Git Inclusion Summit

> When?
> Anytime between mid August - mid September.  To get consensus on
> preferred dates [3], including summit duration and times, please vote
> at the whenisgood link below by Thursday, July 30th. Please specify in
> comments if you prefer a .5 day, 1 day, 1.5 days or other for the
> event duration.

> Carmen Andoh wrote:
>
>> There's been some conversation about holding a virtual contributor
>> summit focused on inclusion [1]. I've volunteered to work with
>> Jonathan Nieder’s team on organizing this event.
>
> Welcome!

>
> Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > Carmen Andoh wrote:
> >
> >> There's been some conversation about holding a virtual contributor
> >> summit focused on inclusion [1]. I've volunteered to work with
> >> Jonathan Nieder’s team on organizing this event.
> >
> > Welcome!
>
> Yup, welcome and thanks for helping.
>
> > Thoughts about how to get reasonable coverage for people in different
> > time zones?  It's subtle, but the whenisgood link appears to assume
> > U.S. pacific time --- I'd be willing to start a little earlier or end
> > a little later if it makes participation from other time zones easier.
>
> FWIW, we've timed coordinated security releases at late afternoon
> European, which translates to early afternoon Eastern and late
> morning Pacific time.  It was a bit inconvenient when I was in east
> Asia where it is past midnight but it was OK as it was convenient
> for everybody else.
>
> The intended population may be somewhat different for this event,
> but I suspect that the difference is not all that much.  Or am I
> not being inclusive enough for our Asian friends by assuming so?

> Hello Git community,
> 
> There's been some conversation about holding a virtual contributor
> summit focused on inclusion [1]. I've volunteered to work with
> Jonathan Nieder’s team on organizing this event.
> 
> The purpose of this inclusion summit is to engage core Git
> contributors as active participants in diversity and inclusion
> initiatives for the Git project. As mentioned [2] "to align and
> coordinate, to set out goals that we want to agree on." This is part
> of a broader goal to make the Git version control system better
> support inclusive open source projects. The summit will give
> contributors the opportunity to learn about and share perspectives on
> inclusive culture, product inclusion, and career development.
> 
> This can be run unconference style like previous contributor summits:
> we'll use a spreadsheet to choose and vote on topics. This event will
> be a success if we walk away with specific recommendations on where
> and how Git will make changes to improve the experiences of
> underrepresented users in the Git project, and how to make the Git
> project better represent the needs of current and potential users.
> 
> It was mentioned in [1] that we should have conversations about equity
> and inclusion with more diverse voices present.  But we also don’t
> want to put a burden on individuals coming to educate us about things
> that we should be researching for ourselves. To that end, we are
> meeting with Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) experts for guidance
> and will have recommendations to incorporate into the summit. Prior to
> the summit, we will send out some resources to look through ahead of
> time.
> 
> Who all are invited?
> 
> Git core contributors on https://lore.kernel.org/git/., anyone
> interested in teaching OSS projects about DEI.
> 
> If your network includes any groups or individuals who focus on
> educating others about DEI, you're welcome to invite them or contact
> summit organizers to learn more.  We prefer groups and individuals who
> are in the business of educating on inclusion, or if they are
> volunteers, already explicitly expressed their interest in
> volunteering rather than being asked, as we want to be very mindful of
> free emotional labor. A bonus for knowledge of inclusion in open
> source.  We can widen our understanding by asking non-Git contributors
> to come share their perspectives for some or all of the summit.

> Carmen Andoh <candoh@google.com> wrote:
> > Hello Git community,
> >
> > There's been some conversation about holding a virtual contributor
> > summit focused on inclusion [1]. I've volunteered to work with
> > Jonathan Nieder’s team on organizing this event.
> >
> > The purpose of this inclusion summit is to engage core Git
> > contributors as active participants in diversity and inclusion
> > initiatives for the Git project. As mentioned [2] "to align and
> > coordinate, to set out goals that we want to agree on." This is part
> > of a broader goal to make the Git version control system better
> > support inclusive open source projects. The summit will give
> > contributors the opportunity to learn about and share perspectives on
> > inclusive culture, product inclusion, and career development.
> >
> > This can be run unconference style like previous contributor summits:
> > we'll use a spreadsheet to choose and vote on topics. This event will
> > be a success if we walk away with specific recommendations on where
> > and how Git will make changes to improve the experiences of
> > underrepresented users in the Git project, and how to make the Git
> > project better represent the needs of current and potential users.
> >
> > It was mentioned in [1] that we should have conversations about equity
> > and inclusion with more diverse voices present.  But we also don’t
> > want to put a burden on individuals coming to educate us about things
> > that we should be researching for ourselves. To that end, we are
> > meeting with Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) experts for guidance
> > and will have recommendations to incorporate into the summit. Prior to
> > the summit, we will send out some resources to look through ahead of
> > time.
> >
> > Who all are invited?
> >
> > Git core contributors on https://lore.kernel.org/git/., anyone
> > interested in teaching OSS projects about DEI.
> >
> > If your network includes any groups or individuals who focus on
> > educating others about DEI, you're welcome to invite them or contact
> > summit organizers to learn more.  We prefer groups and individuals who
> > are in the business of educating on inclusion, or if they are
> > volunteers, already explicitly expressed their interest in
> > volunteering rather than being asked, as we want to be very mindful of
> > free emotional labor. A bonus for knowledge of inclusion in open
> > source.  We can widen our understanding by asking non-Git contributors
> > to come share their perspectives for some or all of the summit.
>
> Hello, I'm only an occasional contributor to git since 2005;
> but I have many concerns which don't seem be brought up.
>
> I have several concerns about the increasing use of video
> conferencing in Open Source development in general.
>
> 1. The data can potentially be used to feed facial and
>    voice recognition (either by the host or some participant).
>
>    I haven't allowed myself to be photographed in over a decade
>    and never video conferenced.  I've also turned down countless
>    professional and personal opportunities because of this, along
>    with never flying due to invasive screenings at airports.
>
> 2. Even without the privacy perspective, I have some hearing loss
>    and conversations can be difficult.  There's plenty of folks
>    with more severe hearing loss than mine who'd be left out.
>
> 3. It seems much of the software used for video conferencing
>    proprietary, even though Free (as in speech) alternatives exist.
>    I don't know enough about this area but maybe others can chime
>    in.
>
> 4. Finally, the hardware and bandwidth requirements for video
>    streaming is high.  Poorer folks on slow computers or in areas
>    with expensive bandwidth would also be left out.
>
>    And one of the reasons I don't code as much as I used to is
>    both gcc and clang are taking longer to compile with every
>    release and our test suite isn't exactly fast.
>
> So yes, I'd like these concerns addressed even though I'm not
> willing to be on video or deal with JavaScript.  Thanks.

> I think that it's tough to make individuals on both sides of this feel
> comfortable. On the one hand, folks such as yourself may feel
> uncomfortable with this format for the reasons that you posted above. On
> the other hand, some folks may prefer audio or video instead of text
> because they find it easier to express themselves with their body
> language, intonation, etc.

> A bare minimum seems to be using a free service (I know that Jitsi Meet
> is an often-recommended alternative) with support for joining without
> video (either using audio only, or participating over chat).
> 
> Hopefully everybody should have a good-enough internet connection to
> stream a low-quality audio-only feed so that they can listen in and
> participate via the chat feature. This is what we did at the
> Contributor's Summit in March (I know we had a number of text-only
> participants in time-zones where it was late, etc.).
> 
> What are your thoughts?

> Taylor Blau <me@ttaylorr.com> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> > I think that it's tough to make individuals on both sides of this feel
> > comfortable. On the one hand, folks such as yourself may feel
> > uncomfortable with this format for the reasons that you posted above. On
> > the other hand, some folks may prefer audio or video instead of text
> > because they find it easier to express themselves with their body
> > language, intonation, etc.
>
> I can understand that.  However most coding nowadays (especially
> for this project) is text, so that's already the lowest common
> denominator.
>
> > A bare minimum seems to be using a free service (I know that Jitsi Meet
> > is an often-recommended alternative) with support for joining without
> > video (either using audio only, or participating over chat).
> >
> > Hopefully everybody should have a good-enough internet connection to
> > stream a low-quality audio-only feed so that they can listen in and
> > participate via the chat feature. This is what we did at the
> > Contributor's Summit in March (I know we had a number of text-only
> > participants in time-zones where it was late, etc.).
> >
> > What are your thoughts?
>
> Jitsi w/ audio-only certainly seems to be a step in the right
> direction and would be more inclusive.
>
> Is there any speech-to-text transcription done for the hearing
> (or extremely bandwidth) impaired?

> It'd ideally go to #git on IRC (or something that doesn't
> require a browser to trigger swap storms on old systems).
>
> Even for people with good hearing, acceptable audio quality for
> speech seems tricky to get right, being dependent on mics,
> bandwidth, codecs, background noise, speaker/earphone quality,
> etc.

> On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 10:07:26AM +0000, Eric Wong wrote:
>>
>> Jitsi w/ audio-only certainly seems to be a step in the right
>> direction and would be more inclusive.
>>
>> Is there any speech-to-text transcription done for the hearing
>> (or extremely bandwidth) impaired?
> 
> It looks like such a thing exists:
> https://jitsi.org/blog/a-speech-to-text-prototype/.
> 

>> It'd ideally go to #git on IRC (or something that doesn't
>> require a browser to trigger swap storms on old systems).
>>
>> Even for people with good hearing, acceptable audio quality for
>> speech seems tricky to get right, being dependent on mics,
>> bandwidth, codecs, background noise, speaker/earphone quality,
>> etc.
> 
> I haven't look hard enough to see if it supports redirecting its output
> to an IRC channel, but my guess is that it probably doesn't.

> In either
> case, hopefully disabling audio and video is possible within Jitsi's web
> UI, and you should be able to read or write in the chat as well as read
> the transcription.
> 

>
> On 28-07-2020 21:55, Taylor Blau wrote:
> > On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 10:07:26AM +0000, Eric Wong wrote:
> >>
> >> Jitsi w/ audio-only certainly seems to be a step in the right
> >> direction and would be more inclusive.
> >>
> >> Is there any speech-to-text transcription done for the hearing
> >> (or extremely bandwidth) impaired?
> >
> > It looks like such a thing exists:
> > https://jitsi.org/blog/a-speech-to-text-prototype/.
> >
>
> Yeah. A link with current information appears to be:
>
> https://github.com/jitsi/jigasi#using-jigasi-to-transcribe-a-jitsi-meet-conference
>
> >> It'd ideally go to #git on IRC (or something that doesn't
> >> require a browser to trigger swap storms on old systems).
> >>
> >> Even for people with good hearing, acceptable audio quality for
> >> speech seems tricky to get right, being dependent on mics,
> >> bandwidth, codecs, background noise, speaker/earphone quality,
> >> etc.
> >
> > I haven't look hard enough to see if it supports redirecting its output
> > to an IRC channel, but my guess is that it probably doesn't.
>
> I believe you're right. From the link above:
>
> > Currently Jigasi can send speech-to-text results to the chat of a
> > Jitsi Meet room as either plain text or JSON. If it's send in JSON,
> > Jitsi Meet will provide subtitles in the left corner of the video,
> > while plain text will just be posted in the chat.
>
> > In either
> > case, hopefully disabling audio and video is possible within Jitsi's web
> > UI, and you should be able to read or write in the chat as well as read
> > the transcription.
> >
>
> I think there's just one catch. The transcription as of now appears to
> use Google Cloud speech-to-text API. Well, its Google. I'll let you make
> your own inferences. In any case, it hopefully wouldn't be a concern for
> people who _read_ the transcription.
>
> --
> Sivaraam

> Hello All,
>
> Just a reminder that you have another day to respond to whenisgood
> [1].  Note that times are listed as 6AM-9PM (21:00) Pacific.  Please
> specify duration preferences ( half days, full days, etc)  in
> comments.  Hopefully we'll respond soon after that with date/s that
> works for most.

>
> Carmen Andoh <candoh@google.com> writes:
>
> > Hello All,
> >
> > Just a reminder that you have another day to respond to whenisgood
> > [1].  Note that times are listed as 6AM-9PM (21:00) Pacific.  Please
> > specify duration preferences ( half days, full days, etc)  in
> > comments.  Hopefully we'll respond soon after that with date/s that
> > works for most.
>
> Sorry for sending this on the last day.
>
> After re-reading the original announcement and the above part, I am
> wondering if responding to the "when is the good time for you?" poll
> is a requirement to be invited.  My tentative understanding is that
> this is merely to help resolove scheduling conflicts, and those who
> want to attend but have no particular time/date preference can just
> stay silent and wait for the invitation to come, to which they are
> required to respond via e-mail in order to attend.
>
> I suspect many people are wondering about the same thing and
> a bit of clarification may help.
>

> > Hopefully everybody should have a good-enough internet connection to
> > stream a low-quality audio-only feed so that they can listen in and
> > participate via the chat feature. This is what we did at the
> > Contributor's Summit in March (I know we had a number of text-only
> > participants in time-zones where it was late, etc.).
> > 
> > What are your thoughts?
> 
> Jitsi w/ audio-only certainly seems to be a step in the right
> direction and would be more inclusive.
> 
> Is there any speech-to-text transcription done for the hearing
> (or extremely bandwidth) impaired?
> 
> It'd ideally go to #git on IRC (or something that doesn't
> require a browser to trigger swap storms on old systems).