[Linux-aus] Council Meeting Minutes - 2011-02-03

[Russell Stuart]

On Thu, 2011-02-03 at 21:34 +1100, Donna Benjamin wrote:
> On Thu, 2011-02-03 at 21:10 +1100, Peter Lieverdink wrote:
> > Event video, now and in the future
> > Video and audio must be made available via the LA mirror as soon as
> > possible. Not elsewhere first.
> 
> Ummm... Yeah so I would think getting the video out ASAP seems more
> important than exactly where it's initially hosted?
> 
> I thought the AV streaming at LCA this year was amazing, and subsequent
> posting to blip.tv made it very accessible to people who couldn't make
> it to the conference.
> 
> Can someone please explain the rationale behind this statement?

+1.  The emphasis here is to get the video's up and the job done so we
can all get on with our lives.  The software we are using does that.
Without that software ... well its not a question of which site we put
it up on first, it becomes more of a question of getting it up anywhere
at all within 12 months.

And without going into specifics, while LA's infrastructure may well be
very good, getting access to it in a timely fashion has not always been
easy for this LCA.  I presume any year where the overlap between LCA
personal and the people who manage the infrastructure isn't high, this
will be the case.  There have been the usual problems with volunteers
not having the time when a deadline was approaching, territorial issues
over yielding control to the LCA committee so they can get the job done,
and personality conflicts.

Please, don't take this as criticism of any individual or group.  It is
just how things are.  It is my experience that in any volunteer group
Byzantine politics is the order of the day.  Regular bike sheds are to
be expected.  The problem is Byzantine politics is not conducive to
getting things done quickly.  LCA committee's are under extraordinary
pressure to get things done, so if the politics becomes a problem they
will by-pass it.  This is a good and healthy thing.  LA should let it
happen, not make orders like this one that appear to say "it shall not
happen".  The mess can always be fixed up later.  Once the date is
announced, LCA can not happen later.

In this particular case there are several work arounds.  If LA is so
concerned the video's should appear on their infrastructure quickly,
they could arrange to copy them to there.  It is not like they aren't
publicly available, nor is there any harm in having them in multiple
places.  (In fact it is probably a good thing).  The delay could be less
than hours.  Secondly, in the longer term, make putting them there the
easy option.  Submit a patch for the software being used.  Don't expect
some LCA committee to write the patch.  LA is the one literally
demanding it happens, so it seems entirely appropriate LA does the work.
They possibly don't know it yet, but LCA 2012's committee will have more
than enough work to do.