 Have you got your eggs and tomatoes ready? Okay, I have the pleasure of presenting in front of you, all lined up to throw your stuff at them. The board of the KDE EV, this is an Ask Us Anything session, so you can ask them anything. It doesn't, it actually doesn't say any, it says Ask Us Anything, it doesn't have any exception, so you can ask them about the flight that we chartered last Thursday and spent all of our money on, so Aikana has to deal with literally an empty bank account. But anyway, so they're ready for your questions, and okay, the stage is all yours. Okay. Adriane. Maybe before we start with questions, we start with a short introduction, or does everyone know us? No? Okay. All right, so hi, I'm Lydia, I'm with KDE for I think 11 or 12 years now and on the board since six of those. Hi, I'm Thomas, I've been in KDE since 2008 and I've been elected to the board last year. My name is Aike, I got elected yesterday. I've been using KDE since about 99 and hacking on it since 2005 and became an EV member about two years later. And I hack on Plasma and some apps. I'm Alex Paul, I've been also developing KDE for a long time, over 10 years this year, and I've been in part of the KDE EV board for three years now. Hi, my name is Sandro Andrade, I'm contributing to KDE for almost 10 years already and I'm the board of directors since 2015 for two years. So the question. I have two questions, I'm gonna state them both and then the people I'm asking them of are going to answer them. So I'm gonna ask Aike, what does KDE EV do? And then I'm gonna ask Lydia, is Aike right? Well I think the EV's mission is to first of support the KDE community in its various activities, so it needs to have its ear on the ground. And there's always been sort of an awkward relationship between the community and the EV at times because the EV is supposed to stay out of steering decisions that the community makes, but at the same time it's sort of the only organ we have to make sort of a voting decision, so that doesn't always work. But I think it's about sort of, we've built up a lot of institutional knowledge in the EV over the last 20 years and it's about continuing that. You've learned well for your first day. Yes, I would maybe add to that that in general we see KDE EV as the organization that supports what the KDE community is doing. Inorganizational matters like the economy, financial matters, getting some of you here by paying for your plane tickets and so on, and legal matters, by for example, working with the KDE Free Qt Foundation in order to keep Qt free. Next question here. So following the question, and also the question I asked yesterday, the mission of the KDE EV is to support the whole KDE community, and do you think it's reasonable to elect to let all the members vote if one can join EV? Do you understand? Now, right now we will have a proposal for someone if he wants to join the KDE EV, and after the vote systems, we will see, okay, how many voters and how many agrees, how many disagree, how many obtains, but do you think it's reasonable for people to join the EV? If I want to support EV, if I want to support KDE, why do I need to let other members agree? And the other question is the same. We have twice the voted vote number is not enough, but we still have no conclusion that if it is the vote you voted or we disagree, these people join you. So what do you think about this? Okay, so for a little bit of context for people who are not part of the EV or don't really follow the email as they should, to join the KDE EV membership, one of the, one part of the process is that you will answer a questionnaire and this will be sent to the membership and then there is a vote to decide if this person should be part of the KDE EV membership or not. Part of the issue that Franklin is pointing out is that one of the rules we have is that there is a quorum that needs to be matched and at some point there was a vote that didn't have enough votes for it to be valid and so the vote wasn't valid which is actually what happened, right? What is left to be discussed is whether that's philosophically what we want to happen in the organization we're creating which is actually a very good debate to have and actually it's something we should be having. I myself, I feel I'm in a position where I'm not an expert in votes or democracy. I mean, I have a notion like most of us have but I don't really know what would be the best solution. I can see how it's a problem but we need to have someone who is interested in this object and wants to fix it regarding whether we should have a vote or not which you also pointed at if I understood you correctly. I think that it kind of makes sense that if you have to work on something that you believe that is truly important, you get to at least choose who you're working with. In the KDE community actually there is no kind of vote. Everyone can collaborate and actually in the KDE community is where we are actually creating our products, we are actually creating the value that we add. The KDE EV on the other hand is an organization to support that and it's an organization where we have to trust each other much more and we have to discuss subjects that are not strictly related with the product in itself and I can see how this was, at least I can see how this was initially the idea. Whether it could be changed, it's obviously up for discussion as everything. I actually always believe that if something is considered to be a problem always should be discussed but on the other hand I don't really have the impression that it has been a problem in the past. If anybody wants to collaborate with KDE they have. I have not seen a case where the member has been not accepted in the organization. There have been some problems in the past that's for sure but it's always cases that are not conclusive as in we can look into the problem again and see what we can do so that this person who is trying to join can actually bring the value to the organization that he wants to bring which is actually what we are after. And if there are doubtful cases we should also actually discuss that. We don't have to let ourselves be blind by some numbers that haven't gone the way we like. If there is some formula that we don't like, we change it. We are software developers, we do that every day. We need to do it with our codes. And so adding to that for me the problem is not that there is a vote about whether people can come into the EV or not. For me that still makes sense. The big problem that we have right now is the large number of people who still have active voting rights but are not exercising them because they don't really care about KD anymore. This has been discussed at the AGM and people have brought up that we should make it maybe easier to set yourself to active or passive and maybe we should have another push in the mailing list to ask people to ask themselves, okay, do I really want to keep my vote? And do I want to either have my vote and also use it actively or maybe just not keep my vote, still keep staying in the EV because it's a bunch of my friends and I want to keep connected with them but not have a right to vote because I won't actually use it. And yeah, this is something that I will definitely want to follow up. During the AGM I said that I had written an email to the mailing list asking people to think about that and I had but it was in a thread which many people probably didn't even read so that was not really good placement of that but this is something we can change of course and this could already be a lot of help to have only those with active voting rights who actually are likely to use them and then we won't have such a situation with the too low quorum. So in terms of voting on new EV members that's a peer review system the kind of which we kind of use all over KDE and you actually get a lot out of that. For example, if you look at how we do developer accounts, we have very flat hierarchies within the community if you have a developer account you can commit to anything and that only really works if the strange are committing to your code base if you believe A that they are supposed to do that that they have the right to do that you trust there was some process that gave them those access privileges and that process checked them thoroughly and you trust that person, right? They have commit access and they should have commit access and also it's very important for them to feel that they are within their right to commit to your code base like it's about emancipating those people and for developer accounts we use the same sort of peer review system when you apply for a developer account you have to name a supporter and this admin will ask that supporter for input on whether you should really get your developer account and if your supporter okays that then you're in and what that process ensures is that somebody thinks you understand the etiquette of how the community works together and you're now fit to have a developer account and you can share those responsibilities and those rights and that's kind of how it works in the EV as well if you need supporters to join the EV and if a vote confirms that you should be in the EV then that immediately equips you with the feeling that you are accepted that you can step up to do things and at the same time everybody in the membership already will now know that you're supposed to be there so I think you get a lot out of a peer review system like that and now I always used to think as well that it's kind of awkward that the EV self-selects its own members and that could lead to like corruption and whatever but I think you also have to look at the real track record so I've been in the EVs since 10 years and I think there have been two applications that have been rejected in that time and there were kind of obvious cases so I don't think there's any indication that there really has been a problem with it and if you think it really has been a problem then you should definitely point that out and raise it and then we need to deal with that. One thing that happened in GD Spain a few, one year ago is that we actually realized that it was kind of a problem we were following exactly the same model we did in the GDV membership and actually the concern there wasn't that you would be having like some people deciding who gets in but it was more of a, it's a bit of a overly too complex process, right? So what we did there and maybe something we could export to the membership is that the applicant also sends a message with some questions answered and basically the membership can vet the person to enter if they know that they're a bad person or some or a crazy person but in general like there's no voting in itself this could be done but then it's something that doesn't need to happen by us like we're not your parents if you guys think that something is important you guys can propose it. One thing in addition of course if you've been contributing to KDE for a while and you're not a member but you feel like you would like to contribute to furthering the organization that supports KDE then talk to an existing EV member and for example all of us so that we can help you write your application and so on. And also in addition to that in the case where you become a KDE EV member of if you are already a KDE EV member there are a number of the tasks that you can help the board to do so. So we have a fabricator workbook where there are a lot of tasks that shouldn't be done by the board and so you are all invited to pick up one of two and have them made, right? Any other questions? Hello, considering the entry barriers for new persons or new victims on KDE I've seen a lot of frustration because we are on GitHub but we don't accept pull requests on GitHub. Are we going to try to loosen the tights there? No, well this topic whether we should accept pull requests on GitHub that was discussed very extensively by the community and in the end it was the community who decided not to do it and this was, I mean not everybody agreed with that but there was pretty broad consensus so that is definitely not something that we would ever interfere with. So as long as the community, the majority of the community seems to think that this is not something we should do and this is how it is. Again if you think this should change then what you'd have to do is convince fellow KDE contributors that this is a good idea and then it would certainly be changed so this is not something that is decided top down in any way. So I'd like to ask a question in relation to the previous question that was asked. Do you think that people in the community think that becoming a member, they're becoming a member of the KDE EV because it gives them some form of status within the community or could it be perceived or do you think that that's why some of the problems that we have actually happened and in continuation to that do you think like you could better define and better communicate what sort of people with what sort of goals should be in the EV and people with what sort of goals should not be a part of the, that's not what the EV is for. I haven't really encountered that. Do you feel there's a perception in the community that there's sort of a class difference between EV members and not because I haven't met anybody who is not in the EV and doesn't feel like they're part of the KDE community if just because they're not in the EV. Like have you actually encountered that in the wild? Yes, I wouldn't want to take examples, but yes I have, I did get the distinct feeling a couple of times that yes, so. Well that's the case and I do think we should fix that. I think it should be clearly communicated that the EV is a support organization and the reason to be in the EV is to get work done supporting the community and or make sure there's a representative sampling of the community in the EV so it can make credible and legitimate decisions and that's about it. Just the best case scenarios that it creates extra work for you. Right, so I think that we should have more communication in the sense that what sort of who, if you were this, this, this then you should apply to the EV's communication along those lines. Well one thing, one thing. I think that it's worth understanding that if somebody has been a long-term contributor to KD it's logical that they're interested in being part of the KDV membership. It's become, if you're committed lots of lines of code for example of or you've done lots of articles on the promo it means that you're involved in the project in different levels and you will be interested in collaborating at an organizational level so it's definitely something that should follow. And I know people who have been contributing that they have told me no, no, I'm not interested in the organizational part then that's perfectly fine and I don't consider them like lesser contributors or human beings but that, well yeah. Okay, so I'm going to ask the question that nobody wants to answer. Is KDV a supportive body or a governance body? Thank you. At the end of the day I think it has to be both. We have to have the organization that supports the KDE community to make academy run, to have our office where people can send mail, invoices and so on that all needs an organizational support framework. But at the same time, KDE doesn't have any other thing that could do that kind of governance. At the same time, for a large part of KDE that is a touchy subject because governance is a bad word. But at the end of the day, some decisions need to be made and for example, a long time ago the creation of a community working group, someone had to make a decision that we want to have that and we don't have any other body that could do that. Yeah. So I think the way I think about it, it's not a governance body but it's a tool that the wider community sometimes chooses to employ because the KDE has a decision making system and a voting system and it's the only one the community has. So sometimes the community appears to decide that somebody has to vote and then looks to the EV to do that and the cases where that crops up tend to be unfortunately sort of ugly enforcement issues. Like one of the problems is what if somebody misbehaves really badly and at what point do you kick him out of a mailing list and who makes that call? So when I was in the CIS admin team that was always the question, is the CIS admin team the body that decides who to kick out of the mailing list or is that the list moderator or does the EV do that? And I can think of one case where essentially it ended up being escalated to the EV membership and something was decided at the General Assembly and that set sort of an interesting precedent I suppose and that's where we are now. So you can say that there is a track record of governance decisions having been made and we should probably look into codifying that better at some point or establishing it better and then having a discussion about whether it's a good thing or not but it's what we've been doing so far. Me? Okay, me. I'm gonna ask about money. Nobody asks us money. We've always had the notion of the nation and money going to a common pot. That made some people create their own organizations because they wanted to have their own money. How do you feel about us having some... Yeah, I know. I left the board so I can ask the question. How do you feel about us being able to help those people without them having to create an organization that you'll know sucks and makes you feel bad and you get fines because you do things that taxes are evil? Okay, so maybe I can start answering that. Interestingly enough, the times when groups want to move away is when things are great. The times when they come back to the mothership is when things suck in whatever shape or form. So as far as I know, all the organizations or groups or whatever that have done that in KDE have come back because it didn't work out. So I don't believe that is a viable way forward. Yeah. And I also think that we do need a common pot of resources, big money or whatever else that goes into the pieces of KDE that are not as sexy and that wouldn't necessarily be able to attract enough resources through shiny fundraising and so on. But at the same time, maybe we should need to think about giving the projects that do really cool stuff and that should get exposure and that can get people excited, give them some way to get a bigger share of that. How that looks like, I don't know, but that's something we can discuss. Yeah, as I understand, actually it's not true that all of them left and then they're all coming back. For example, Albert and I, we started KDE Spain a long time ago, we haven't come back yet. But on the other hand, it sucks to create your own organization and we want people interested in creating free software to actually be creating free software and not bothering with the bureaucracy, which like you can say, yeah, it's not a big deal, it's a fucking big deal. It's not fun and actually it's a problem and while probably not they all have come back, they have all definitely had problems with bureaucracy and that's a big deal. Also, second thing, the reason why most of them have created an organization is because, unlike KDE Spain, which is a different thing, is because they wanted to hire people. So the question is, do we want to allow projects to do fundraising and then hire people? Which is a very interesting subject to have. It's something definitely to fix, but I think that we need to point at what's the actual problem is that people want to actually have organizations because it's fun and they're successful, but it's because when you're successful and when you can grow, you want to grow, so you hire people and at the moment, we don't allow for that. Hiring people could be interesting, but how it would work is not trivial. And actually we've started to look into it, but we don't have a good answer to give yet. So we haven't given any answer. And I think that apart from the whole hiring situation, it also regulates itself somehow because the projects that are more successful and that might actually get more donations in are usually also those who are more active, who have more people who have more people coming to academy, who are more likely to have sprints, so they already also get more money out of the common pot. So it's really, yeah, it always comes down to people wanting to hire people, that's when it becomes difficult. And yeah, we have to find a solution for that, but in general, I think it's not like there's some project which generates all the donations and doesn't get much out of it, unless they generate donations without being active, which would be weird. Well, I think one sort of benefit to having sub-organizations that hire people is of course distributing liability and that kind of thing. So you also get some things out of it from the perspective of the mothership, I suppose. Disclaimer, I've worked on one of the proposals for next year's academy, and I wanted to ask if there's anything that you can tell us yet if on what competing cities are, if there's been anything that's been decided yet? So we have received three proposals for hosting an academy in 2018 from Vienna, Belgrade, and Munich. They all were great. We discussed them in the EV membership and got feedback, and I think we can announce a decision tomorrow. Hey, I'm actually sitting right here. I'm wondering whether I should join or not the EV. I joined KD Spain because I knew they could use the help with the organization and such, and there's a, you pay a bit of money each year which helps support, and in KD Spain it helps. Thank you. But I don't really see how I could be of help joining the EV. I mean, I really don't see why I would join the EV. I don't see why I would join, I actually don't see why I would not. I'm not really sure what I should do. So one reason by proxy is that KDV gives the powers to KD Spain regarding the use of trade margin in Spain. If you are being given a right, you want to probably have some kind of control over that, right? There's a lot of reasons why you might want to be part of the KDV and you should look at the tasks we're doing. Like holding the trade market of KDV is one of them. Others could be, I don't know, FLA you can be interested in the license of your software. The KDV has been working on ways to make sure that KDV software stays free forever, right? Or the KD FreeQt Foundation. So these are all software, these are all subjects that are very related to KD, much like the work you've very well been doing in KD Spain. And I don't really see a reason why, the reasons why you join wouldn't translate. In the end, it's about having an organizations that back up the support that you can give into the project, right? Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes sense. And then at the point where you ask yourself, should I join, then most likely the answer is yes. Because if you ask yourself the questions, it means that you care a lot about KDEV and that is already going to likely make you a good contributor to the organization. Unless, like many people, you don't take the tasks that we're putting on the fabricator because then it's like, okay. Yeah. Yeah, I brought this up last year and I'm bringing it up again this year because of yesterday's, because of the yesterday's report on the KDE League, we are leaving money on the table in the US because we don't have a 501C3 nonprofit organization there. There are people who are willing to donate to KDE but would like to have those donations be tax exempt. So the donations have to be through into an US nonprofit. Do we want to do this? Do we have any preliminary ideas of whether we want to do something like this, whether we don't want to do this at all or if we do want to do something like this, should we form a task force or should we do something about it? We already have a task force for doing something like that but it's not really going in the way you like. We definitely want to have a better presence on United States, we definitely need that, we need to have a proper established community there which isn't there and that's the reason why we aren't holding the organizational bodies that we are, like we're not confident in it. As soon as we started to have many thousands of people doing organizational stuff which is a lot of work, like we said before, having an organization is a lot of work and unpleasant work. If we had these kind of people in United States, we would be, I guess, all super happy to support and get money from all of these Americans who want to donate to us. We need the people first. So yeah, if you want to make that happen, I think the next steps are first of all, building up more community there with the help of the people who are already there, like Valerie for example, and the other thing is help disassemble the existing organization that we already have. That is ongoing, but has stalled now, KDE League it's called. Once we have that disassembled and at least more community in the US than we have now then I think we should definitely talk about that. I believe you were talking about the, basically the donations part of being able to donate from the USA with, okay, hearing that, I'm thinking of TECRA, the Linus distribution. We have some kind of agreement with, I believe it's called the, it's SPI I think, so far in the public interest. I wonder if that's something that could work for having the donations from the US and having them tax exempt. We have done something similar for one sub project, Amarok in the past, not with SPI, but with, yes, that was a lot of overhead. So SPI might be something to look into if that is less overhead, yeah. And while he gets the microphone, it's part of the reason why we created KD Spain at some point is because having a nonprofit organization in a country is useful to get the donations in that country, it makes sense for that. But you need to have people, like the amount of hours Albert and I have put into doing it for Spain, you cannot imagine. And it's just Spain, which I guess that being a smaller country makes a smaller amount of work. I guess we have time for another question. So one more question. Sorry. And it's not passive aggressive cake. Okay, if there are no questions, further questions we can call this a wrap. So thank you, Bort, thank you, mothership. Thank you very much, everyone. Thank you.