Group:LibrePlanet Ontario/Meeting Notes

Notes from Previous Meetings

24 July 2016

Agenda

• Free/Libre Canadian Tax Preparation Software Project
• Consolidation of domain names: http://libreplanet.ca http://libreplaneton.ca http://libreplanetontario.ca
• Start planning an event for Software Freedom Day, 17 September 2016

Minutes

A mumble meeting with Greg Knittl, Bob Jonkman, Sergio Durigan Junior, Stephen Paul Weber, Blaise Alleyne, Daniel Villarreal. Audio recording at http://podcasts.libreplanet.ca/LibrePlanetOntario-2016-07-24.ogg (73 MBytes, 1h30m), text channel at http://podcasts.libreplanet.ca/LibrePlanetOntario-2016-07-24%20text%20channel.txt (1.4 kBytes).

24 June 2016

A mumble meeting with Bob Jonkman, Blaise Alleyne, Stephen Paul Weber, and Greg Knittl. Allan joined us with text-only chat. An audio recording is available: http://podcasts.libreplanet.ca/LibrePlanetOntario-2016-06-24.ogg (31 MBytes, 41m14s)

Minutes

1. Domain names: We'll ask Sergio Durigan Jr., our Hostmaster[1], to set the three domain names (libreplanet.ca, libreplaneton.ca, libreplanetontario.ca) so they're all aliases for our Wiki page https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:LibrePlanet_Ontario (but this will take a bit more jiggery-pokery than just an A record in DNS). Greg Wright can point the NS records for libreplanetontario.ca to the DNS server that Sergio uses. (Greg and Sergio should contact each other off-list to make this happen)
   1. Sergio will host most services on his server, although Bob Jonkman is happy to continue hosting audio files for an eventual podcast.
   2. libreplanet.ca will be the canonical domain name. Chapters will be a subdomain (so http://ontario.libreplanet.ca should also alias to https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:LibrePlanet_Ontario ) Services will be set up as subdomains for ease of administration. So, we'll eventually have nextcloud.libreplanet.ca, gnusocial.libreplanet.ca, gitlab.libreplanet.ca and any others. We can start with podcast.libreplanet.ca -- Bob will chat with Sergio off-list to set this up.
2. Podcasts: Stephen Paul Weber (singpolyma) has a redo script to create a podcast .rss file from folders of audio files. Bob has git-cloned it; just need to figure out how to make it work. Bob will contact Stephon off-list about it. Script stuff at https://github.com/singpolyma/redo-podcast
3. Lots of discussion on our Free/Libre Canadian Tax Prepartion Software Project, now fondly known as FLCTPSP. There's a wiki page to coordinate the project's activities at https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:LibrePlanet_Ontario/FLCTPSP Blaise had a link to a mailing list: https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfc-discuss.

Agenda

• Hosting for LibrePlanet Ontario:
  • Domain names:
    • libreplanetontario.ca Discussion Sat, 11 Jun 2016
    • libreplanet.ca and libreplaneton.ca Discussion Wed, 01 Oct 2014
  • Mumble/Murmur instance?
  • GNU social instance?
  • Jabberd or Prosody XMPP instance?
  • GitLab instance?
  • ownCloud instance?
    • Public storage ready for federation at http://sobac.com/owncloud/s/M1TSXZxJTA87Oaz
    • Temporary ownCloud logins available at http://sobac.com/owncloud/apps/registration/
• Podcasts:
  • Software needed to create .rss or .xml files
    • Seriously Simple Podcasting — WordPress Plugins
    • something that's written in redo
• Free/Libre Canadian Tax Preparation Software Project

Upcoming Events

• 9 July 2016: Libre Streets at the Nonviolence Festival Day In The Park
• 23 July 2016: Linux In The Park (hosted by GTALUG)

24 May 2016

Topic: Government forms, Open Documents and Free Software.

A mumble meeting with Bob Jonkman, Sergio Durigan Junior, Stephen Paul Weber, and Greg Knittl. An audio recording is availble: http://podcasts.libreplanet.ca/LibrePlanetOntario-2016-05-24.ogg (42.3 MBytes, 54m46s).

24 April 2016

A mumble meeting with Greg Knittl, Blaise Alleyne, Bob Jonkman. No agenda, but an audio recording is available: http://podcasts.libreplanet.ca/LibrePlanetOntario-2016-04-24.ogg (38.3 MBytes, 44m33s), joined in progress.

24 March 2016

A mumble meeting with Sergio Durigan Junior, Blaise Alleyne, Bob Jonkman, Stephen Paul Weber and Daniel Villarreal.

• Audio: http://podcasts.libreplanet.ca/LibrePlanetOntario-2016-03-24.ogg (38.3 MBytes, 1h12m14s)
• Text Channel: http://podcasts.libreplanet.ca/LibrePlanetOntario-2016-03-24%20text%20channel.txt (3.5 kBytes)

Agenda for 24 March 2016

• Projects
• Celebrating events for the Digital Freedom Foundation
  • Hardware Freedom Day (third Saturday in January)
  • Document Freedom Day (last Wednesday of March)
  • Culture Freedom Day (third Saturday in May)
  • Sofware Freedom Day (third Saturday in September)
  • Education Freedom Day

• • Open Data Day (beginning of March) (not a DFF event)

19 September 2015

LibrePlanet Ontario celebrated Software Freedom Day with a series of presentations:

What Is Software Freedom

Sergio Durigan Jr. gives a bit of history of the Free Software movement, and explains why Free Software is not like Free Beer.

Free Software in Musical Performance

Blaise Alleyne has been performing music for many years. He uses Free Software to enhance his performance. He'll demonstrate some of the Free Software tools he uses.

Lightning Talks - Using Free Software To Make More Free Software

Aruna Hewapathirane tells us how Free Software let him customize his Free Operating System.

Lightning Talks - Open Source, Open Allocation

Rudolf Olah will be presenting on how open source projects use open allocation and why this is a pattern for future jobs and companies.

Free Culture Short Films

Laurel Russwurm shows a collection of films that have been released under a Creative Commons license, returned to the Public Domain, or that were never covered by copyright due to legal issues.

Email Privacy with Free Software

Bob Jonkman gives a quick overview of encryption, and shows off Free Software that secures your e-mail.

GnuPG/PGP Keysigning

Bob Jonkman will expand the Web of Trust by conducting a Formal Keysigning where people read their key fingerprints and vouch for each other. To participate in the Formal Keysigning please e-mail your public GnuPG/PGP key to Bob Jonkman at bjonkman@sobac.com For anyone who wants to create GnuPG keys there will be help available, followed by an Informal Keysigning. Bring your laptop if you're creating GnuPG keys!

28 July 2015

Our first mumble meeting! Happened at 7 p.m. and used LibrePlanet BR's mumble server (while we don't have our own).

• We defined an initial agenda for our Software Freedom Day in Toronto
  • What is Free Software by Sergio
  •  ??? by Blaise
  • Keysigning party by Bob Jonkman
  • Free movie exhibition by Laurel L. Russwurm
  • Lightning talks (to be organized by Rudolf)

• A few comments about the venue
  • We have to visit Mozilla's office to decide if it's a good place for the event, and if they are willing to have the event there.
  • Likewise, for hacklab.to (https://hacklab.to/)
  • Bob will contact GTALUG to find out about Ryerson

• Things TODO now:
  • Create a wiki page. This page can be hosted here or at SFD's website.
  • Get to a point where we feel comfortable in sharing a "Save the Date" message.

29 June 2015

Held at the HeroBurger restaurant on Mt. Pleasant Rd.

• We lamented the state of Free Software gaming, and the prevalence of proprietary gaming engines like Steam.

• We lamented the state of Free Software administration, and how it seems that SysAdmins today don't know how to use Free Software tools.

• Outreach:
  • Sergio and Bob attended the Ubuntu/Debian Release Party in April
  • Rudolf attended a computer language interest group [I forgot details]
  • Bob attended a MapTime meetup in May, and a couple of GTALUG meetings

• Some of us (Bob, Sergio) exchanged GnuPG fingerprint strips, with the intention of digitally signing each others' keys. This could become a regular occurrence at LibrePlanet meetings.

• We discussed Software Freedom Day:
  • Software Freedom Day is Saturday, 19 September 2015
  • A venue is needed. Suggested locations:
    • Alleyne Inc. offices (Blaise will check)
    • Mozilla offices (Sergio will attend a MapTime or Mappy Hour[1] and investigate availability)
    • FreeGeek Toronto (someone needs to contact them)
  • Suggested format? After some discussion, it was decided to keep it simple for the first year. One stream of programming, with a second stream of Free Culture films; Laurel Russwurm can repeat the Free Culture Film Festival held in Kitchener in 2014.
  • Suggested schedule:
    • 10:30am - Presentation: What Is Free Software (Sergio)
    • 11:30am - Five Lightning Talks (organized by Rudolf)
    • 12:00am - Presentation (TBD)
    • 1:00pm - Presentation (TBD)
    • 2:00pm - Workshop (TBD)
  • Need to reach out to other Free Software organizations in Toronto; issue a Call For Presentations, Lightning Talks
    • GTALUG http://gtalug.org (Myles Braithewaite, Scott Sullivan)
    • FreeGeek Toronto http://freegeektoronto.org/
    • OpenData Toronto http://www.meetup.com/Opentoronto/ (Richard Pietro)
    • OpenStreetMap Enthusiasts http://www.meetup.com/OpenStreetMap-Toronto/ (Richard Weait)
    • TorontoCrypto https://torontocrypto.org/ (James Donaldson @darknetj)
    • HacklabTO https://hacklab.to/ (Scott Sullivan?)

20 January 2015

LibrePlanetOntario meeting 2015-01-20.txt (2.3 kBytes)

Duke of Kent Pub, Yonge & Eglinton, Toronto, Ontario

(bullet points rearranged slightly from the order in which they were discussed)

Meetings

• Host some meetings in other locations, eg. Kitchener-Waterloo or Ottawa
  • There was some interest from people in KW, but lack of easy/cheap prevents them from attending meetings in KW
  • There have been sightings of Libre Software people from the Otttawa area in the IRC channel ( irc://irc.freenode.net/#lp-ca-on )
• Meetings should be scheduled at regular times and at a regular venue
  • We'll try the Alleyne Computer Centre (???)
  • Meetings on a Saturday would encourage turnout from other localities
  • Hold virtual meetings to alternate with meatspace meetings
• Streamcast meatspace meetings with a full stack of Libre software
  • The software demonstrated
  • The platform OS running the software demonstrated
  • The streamcasting recording/broadcast software
  • The editing software
  • The output format should be in an open format, released under a Free Culture license

Web site

• Set up web site http://libreplanetontario.ca (???) to re-redirect to the Wiki page http://wiki.libreplanet.net/wiki/Ontario (???)
  • Post an RSS feed aggregator on a subdomain http://news.libreplanetontario.ca (???)
    • Potential feeds: Blaise Alleyne's blog, !Libreplanet group in the !Fediverse, Wiki updates
• Wiki should have sub-pages for chapters, eg. Kitchener-Waterloo, Ottawa, Toronto
  • Put them all in a Category:LibrePlanetOntario

Other

• Matt Lee from the FSF will be coming to Toronto on (??? Dates ???)
  • Invite Matt Lee to speak at the next LibrePlanet Ontario meeting
  • There should certainly be a post-meeting meeting at a local pub!

• Free Software projects could have a "Product Channel"
  • Corporations can issue RFQs, Purchase Orders, buy a license, get it all OK'd by their Legal Dept.
  • Channel partners (independent consultants, perhaps the developers) can provide support
  • Dual-license for corporate use? Maybe, maybe not.
  • May result in things like Marketing Managers on Free Software products; project focus being driven by sales rather than what's good for the project

13 September 2014

LibreTea

A meeting of LibrePlanet Ontario, Ubuntu-Canada Toronto Chapter, and Toronto Crypto. Writeup at LibreTea and Free Culture | Laurel L. Russwurm's Free Culture Blog.