14:58:21 <richard> #startmeeting Tor Browser Weekly Meeting 2024-03-11
14:58:21 <MeetBot> Meeting started Mon Mar 11 14:58:21 2024 UTC.  The chair is richard. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot.
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14:58:25 <richard> morning everyone
14:58:31 <richard> the pad as usual: https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-tbb-keep
15:01:07 <richard> Nothing major to announce this week
15:01:19 <richard> it's that time of the month again, which means rebases and security backports \o/
15:02:38 <richard> the next two weeks are also a bit busy with hiring/interviews stuffs, so if you need something from those of us on the comittee please be patient with us :)
15:03:22 <henry-x> who is on the comittee?
15:03:37 <richard> bellatchau will also be reschedulling the sponsor 131 meeting on Tuesday because of said interviewing conflicts so just be aware of that
15:03:43 <richard> henry-x: myself, PieroV, and clairehurst
15:04:34 <richard> we've a release meeting scheduled today for 1800 which i presume we aren't going to cancel for once :)
15:04:45 <richard> but beyond that, I'm out of news and info to drop
15:05:13 <richard> is anyone blocked on anything, MRs in needs-review limbo, further discussion points from you all?
15:06:07 <PieroV> I have a discussion point
15:06:49 <PieroV> About switching everybody to the checklist format instead of planned + actual for the pad
15:07:10 <henry-x> I have a question: I've been collecting my time spent on "feature" vs "maintenance" work. Right now it is just data in a spreadsheet. How much longer should we collect this info for, and when and how will it be collected?
15:07:38 <PieroV> Also interested on that. I'm keeping raw data with time spent on each task
15:08:15 <PieroV> So, I'll need to organize it into categories for when we want to analyze the data
15:08:40 <dan_b> oh ive just been putting it into the pad
15:09:13 <richard> yes, please put it in the pad with your updates each week
15:09:32 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> PieroV: any background on the format change? I'm guessing this was discussed somewhere where I wasn't around?
15:09:33 <richard> (I've been going through and coallating into an offline master spreadsheet)
15:10:06 <richard> i would say the checklist format is easier for me and my personal tracking of things I do, though sometimes it's hard to keep it up to date
15:10:12 <richard> case in point i apparently didn't do anything last week
15:10:27 <PieroV> Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]: no background discussion
15:10:52 <PieroV> I've started testing it, and at the moment I prefer it
15:11:00 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> ah, ok
15:11:13 <PieroV> (I came to update it during the week)
15:11:14 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> I mean, I'll go with whatever everyone else is doing
15:12:00 * thorin : obligatory mention about fingerprinting issues
15:14:44 <henry-x> richard: I guess using the pad for time tracking doesn't work that well for me: I have a few small tasks that aren't worth announcing in the pad, but add up. If I have PTO in a week, then the percentages for that week aren't representative for the overall percentage of time, i.e. would skew the average. And, I wipe my pad notes every two weeks.
15:15:25 <ma1> I'm doing it on the pad as well, but I keep an offline copy of my pad section.
15:15:33 <richard> ok
15:16:07 <richard> maybe i should back up and perhaps explain the goal/desired results and then we can work forward from there to something actually useful for people
15:17:16 <richard> first the percentage tracking: the goal there is to get an idea for myself and bellatchau to determine how much capacity we have to do things that aren't the baseline maintenance+bug fixing+etc work that has to happen regardless of sponsors, deadlines real-world considersations, etc
15:18:10 <richard> it's meant to be description the our lived realities (eg its a benchmark not a target)
15:20:04 <richard> this is important because as we grow our team, I'm necessarily growing more and more disconnected from the actual labor happening and so its increasingly difficult to accurately plan features+deliverables for sponsors
15:21:27 <richard> so being able to determine yes ok our team needs x% of time to keep the lights on (which i know it's not that simple, the maintence work isn't evenly distirbuted among people, or throughout the year)
15:23:11 <ma1> mmm, so for it to be useful we should agree on a standardized and machine readable format which would allow bellatchau and richard to coalesce, group, graph and so on this data (or a script which converts e.g. the pad notes to such a format)
15:23:11 <PieroV> I don't think maintenance is also very clear as a label. E.g., blocking fingerprinting vectors are in between: something old needs to be patched to prevent them, but they are also sort of new features
15:23:13 <PieroV> Ot osm
15:23:20 <PieroV> It isn't as maintenance as rebasing
15:23:58 <henry-x> PieroV: I guess "feature" has to be part of some larger sponsor project
15:24:24 <ma1> right, I lumped all the sec stuff in maintanance so far, and used the feature label on gitlab for feature
15:24:39 <bellatchau> Richard shared the core reasons for us to get this benchmark, and ma1 touched on important points about standardization.  Does it make sense for us to have a specific team meeting to go over this? We can present/share different formats and see what works best for everyone?
15:25:01 <PieroV> Yes please
15:25:40 <richard> re tracking what folks are doing/planning to do in the pad, I'm using my section mostly to track things that need to happen so i don't forget about it (with some success); I don't typically use other people's section apart from using it to get a birds-eye-view of what the team is working on at any given time so I can stay aprise of things in case they're happening on a gitlab or email thread i'm not paying close enough attention to
15:26:05 <henry-x> I was just collecting time spent on "feature" vs "maintenance", so that I can say between "X" and "Y" date, I spent A% time on features, B% time on maintenance and C% on miscellaneous.
15:26:15 <richard> i'm also happy to devoce this time to this discussion re what people think is useful to track, a better format, etc
15:27:19 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> (It sounds like external contributors such as myself are not really relevant to this motive?)
15:27:54 <ma1> fwiw the way I've been tracking on the pad is one line per task/bug, with a trailing %\d\d (F|M|O) which could be easily transformed in any format by a script.
15:28:03 <richard> jeremy: not really, we don't (explicitly) depend on you for meeting deadlines so it's probably not relevant to either of us for you to track that
15:28:47 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> richard: sounds good, thanks. I *am* curious what your numbers end up looking like.
15:29:43 <richard> ma1:fwiw,  a script-readable format would be pretty excellent
15:30:57 <bellatchau> Jeremy_Rand_36C so am I :) I like the idea of discussing this here, but I propose a more in depth meeting to arrive at a common ground. I can collate the discussion we have here with the formats y'all suggest and we can go over it at the meeting
15:31:47 <richard> that works for me
15:31:50 <bellatchau> ma1 I also like this idea of script sorcery
15:32:44 <richard> the last thing i want to do is request extra annoyance when it's not worth, so however we can streamline/minimise the mental overhread the ebtter
15:33:04 <boklm> or an email thread with the proposed formats?
15:33:40 <richard> ^I do like when meetings are replaced with emails
15:34:25 <richard> start with en email thread then move to a meeting if it becomes necessary?
15:34:53 <ma1> second that!
15:35:09 <boklm> +1
15:35:35 <bellatchau> Yes :)
15:40:22 <richard> ok any further discussion points?
15:40:35 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> richard: only a small one
15:41:22 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> richard: Arthur is partway through the TorButton Namecoin refactor, but he ran into some build system issues; there is a chance that he or I will be asking about those build issues on IRC in the next week or so
15:41:43 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> Probably we will be able to sort it out without assistance though
15:41:52 <richard> ok :)
15:41:56 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> But yeah anyway that work is proceeding
15:42:09 <richard> lord knows between the two of you you've done a fair share of build stuffs :D
15:42:20 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> lol indeed
15:42:58 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> anyway nothing else from me
15:43:03 <richard> alright
15:43:05 <richard> in that case
15:43:08 <richard> have a good week everyone o/
15:43:15 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> thanks!
15:43:15 <ma1> grazie, ciao!
15:43:23 <PieroV> Thanks, bye!
15:43:30 <richard> #endmeeting