi) this time.
Email, IRC, and now Matrix/Element communication. Project coordination happens on these platforms.
Began to be more consistent with timing my work according to expected schedules.

I spent 20 hours on the LTS / ELTS project, thanks to the LTS / ELTS sponsors for enabling this. I also spent 4 hours working on the funded project in October, thanks to sponsors and the LTS team for setting aside these hours for projects to get done. I'm looking forward to getting our current project to completion.

Septmber 2021

September was spent working on a Freexian funded project and other administrative duties. The funded project seems quite important to Free Software as it essentially removes dependency on a build tool that can't be used in Debian. Other attempts have been made to remove the dependency and I hope this funded project is successful. There's a bit of work to do to get the project ready - a set of questions then preparation of a bid which will be used to find someone to work on the project.

Worked on the funding page for the Enterprise gradle project
Moved project from proposed to accepted, coordinating questions on the way.
Prepared the bid page with help from Phil Morrel.
Ran the monthly LTS meeting on IRC
Email, IRC, and now Matrix/Element communication. Work like preparing minutes, agenda and reports.
Did some source code diving in some of the LTS tools.

Overall I spent about 8 hours on administrative duties and about 12 on project funding activities for a total of 20.

I also worked a bit on packaging Henrik Sandklef's flict project outside of my regular work. Flict is an interesting license compliance tool which can help you in complex FOSS licensing situations.

August 2021

August was my first month working with the Debian {E}LTS folks as a paid contributor focusing on administrative work and on project management. It has been fascinating to get a closer look at the processes used by the LTS and the Debian security teams and there's lots to learn.

In August I wasn't really officially assigned hours but I spent 4h on the following;

Worked on integrating myself into the Debian LTS workflow.
Planned with Roberto Sanchez the Debian LTS funding BoF.
Minutes from the BoF; some good brainstorming.
Followed up on a suggestion for funding after the BoF
Attended the monthly LTS meeting
Email, IRC communication asking questions and trying to grok things