LGM 25 Nuremberg: HELP REQUIRED Online Resources

[ale rimoldi]

hi farid,

thank you for your generous offer!

here a few answers from my side:

- the archive of past lgms will be all static.

- we used to have an "organizational" wordpress site but, if tuxfamily
  does not come back to life, it will be gone. we will need to restore
  it from "backups" (let's call them backups...) and i think that, then,
  it will also be a static site.

- i cannot speak for the needs of each year's LGM site before it gets
  archived.
  it has been static for the last few years, but it much depends on
  the team organizing it.

  for this year, i will let lars present his wishes.

  if he does not feel comfortable with a static site, and if we point
  the whole domain to the KDE DNS provider, would it possible the KDE
  sysadmins to have yearly subdomains to point elsewhere?
  then, if the local organizers want to have a specific technology and
  can host it, we can easily make them happy!

- currently, we don't have emails or other services running.
  except the  mailing list, that seems to be running well enough @
  freedesktop. and irc that is basically abandoned.
  
  but if we decide to leave back the mailing list, a discourse forum
  might be worth to be considered (i see that kde
  has https://discuss.kde.org/),

- an irc <-> bridge would be a good compromise.
  but is irc still the right tool for us?
  the #lgm on liberachat feels so empty...
  shouldn't we go for another technology?


let's what are the thoughts of the other people on this list!

have a wonderful evening
a.l.e


> Hello all, long time! Hopefully I'll be able to join you next year.
> 
> The KDE community can provide support by hosting the LGM website if
> you like. But we'd have to sort some technical things out first like:
> 
> On Sun, Dec 8, 2024 at 3:19 PM ale rimoldi <ale at graphicslab.org>
> wrote:
> 
> > This having been said, i think that there are four important topics
> > about the online resources and all of them need some discussion:
> >
> > - DNS
> >  
> 
> Would it be acceptable to have this pointed at the KDE DNS provider?
> (CloudNS.net)
> 
> - website
> >  
> 
> - - For the current year, what sort of website would we be taking on
> the hosting of?
> - - For the historical archives, is this anything other than a static
> site?
> - - Hosting wise, is there anything else needed aside from the
> website(s)?
> 
> - mailing list (archived messaging)
> >  
> 
> We also have some mail servers, would you also need to use those?
> 
> 
> > - messaging platform (real time messaging)
> >  
> 
> If it also helps, KDE has an irc <-> matrix bridge that the sysadmins
> can help setup from your irc channel to a matrix room.
> 
> Please let me know what you think and I can get you in touch with the
> KDE sysadmins so you can organize things.
> 
> Cheers :)
> 
> 
> 
> > 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
> >  
> 
>