Flock 2019 - Budapest, Hungery : Internationalization, Localization and Testing

I am one of the lucky person who has got an opportunity to consistently participate in amazing Fedora community to drive innovation in free and open source way. This was my 5th flock after 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2018. Indeed, it's great to see how many things has been changed in technology space. Values of Fedora still remains the same, Freedom, Friends, Features and First !!

For me the highlight talks was Denise Dumas on "Fedora, Red Hat and IBM". She very well explained how Fedora and Fedora community is very very important to Red Hat and it will remain the same even after acquisition.

Other than that i also attended all talks from Brendan Conoboy. He nicely explained on RHEL-8 planning side stuff.

It is interesting to see How Silverblue is emerging as a default workstation for future. (Though there are many challenges as of now)

Mindshare also evolved from planning to inception and going well now. Jared Smith provided good review of it.

Many interesting talks were in parallel and has to skip one to attend other. Need to go through few talks videos soon.

Notes on internationalization side:

On the language side, this was one of the best flock. We had overall 5 sessions on l10n, i18n and qe side. All went very well.

• The future of langpacks in Fedora :- Its interesting to see how langpacks has evolved over time in Fedora and not it looks perfect replacement for yum language groups. We are planning to add more test coverage on langpacks side.
• Use cases for Transtats in the Fedora community :- I missed this talk, since wanted to attend mindshare. But I remember the time when many translators were talking about string freeze break problems and now we have a solution as a Transtats. We can also track particular package for its state in upstream, downstream.
• Defining a Fedora Goal related to localization :- In this talk Jean-Baptiste presented many interesting stats about Fedora translation community health perspective. In many aspects we are going down from past 2 releases from translations perspectives.
• Fedora translation platform: validating the migration plan  :- This talks come workshop was more from the expectations of Fedora translations community from new platform and also from few process perspectives.
• Fedora Internationalization CI and Test cases :-   I was lead for this session. Jens started with his short talk on present CI and Test cases from i18n side. Our earlier plan was to meet and start working on writing test cases but we got good number of attendees, so rather that straight going to workshop, we thought lets do the brainstorming on things happening right now and what we should do.
• At the end, we decided to automation test cases, we execute in Fedora i18n test days.
• Notes from the session available at Wiki

Few other interesting talks I attended were CommunityShift, Fedora Security, Candy Swap, Video of different language speaking Fedora contributors and Fedora workstation roadmap.

Overall worth flock with lots of networking, fun activities and lots of work. !!

Event Report - Fedora Meetup 15th June 2019, Pune, India

We started planning for this one month back. Since we are doing this meetup regularly now, most of the things were known, only execution was required.

Following are the highlights

1. We started bit late. (Learning, next time should start late around 11:00am)
2. We started at 10:30am with quick introduction of all the attendees. It was really motivating to see few community attendees travelled from 30km radius to attend meetup.
3. I demonstrated about the new features in Fedora 30. Really though we upgrade but sometime, we miss to see the features. Also we quickly gone through Panteon Desktop.
4. Parag delivered his session on modularity. It was very engaging presentation and attendees asked good questions. Parag suggested attendees to go actual trial for better understanding the concept.
5. We took break after it for Snacks. Red Hat office was pack with multiple events on this date. walk-in interview + one more meetup. We got sports room, where we not only enjoyed snacks but also played games :)
6. After this Praveen Kumar delivered presentation on CoreOs. Though, he delivered slides prepared by Sinny but he explained things well. He also demonstrated Fedora CoreOS.
7. We had some time and Kushal asked audience if they have any questions on Qubes OS. He demonstrated it to attendees. It was good demonstration.

Pravin demonstrating Fedora 30 features

Parag presenting on Modularity

Praveen Kumar presenting on Fedora CoreOS

We were late, around 12:30pm we went for Cake cutting.

Overall, very good meetup. Thanks to :

• Fedora Mindshare group for meetup approval.
• Akshay Gaikwad for quickly providing design.
• Proactive Organizers (Ompragash, Parag, Pooja, Suprith, Me) and last but not least 
• all the attendees. 

During break :)

Fedora 30 release celebration !!

 

It was really great to see many people joined the meetup.  One of the attendees shown interest to help meetup in his college campus. Looking forward for next meetup with new topics.

Fedora 29 Release party at Pune, India

We had a great Fedora 29 release party at Pune, India on 15th December.

Following are the highlights of the event:

• 18 Members attended the event
• I did a presented on Fedora 29 features. Slide Link
• Parag presented on RPM packaging. 
• Followed by Q&A and nice Cake cutting.

After six months of hard work from many Fedora contributors, its really feel proud to talk about Fedora 29 features. Also specifically mentioning consistency of Fedora over the last 15 years. In 15 years we reached from Fedora core 1 to Fedora 29.

Parag's talk was very nice, it cleared so many basic things on packaging side including rpm, yum, dnf and spec file. In Q&A we discussed having this session like workshop and actually doing rpm packaging of particular package will be more helpful.

Fedora 29 release party cake

Learning's:

From the learning side, We thought we should keep on choosing different venue's for Fedora events. Its always easy to do it in Red Hat office but having it at different location helps to get new audience as well.

Also the planning must be start 1 month before the event.

Nice experience and Thanks to organizing members Parag Nemade, Suprith Gangawar, Ompragash Vishwanathan, Pooja Yadav.  Thanks to Akshay Gaikwad for preparing image for Cake and all attendees for making it success. 

Flock 2018, Fedora, Internationalization, Localization and QE

I am always very optimistic to get more things done from localization and internationalization side during flock Europe rather than flock US. Can you guess reason?

Yes, due to more non-english speaking population. I am sure, many of attendees already experience, German language matters a lot in Germany.

This blog is more from what we are bringing out of this flock. Following are the points:

• Transtats

• Sundeep and Parag delivered this talk on the 2nd day. From the vision defined in flock 2017, this flock its ready for consumption. Sundeep has already provided stats covering important packages for Fedora 29. I am sure, Sundeep will write more detailed blog around it.

• For members still dont know about Transtats. It is not a Translation platform, like Transifex, Zanata or Pootle. Rather its a best tool designed till date to analyse and track translation status of particular package during his lifecycle from Upstream (git etc), To Downstram (Fedora etc) and Translation Platform (Zanata etc) to what actually end user gets.

• Off-line discussions
• During discussion with Igor and Jens, we came to know we can have langpacks for each package. Presently with few packages, we are installing translation for all language defaults. Though it is in KB's but still to be more modular, we need sub-packaing for it. It will introduce many sub-packages in each package. With some macro, we can do it. 
• Also there are one non-trivial bugs from glibc locale subpackaing. i.e. at a time, it keeps both glibc-all-langpacks and glibc-langpack-en and other individual locales pack as well.

• Globalization 
• We formed g11n group 3 years back to start more collaboration between, l10n, i18n, fltg and zanata but unfortunately its not going that well. Also we noticed, l10n does not have there own track and using g11n pagure instance only. Will create one for localization soon.

• Hackfest
•     This went very well, Devel team demonstrated new features from them. QE team presented automation activities happening on Fedora side. Discussion happened on upstream first testing and available test cases for existing packages. Both devel and qe team agreed for more collaboration on CI side. 

• We also had discussion about Fedora modules translations as well.
• More details about hackfests in shared document.

    This was very fruitful flock, off course nice tracks but also the collaboration during the break between different groups. Yoga sessions in the morning was awesome, at least i joined on first day :)

Internationalization (i18n) Fedora activity days (FAD) 2017 at Pune, India

FAD 1st day (20th Nov, 2017)

This was the second i18n FAD with earlier one in Nov 2015 (G11n FAD). With the earlier experience of organizing FAD, we spent a good amount of time in planning and making this successful. This time intentionally kept it only for i18n to make it more focused. Thanks to Fedora council for approving budget, it was not only budget approval but further help from Bex for booking air tickets as well.

Participants for this FAD were from Poland, Germany, Tokyo, Beijing and India. This time good part was having more members with interest in QA (FLTG).  This blog is specifically about my contribution into FAD activities. May be will have specific blog on communityblog to cover whole FAD achievements.

1st Day

• On first day welcome all to the FAD (with Jens) 

• Given quick session about fonts testing automation, present state and what can we do during this FAD.

• Filipino language support

• This was request on pagure g11n to check whether we can begin Filipino language translations. I worked on it with Rafal and also Mike helped to it. We already have nice documentation about language support. 
• Only thing remaining was adding support in system-config-language. Reported on upstream with patch.
• This was really interesting for me, after almost 7 years referred it. This task initiated interesting discussion as follows:
• What is use of comps langauge group?  We introduced langpacks to get rid of comps group though we still cant pull IME's and Fonts with langpacks.
• Discussion with Parag, Jens, Tagoh and Me. 
• Options we have is to have Weak dependencies, DNF groups.  But again questions Jens raised do we need it in modularity. We postponed this to Modularity session discussions.

2st Day

• Font automation testing

    Had good discussion with Tagoh and he suggested some alternative, one thing popped out during discussion is present Auto test module in Lohit is very minimal and we can extend it further. Jens suggested why package level testing? and not Fedora level all fonts testing?

    https://github.com/pravins/fonts-automated-testing and completed it for SourceHanSansCN-Regular.otf, will gradually add other fonts into it.

3rd Day

• FAD L10N 2018

    This discussion started during Flock 2017 and Rafal shown interest in hosting it. Not got much time but came to conclusion good to have it aligned with either DevConf.cz or flock 2018. Will do further discussion on l10n mailing list.

• Modularity discussions

    Gone through modularity packaging guideline, this was led by Jens and he put lots of time into it.

• Fedora 27 release party

    Before FAD i was not sure, whether we will able to do it or not. We discussed and decided to do it during FAD lunch time, it was really good experience to celebrate Fedora release after long time. Points discussed were, to start Fedora meetup again, discussions on packaging, few members shows interest to become Ambassadors and conduct meetups.

Fedora 27 release party, Pune, India

    I was happy we able to do it, though not very well planned from my side.

While concluding

Had pretty busy FAD. FAD is always great experience to have all active contributors under same roof, productivity is much more and off course how can we forget the fun part :)

Bowling at Amanora mall, Pune, India

Though in 3 days we did not able to complete all planned activities but we planned activities for the next whole year. Looking forward from all to complete post-FAD activities. !!

Flock 2017: How to make your application into a Flatpak?

"How to make your application into a Flatpak?" was on the first day and delivered by Owen Taylor.

Its around 1 and half year we are observing development of Flatpak's and i am sure this is going to be one of the breakthrough technology for distribution of packages in coming years.  I attended this topic to get more idea about what is happening? and What plan in coming future?

Session was very information and it was mostly from architectural overview of flatpak. 

I will update my blog with recording once it get available. Meanwhile in this blog i am going to cover only Q&A part from session.

Question: If i install normal rpm and flatpak for same application, how system will differentiate between it?
Answer: In command like, application id will be different for one from rpm and one from flatpak. Both will appear and one can choose.

Question: Flatpak is bundle of libraries. Now if Platform like Fedora provide one flatpak for application and same time upstream also provide flatpak. Will one get replaced with other?
Answer: We cant replace one with other.

Question: I created flatpak on F25 and failed in Wayland, some permission missing.
Answer: If it is build for X11, it should work on wayland as well.

Question: Can we test flatpak on F26?
Answer: flatpak.org are there, we can download and start testing. F26 is very much updated.

Question: Are we releasing any application as a flatpak only in Fedora in future?
Answer: Lets packager decide it, if its working well.  At least we are not doing this forfor F27, F28. Fedora 29 packages may able to do it.

Question: Whe we will have Firefox, Libreoffice as a flatpak?
Answer: Low hanging fruits first and gradually we can think or ask people for it. First lets get infra ready.

Question: Is any dependency on kernel?
Answer: Generally very minimal dependency on kernel, more for graphics driver. No, strong dependency between kernel and runtime.

Question: Can you consider flatpak with similar tech in android etc?
Answer: Idea of using specific file system is purely flatpak and docker/containers.   Flatpak has more secured communication model.


I hope, i able to catch all the Q&A correctly, if anyone has to update anything about this feel free to send me email or just update in comment section.

Report Flock 2016 - Kraków, Poland

Photo credit to JFlory !!

Trying to be on the spot !!

• Got a chance to meet existing contributors, who are doing great work and i am communicating regular. I help them and they help me. Jean-Baptiste, Zoltan, Noriko, Alex, Patrick, Fale, Gabriele, Justin, Paul Frield, Matthew, Ryan,  Jona this list is bit big, so if i missed your name please consider its here. May be i could had written Team names.
• Though G11N workshop was planned was on 3rd day but we were actually daily discussing open issues and how to get rid of it. It actually helped as a prep-work for workshop.
• 1st and 2nd day, i did not missed even single track and attended at least one talk from each track. My schedule is here, feel free to ping me, if you want more info.
• We had good number of talks on G11N this time. 
• Please Note: Its not only APAC where there is need for languages other than English but its Europe as well. Only major issue APAC face is language with complex script. Europe most of the languages use Latin (extended), its make life bit easy for processing it on computer.
• Talks and presence of more G11N members helped to make things more clear to other attendees and it actually help to get in new contributors. This is mostly from Translation side though but new contributors bring in new mind sets and help to improve processes. 
• I presented on G11N audit of Fedora Atomic and happy it was well taken. Since presently more focus on modularity and containers, its right time to get involved and make sure adding language support will not become more bottleneck during implementation period. We need more testing.. At least in presentation i have mentioned more visible issues and even possible solutions as well. Going to work on then in coming Fedora releases. Presentation slides here. 
•  G11N workshops was really with nice discussions and more action oriented. We all agreed to have 
• Globalization steering committee for language related issues though need many fixes to proposal itself.
• Mike Demonstrated IBUs Emoji typing feature and ibus typing booster multilingual stuff. these are key features in Fedora 25. Unicode 9.0 is already in Fedora 25.
• Most of the members requested for T-shirts for G11N contributors. (FPL came as a rescue and mentioned it might be possible and depends.)
• G11N FAD - More members are interested in hosting this :) Albania, Hungary and even Japan and India and i think some more locations. We have to coordinate with all and see how can we proceed for this.
• Jean-Baptiste presented on improvements points and issues he gathered with Zoltan. I really liked those and even thinking it as a TODO list for Localization in coming year. We were need more time for discussions 2 hours is indeed not enough with many active people with different expertise, L10N, I18N and Zanata. I will be very happy if each members can blog with there TODO for next year, it will help to gather me improvements plan. May be we can push on community blog.
• Summary is drafted in PiratePad. 
• I also attended famsco and Budget workshop. In FamSco i think we are agreed to move ahead with fosco without replacing famsco and start with minimal groups. In budget, fyi.. Budget is happens for year "Mar-Feb" next cycle is Mar,2017-Feb 2018 and we are almost in planning phase for it. Any things which required specific budget please start listing it somewhere. 
• Knowing this, its difficult to do G11N FAD till Feb 2017 requiring big budget. But if its less budget, good to propose it, there is always some chance. I am more oriented for doing virtual one till Feb 2017. Planning to having "Localization oriented FAD in Albania and Hungary", I18n oriented FAD remotely for F26 (Japan, Germany, India and may be other countries.)
• Also we (with Jean-Baptiste and Zoltan)  got interviewed for Radio stuff. It was really great to see, recorder was so involved in the interesting things we were speaking that he forgot to start recording and we again redone recording :) Exciting to hear recording soon.

    * Though you might feel this is big blog, actually i missed lots thing into it, expecting dedicated post for each one.

Other highlights

• Nicely organized Flock, in 2014 we were running whole day from Hotel-Venue-lunch dinner. Here it was same place, so actually gave more time for talks with other peoples.
• Social events were nice. I loved it. In fact Location itself great. Nice to learn about Krakow history, its very reach.
• Kudos to organizing team !! Joe came as a saviour for me in last moment and booked ticket in last stage. I confirmed my travel on 29 July, it is enough to explain pain. All other members including Bex, Rafel, Spot, Paul, Ruth there are many name here missing again, so please consider them.
• Lucky to meet Ekaterina and David. After using and working for Gnome almost a 10 year, happy i became Gnome foundation member now.

    Might be i will write other blog with some specific things, i think enough for this one. Thanks for reading.