This transcript captures the Wednesday session of X2Go The Spread 2024, an evening-only online event for the X2Go community. The meeting focused on several key areas for the project's sustainability and development. Discussions included the X2Go funding situation, particularly the use of the Betterplace platform, addressing issues with donation categories, technical integration, and publicity. The session also covered the status of the X2Go GitLab instance, confirming recent security patching and discussing user onboarding. A significant development reported was the acquisition of an Apple M1 MacBook Pro for macOS development and testing, with plans for remote access and virtualization testing. The group also planned future actions regarding donation drive announcements and outlined the agenda for the following day, focusing on KDrive debugging efforts related to resizing and published application issues. Challenges around earmarking donations on Betterplace and the tax implications of directly funding development tasks were also explored.
X2Go The Spread 2024: Wednesday Meeting Key Discussions
1:29 Event Introduction & Agenda: The Wednesday session of X2Go The Spread 2024 begins, an evening-only event running until Friday. The agenda for the night includes discussing X2Go funding (Betterplace focus), GitLab status/patching, and bug tracker cleanup (time permitting).
3:01 Betterplace Funding Discussion: The primary funding discussion centers on the Betterplace donation platform, highlighting issues with the two new categories (events, infrastructure), technical integration problems (website updates, account access), and the need for increased publicity via the wiki and mailing lists.
5:01 Website Migration to Git: A suggestion is made to move the X2Go website content into a Git repository (potentially on X2Go's GitLab) for easier, automated deployment of changes.
6:50 Naira's Onboarding to Git: New participant Naira indicates she is new to Git but willing to learn, receiving encouragement and links to learning resources. Access to the website Git repository is planned for her.
10:33 Wiki & Betterplace Access for Naira: Discussions cover setting up a wiki account and providing Betterplace access for Naira to assist with publicity efforts and donation platform management. Challenges with email addresses and password resets on the wiki are noted.
20:27 Betterplace Earmarking and Structure: An in-depth discussion explores how Betterplace handles donations across different "needs" within a project page. It's clarified that needs are suggestions for how funds will be used, not legally binding earmarks, while the project page itself (e.g., "X2Go Events") may be legally binding.
33:25 Financial Flexibility: Money can be pulled from Betterplace to the organization's bank account even if a specific need target hasn't been met, after a safety period (approx. 14 days). However, funds cannot be moved between different needs directly within the platform. Off-platform donations can be manually added to decrease a need's remaining target amount.
37:03 Tax Implications for Development Funding: The potential issue of accepting donations specifically for development tasks and distributing funds to developers is raised as something requiring consultation with the tax office. This is why specific coding tasks haven't been added as donation needs yet.
37:41 MacOS Hardware Acquired: A significant announcement is made that an Apple M1 MacBook Pro has been secured (donated) for X2Go's use, specifically for macOS development and testing.
39:50 Planning Remote Access for M1 Mac: Methods for accessing the M1 Mac remotely are discussed, including VNC, SSH, and setting up a remote power control solution (Wake-on-LAN, WiFi plug, or Raspberry Pi based USB power/keyboard emulation).
53:01 Challenge of New Donation Pages: A reason for recent low donation numbers is identified: a new project page on Betterplace requires at least five distinct donations before it becomes visible in search or overviews.
56:32 Justification for Separate Needs: The strategy of listing specific needs (like events or development goals) is defended as a way to clearly show donors what the project is actively working towards and the calculated costs involved.
59:20 Evaluating Other Crowdfunding Platforms: The idea of using additional crowdfunding platforms is brought up. The reasons for initially choosing Betterplace (low fees, non-profit status handling receipts, ethical bank connection) are reiterated, suggesting sticking with Betterplace unless another platform handles paperwork similarly.
1:06:40 Publicity and Mailing List Issues: Difficulty in advertising donation drives on mailing lists due to some users considering it spam is mentioned.
1:11:43 Planning Donation Drive Announcement Meeting: A specific virtual meeting is scheduled for Thursday, November 28th at 6:30 PM with Naira, Stephan, and the speaker to plan the announcement strategy for upcoming donation drives across the wiki and mailing lists. Recording the meeting is suggested for others to listen to later.
1:29:32 GitLab Patching Status: Confirmation is provided that the X2Go GitLab instance is being regularly updated with security patches.
1:31:48 GitLab User Onboarding: The current process for enabling new GitLab users is described: tracking IRC for sign-up announcements and manually enabling trustworthy users for merge requests.
1:33:23 Tomorrow's Agenda Preview: The agenda for the next day (Thursday) is outlined, focusing on updating the Exlips library from Artica and dedicated debugging sessions for KDrive issues, specifically resizing problems and breaks in published application mode caused by certain terminal emulators.
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