18:31:32 <sysrqb> #startmeeting Tor Browser Team Meeting 18 February 2020
18:31:32 <MeetBot> Meeting started Tue Feb 18 18:31:32 2020 UTC.  The chair is sysrqb. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot.
18:31:32 <MeetBot> Useful Commands: #action #agreed #help #info #idea #link #topic.
18:31:45 <sysrqb> Hello, anyone around? :)
18:31:52 <sisbell> hi
18:31:54 <brade> hi
18:31:54 * sysrqb was in the wrong room
18:31:56 <pili> hi
18:31:59 <boklm> hi
18:32:06 <acat> hi
18:32:27 <mcs> hi
18:34:28 <pospeselr> o/
18:35:07 <sysrqb> boklm: thanks for the help with last weeks releases
18:35:19 <sysrqb> and Happy Successful-Releases everyone
18:35:41 <sysrqb> i haven't seen any major complaints
18:36:46 <sysrqb> boklm: is the nightly mar signing and rsync for #25102?
18:37:18 <boklm> yes
18:38:51 <sysrqb> okay, great. pili and i will be very happy if we can finish the nightly updater tickets by the end of this month
18:38:56 <pili> yay :)
18:39:23 <sysrqb> we're not there yet, but we're getting closer :)
18:39:38 <boklm> yes, we are close
18:41:57 <sysrqb> sisbell: are you available immediately after this meeting?
18:42:06 <sisbell> sure
18:42:11 <sysrqb> we can talk about priorities
18:42:14 <sisbell> cool
18:43:26 <sysrqb> tjr: awesome, thanks for your work on the ion patch!
18:43:40 <sysrqb> maybe we can backport and squeeze it into the next alpha
18:44:06 <sysrqb> which i guess we should talk about
18:45:27 <sysrqb> last month i mentioned i was interested in releasing alpha updates roughly twice as often as stable
18:45:53 <sysrqb> but only if we actually have new features we want to land and start testing
18:46:29 <sysrqb> next week would be the two-week period, if we want to begin this "now"
18:46:52 <sysrqb> pili and i (and anyone else who attends) will discuss this tomorrow at the next release meeting
18:47:13 <sysrqb> but at this point, i think we have enough tickets in review
18:47:21 <sysrqb> that it is worth releasing an alpha next week
18:47:48 <sysrqb> do any of you think this is a bad idea?
18:48:36 <sysrqb> pospeselr: do you still have a ghost in your ram, or are you in working order again for builds?
18:48:43 <pili> sysrqb: thanks for the reminder that I need to send the release meeting email ;)
18:49:07 <pospeselr> sysrqb: the ghosts have been busted
18:49:16 <sysrqb> :D
18:49:19 <mcs> my only concern with releasing more often is the load on those of you who are responsible for the build and release process
18:49:23 <pospeselr> i was able to do a full alpha build over the weekend, now doing release
18:50:14 <sysrqb> mcs: that is my main concern, as well
18:50:32 * boklm has the same concern about load added to build/sign/publish the additional releases, but we can try it to see if that's worth it
18:50:43 <sysrqb> and the last alpha release last week, i learned how painful the signing process is
18:50:51 <GeKo> heh
18:51:18 <sysrqb> but, this is an incentive to make the process easier
18:51:50 <sysrqb> in particular, if i take most of the signing tasks, then everyone else should be able to continue their work
18:52:14 <sysrqb> but then i get less done, so it is a trade off
18:52:42 <sysrqb> but we can try it this month and discuss it at the beginning of March as to whether we should continue this relesae schedule
18:54:08 <sysrqb> okay. i added a discussion item
18:54:48 <sysrqb> first, i should remind everyone that they should remember the feedback cycle timeline, if they forgot about it
18:55:52 <mcs> all feedback is due March 6, I think?
18:56:01 <sysrqb> yes
18:56:03 <sysrqb> 2.      Complete and submit all feedback (self-feedback, peer feedback, & feedback about your team lead) by: March 6, 2020
18:56:36 <sysrqb> (i forgot the date, myself)
18:56:53 <sysrqb> let me or pili or someone else know if you have any questions about it
18:56:59 <mcs> it is also worth mentioning that the review period was recently extended to include January (so 1 July 2019 through 31 Jan 2020)
18:57:13 <sysrqb> ah, indeed. yes, thanks
18:57:53 <sysrqb> The extension is primarily because it seemed silly to exclude last month
18:58:06 <sysrqb> so now it's a 7-month review period, instead of 6-months
18:58:45 <sysrqb> for the discussion topic: i'm curious about uploading our packages to virus total
18:58:53 <sysrqb> i know we did in the past
18:59:02 <sysrqb> but i don't know if/when we stopped
18:59:13 <sysrqb> as far as i know, we don't currently upload them
18:59:54 <sysrqb> did it stop helping or did it become not needed?
18:59:59 <boklm> there was part of the testsuite uploading things to virustotal
19:00:26 <sysrqb> okay, and because that is broken, we don't have another automated process?
19:00:29 <boklm> maybe we could have it as a script we run as part of the release process
19:01:30 <sysrqb> i think we can wait until the tetsuite is working again
19:01:45 <sysrqb> and then we don't need another step in the relesae process
19:01:59 <sysrqb> *testsuite
19:02:21 <boklm> it's not clear how much it helps, but maybe it helps some antivirus to be less surprised when some users start to see the new version
19:03:23 <sysrqb> i've some mentions of tor browser being classified as malware (ransomware, maybe?) by a German antivirus product
19:03:50 <sysrqb> and i wonder if 1) uploading to virustotal will mitigate this
19:04:12 <sysrqb> or 2) maybe we can upload it directly to the german company, if that helps
19:04:34 <sysrqb> or 3) we ignore this issue for now, because we have too much on our plates right now
19:05:03 <sysrqb> i'm happy with starting with (1) automatically when the testsuite is fixed
19:05:23 <sysrqb> and we can see if that has any obvious impact overall
19:06:18 <sysrqb> anyone have any other topics they'd like to discuss in this meeting?
19:07:08 * sysrqb hears nothing
19:07:20 <sysrqb> okay, thakns everyone. have a good week, and happy hacking!
19:07:28 <sysrqb> #endmeeting