From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from pine.sfconservancy.org (pine.sfconservancy.org [162.242.171.33]) by sourceware.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 53A423858CDB for ; Wed, 21 Sep 2022 19:48:27 +0000 (GMT) DMARC-Filter: OpenDMARC Filter v1.4.1 sourceware.org 53A423858CDB Authentication-Results: sourceware.org; dmarc=none (p=none dis=none) header.from=sfconservancy.org Authentication-Results: sourceware.org; spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=sfconservancy.org Received: from localhost (unknown [216.161.86.19]) (Authenticated sender: bkuhn) by pine.sfconservancy.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id B84FDE33E; Wed, 21 Sep 2022 19:48:26 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=simple/simple; d=sfconservancy.org; s=pine; t=1663789706; bh=6TdMc3X5ydCD9QlPaS/J4Y+xuIQyP52547tpfbBeWfA=; h=From:To:Subject:References:Date:In-Reply-To:From; b=RA5NAM3XWRCSILDDjojvlHfndYOAt7xBUYHIfuiw7Q913fmW2jZS8KGeJzwQyZSUE NmTZ0fPPV8W22a8gE1lITGHkezCeDVWdh6TN58+wJJj95cknpRY4ZvfRzjS91eHF9g iL9165b9xxtIPUStxF/P2GqizcRY9rMkwskrZWNamBFBWu75MESGMse8SUHM6qoQst Z0o3QrzTYA9Ogdx9klceFrV/8hvVjbslxu/6RTGjX8gX/DXGXHgT5d1OwOyeESPqLD EINiIIe8yYf1fGh7BhyJOK/PIj9N3XafLqDoItX1fbkjmp7Z6vsN2h6695DQhRJWkt mTF7ADmm2l6kQ== From: "Bradley M. Kuhn" To: Subject: Re: BBB instances Organization: Software Freedom Conservancy References: <87wn9xv1p7.fsf@fsf.org> Face: iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAADAAAAAwBAMAAAClLOS0AAAABGdBTUEAALGPC/xhBQAAABVQ TFRFAAAAWjotvpiH/PHt27Sj7sq8lXFeBchlBgAAAAFiS0dEAIgFHUgAAAAJcEhZcwAACxMAAAsT AQCanBgAAAAHdElNRQfiCx4VFw6omMmeAAACAklEQVQ4y43UPZPbIBAGYGdu0puzQ51bI+qMdXId r0F1RoLrwfb+/5+QF307VVR4PDxiF14h7Xa7t3q8LJGjavj7a1euCYiZnaPnv9DF4FyMLKdXOPs4 XM7KKzzKaF83gem+hUuF8QYUg7Fb4LEQAK1OG3hu4bbC3LpUC87+B9AMfQOg0yv0owEOK4x1+gnu M3yaV3jOMGxvKoXEKC9gAoabJtZYlXO8wJcb1hMHQClZgSj7cbzsY4a2vSqltIlz8nMpZnMkEmVw N4DtcYJo3AMPXFIMRMax/BjhOxZi2CpKKpWSZCd4C8aZ4CpzjR+Cint9WEp5H12IbbySEpHdaYVh OY9onf0Qq9//zDCFEW0MbFjUz7mHD1UdO4B3iErk9whdKdWVRuW5YLl5KnU2rjTBDyPmQImm5mec WQx7X3fBNwAzQ9kvBTKR0BwR3Bewhisn2mpkhea3BZwBcdorRlQk9QKecyZukRPeHTmuEL1FdjlJ tmTlvoAJPnRaMnKinNICn4QthNaKlNAlLae9sc5UODaelVh+l345u7ZMIY89GNdmWV8cIaTFlLGm QKLrzQykh/Aw02WsdoE2l1g7JIPdyWGFL6Hy1uJZsEjavLUXkVyeIdrbpPoXQHxDG0l68wEoW8vG BLI6qc2XoUEWCUI26aQfK1wypuwV7v6mtMhtgL8avOP/pBCiigAAAABJRU5ErkJggg== Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2022 12:47:51 -0700 In-Reply-To: <87wn9xv1p7.fsf@fsf.org> (Ian Kelling via Overseers's message of "Tue, 20 Sep 2022 23:23:52 -0400") Message-ID: <87bkr8jyqg.fsf@ebb.org> User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/26.1 (gnu/linux) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.8 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_50,DKIM_SIGNED,DKIM_VALID,DKIM_VALID_AU,DKIM_VALID_EF,SPF_HELO_NONE,SPF_PASS,TXREP autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.6 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.6 (2021-04-09) on server2.sourceware.org List-Id: Starting my response to Elena's inquiry with a bit of background: One of the reasons for SFC's interest in helping Sourceware (and among the reasons why our Evaluation Committee offered Sourceware project membership at SFC) is that SFC has become increasingly concerned in the last few years at how many FOSS projects (even some of our own member projects) are using proprietary infrastructure to develop FOSS. We at SFC see proprietary infrastructure for FOSS development as one of the biggest threats to software freedom. As such, we at SFC were thrilled to see how much effort the Sourceware Overseers have put into FOSS-only infrastructure. We discussed it with them as part of their application their commitment to FOSS-only infrastructure. It fit well with our approach to this problem: we don't want to insist FOSS projects already using proprietary software give it up overnight, but in an effort to coax those projects to give it up, we want to offer reliable, viable FOSS alternatives for project hosting. We also believe a diversity of offerings is ideal (to ward of the tendency toward monoculture that companies like GitHub rely on to entice adoption). We at SFC have been working on this on a number of fronts for about two years =E2=80=94 it's a hard problem to solve because the amount of propriet= ary infrastructure that FOSS developers now use keeps growing. We're excited at the opportunity to partner with Sourceware as another, parallel approach. Now, with regard to video chat, we have indeed been looking closely at BBB: Elena Zannoni via Overseers wrote at 13:41 (PDT) on Tuesday: >> one of the things that was discussed at Cauldron was that it would be go= od >> to have BBB easily available for community meetings etc. =E2=80=A6 If [= we] could >> just jump onto a BBB room on sourceware it would be a cool thing to have. >> Any thoughts on doing something like that? At the beginning to the pandemic, with help of a dedicated volunteer, SFC was able to get an instance of BBB up and running, hosted on OSU-OSL's infrastructure. Many of our member projects are already using it for their team meetings (switching away from tools like Zoom and Google Meet that they had previously been using). We're also using it for all our SFC's video conferencing needs, and many of you attended our chat sessions about the Sourceware application. Our initial findings confirmed the (obvious) hypothesis: scaling is extremely difficult for video chat. Right now, we've tested a few (simultaneous) meetings with 5-10 people and our existing infrastructure can handle it. We're currently talking with grant makers and partners about how we can increase capacity. Our current assessment is that it's unlikely that we can offer BBB services to the entire FOSS-developing *public* any time soon. However, if Sourceware joins SFC, this is a great opportunity to expand slowly, which is definitely possible. We at SFC generally would like to do that, and it fits with the types of grants and work we're already seeking to improve in our effort to build =E2=80=9CFOSS infrastructure for FOSS projects=E2=80=9D. We also think Sourceware makes an excellent partner to begin working on this for the reasons I mentioned above and others. But, it will likely take time (and a little bit of funding) to make this happen for Sourceware once they join SFC. Nevertheless, I think SFC is the best partner for this; we have seen that most other fiscal sponsors simply use proprietary video chat for their projects, or don't have offering video chat as part of their plans for infrastructure. By partnering with Sourceware, our feeling is that we can expand offering beyond just SFC projects (i.e., to the guest projects at Sourceware that are *not* SFC projects themselves) in a manner that allows for time to scale and test. (If we could do magic, SFC would offer BBB services to every FOSS project in the world (whether they were an SFC member or not) tomorrow to get them all off Zoom, etc., but, absent magic, offering that without slowly scaling up is a recipe for crashed servers and unhappy users.) Ian Kelling via Overseers wrote at 20:23 (PDT) on Tuesday: > About BBB, It currently includes MongoDB in it's [sic] server software, > which went nonfree a few years ago. You can still run an older version > which is all free software Indeed, SFC's instance currently does this. We published our methodology on how to do it as well. It's important to note that the main database that BBB uses is Postgres, and MongoDB is only used for runtime session data. > However, right now, I wouldn't deploy a new instance of BBB. Frankly, I think this is an alarmist response. I don't believe the problem is urgent, given the limited use of MongoDB by BBB, but if the problem were to become urgent =E2=80=A6 > and BBB upstream is looking at ways to switch to a free database. =E2=80=A6 surely this work could be funded? SFC's plan was that if the pro= blem became a priority [0], we'd rapidly fund the upstream work necessary to reduce dependency on MongoDB. But, it looks like you've in parallel put some effort on this with upstream, Ian. Can you post a link to a to BBB mailing list thread or bug ticket on the matter? Meanwhile, I noticed the FSF has also done various public-facing events on your BBB instance =E2=80=A6 Ian, can you brief us on the FSF's current plan= s to handle the MongoDB problem? Are you looking to abandon BBB entirely, as you hint above? If not, what's FSF's contingency plan? * * * =20 As a side note, in an unrelated effort that we pursued at SFC, we did spend substantial effort looking into the viability of maintaining a fork of MongoDB under AGPLv3 after the SS Public License change. We decided such a project wasn't worth the effort. (Curious to know if any other organizations did the same, and if you came to the same conclusion?) Specifically, I led that investigation at SFC and determined that a MongoDB AGPLv3 fork was unlikely to succeed. One reason is there are a lot of other FOSS options for NoSQL databases. While MongoDB, Inc. has a tendency to act as if their solution is amazingly unique, in practice, it seemed that the popularity of MongoDB over alternatives seemed to have more to do with their marketing than their technological superiority. However, I'm not a NoSQL DB expert (I relied on interviews that I had with those who were), so if anyone came a different conclusion on this, I'd be glad to discuss it. So, that work, which predated my and SFC's interest in BBB, did inform my conclusion about BBB's MongoDB dependency. However, I'm always open to revisit that work, and am very grateful that folks in the Sourceware community really care about the issues of =E2=80=9CIs this solution for dev= elopment infrastructure really FOSS, and how do we make sure it *stays* FOSS?=E2=80= =9D =E2=80=94 so I'm thrilled to be having this conversation with you all! > For simple web based video conference, I'd look at Jitsi Meet. FWIW, I also worked with an SFC volunteer on a test instance of Jitsi Meet. We found it to be more resource intensive than BBB. While Jitsi Meet's UI is much better for impromptu meetings and chats than BBB, ultimately we've been reluctant to deploy a community-facing Jitsi Meet instance for fear we'd face resource constraints worse than we face with BBB. However, FOSDEM's use of Jitsi Meet integrated with Matrix to run their event was intriguing, and we have it on our long-term list to work with the FOSDEM organizers on how they pulled that off and if it would be possible to set up a Matrix/Jitsi Meet combo instance in the manner they used for breakout rooms at FOSDEM. Generally speaking, I think we shouldn't be avoiding any FOSS alternative in the space of software development infrastructure. Video chat is just one of many collaboration tools that FOSS projects now often need where the =E2=80=9Cdefault option=E2=80=9D is proprietary software. [0] The only ways I see the MongoDB issue becoming urgent is if there is a major security problem/bug with the last AGPLv3'd version where no patch is available, or if BBB drifts in its usage such that it relies on new features that only newer MongoDB versions support. Am I missing something? --=20 Bradley M. Kuhn - he/him Policy Fellow & Hacker-in-Residence at Software Freedom Conservancy =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Become a Conservancy Sustainer today: https://sfconservancy.org/sustainer