LGM 25 Nuremberg: HELP REQUIRED Online Resources

[ale rimoldi]

Hi

(First: nice to see that the next LGM is in the pipeline!)

The online resources for the LGM are a somehow difficult topic.

But, for what I am concerned, the only important thing in the long term
is:

Each year, we have a new website and at the end of the LGM there is
a static version of the website in a repository pushed to:

https://github.com/libregraphicsmeeting/





This having been said, i think that there are four important topics
about the online resources and all of them need some discussion:

- DNS
- website
- mailing list (archived messaging)
- messaging platform (real time messaging)

I will start here with my thoughts but, if other people agree that a
discussion is worth to be conducted, it's probably better if the
replies go to one thread per topic (or some topics can go into a common
thread).


TLDR:

and before going into the details, here my proposition for the next
(urgent) steps:

- AFGRAL gets in touch with louis and takes control of the LGM.org
  domain
- we find a new place where to host our archive with the static files
  (if nothing better is proposed, i can temporary host them on "my"
  shared web space; i guess that the AFGRAL can do the same; i can
  participate in rebuilding the sites from the git repositories)

and now, a lot of details!



# DNS

Luis Desjardins is the "owner" of the DNS entries.

He already asked for the ownership to be transferred.

Since the LGM itself has no way to own them by itself, i'm very
comfortable with the idea of having them in the hands of the AFGRAL
(or any other entity around the AFGRAL if cedric's "we" did not refer
to the account he has used for sending his email)

If nobody disagree with this, I think that there is not much discussion
needed and the AFGRAL is welcome to do get in touch with louis and get
the name transferred.
(probably, we only need libregraphiscmeeting.org , if louis still has
other similar domains.)



# Hosting the "main" website with the landing page and the archive

We need to move.
urgently.

personally, i haven't noticed that tuxfamily has been down for such a
long time.
we were very lucky that it was online during the latest LGM.

we have a bunch of static web sites, each in its own directory, that are
very rarely (or never) updated.

my suggestion is to go for one of two solutions:

- we are not picky at all, anybody can host them and we make sure that
  it's easy for us to migrate to a new host at any time, or
- we try to find a stable host that can host us (for free). like
  tuxfamily used to be.

if we can make sure that at the end of each LGM a static site is
checked into our github repository, we can be somehow more relaxed
about this issue:
we have very low requirements!

since tuxfamily is currently down, i would suggest that we need a
solution that can be online before the end of the christmas holidays.
(or at least before the organization for the next LGM 2025 wants to go
public with their information!)

in the wors case, i can probably host it myself on my shared server, if
no better solution is proposed (in such a short time).

during the christmas holidays, i can reserve some time for recreating
the websites.




# the yearly LGM site

for the last few years, we had a rather good experience with a static
site that could be "automatically" updated by pushing to the github
repository.

if the organizers want / need a dynamic site (wordpress, django,
...), hosting them on a common server becomes a bit harder.
with tux family we had the constraint that it only supported PHP and
we mostly went for wordpress.
that's all we could do.
often, it was enough.

i've already seen that somebody suggested creating subdomains that can
be hosted by the organizers (and their partners).
i'm fine with that, but it makes a bit harder to later host the static
copy.
(probably, not a big issue, though. but it's worth to check about it
before deciding to use sub domains! it's an additional requirements for
the host of the static sites)

then we would have all lgm up to 2024 in lgm.org/20xx and the following
ones in 20xx.lgm.org.
maybe there is also an easy way to create a redirect. it needs to be
tested. and documented.

as i said at the beginning of this email, for me the only hard condition
is:

at the end of the lgm a static version of the site (with all the public
content!) is checked into the git repository.

(of course, you can disagree with me also about that! what i want to
say, is that all the rest is open for discussions and we can probably be
rather flexible!)



# archived messages: the mailing list

currently, the "official" communication canal of the LGM is this
mailing list.

i've not seen many critical voices about this, but those who are not
comfortable with it do not really have a place to complain.
(i guess that most people who have not got into mailing list before the
mid of the years 2010 are not used to register to mailing lists!
(forums, facebook, statckoverflow, slack, ... have won the race)

the advantage of this mailing lists:

- it's very easy for us to use. (and everybody can use it)
- freedesktop seems to manage it in a very stable way.

the minus points:

- many people are not used to mails and mailing lists anymore
- no visual elements
- (personally, i don't get a notification if there are mails i should
  read...)

is there any need for discussions here?




# real time messaging

officially, we are using the #lgm channel on libera chat.

the advantages:

- it works.
- it has very low (no) maintenance costs for us.

do i need to talk about the issues?

- no persistence of the messages (it's not possible to get home in the
  evening and check what has happened during the day (or during the
  week)).
- almost none of us is permanently / often in the channel anymore.
- many people have never heard of irc
- most LGM projects do not (actively) use irc (anymore).
- no fancy / visual content

personally, i'm all for finding a new platform.
if possible one that is completely based on free software.

i've proposed to switch to element chat (matrix) in the past, but the
the response was not very positive.

personally, i'm not 100% convinced by element myself, but i've been
using it in for another project for years and it works "well enough".

the biggest issue is, for me, that many people still don't use it /
don't know about it.
the onboarding is rather painless, but:
- for many people, it's one more platform
- it's not the same as other platforms they are using.

but i don't see any better solution that is completely (at least
theoretically) open source and is as easy to use (for the end users!).
and at least a bit popular (among our pairs).

if i recall correctly, at the time i proposed it, the biggest concerns
were about hosting (which is indeed hard, but i don't see how it can be
an issue for the lgm: we don't even manage to easily host a static
website) and about encryption (again, not an issue for me, but i
respect that other people have fundamentally different opinions on
this!).




that's was a long mail.

hopefully, i was not too boring, and i really hope that we can find
good solutions to the issues we are facing!
and i can invest some time in finding those solutions...


have a wonderful start to the week
a.l.e