Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] GNU Radio Project Leadership Updates

[CEL]

Hello everyone!

I think it's time that I finally also lose a couple of words on this
topic:

Thanks everyone for making GNU Radio the most popular SDR framework
with certainly the most interesting community! This, especially,
applies to Johnathan, whose contributions on all levels, technically,
financially, as well as personally, are invaluable to the presence and
future of this framework.

I'm still a bit overwhelmed by the idea of managing the technical side
of all of this. As Ben said, we have a couple immediate issues to
tackle,  but this leadership change doesn't come with only a set of
freshly identified challenges, but also with a lot of opportunities,
which I'm planning to take. We'll try to divide the workload a bit more
evenly, which implies also dividing responsibilities, and I hope that
leads to a high development coordination capacity while keeping the
code quality up :)

So, a bit on what to expect in the next week(s):
First of all, although I really feel we should be getting 3.8 out as
soon as possible, that also means: Not a day earlier; we'll take the
time to merge pending PRs, release a 3.7.xx version, and define what
will be part of 3.8, and what will then be on the master branch for the
 release after that. 
There will be slight changes to the dev process, but details on that
are pending while I try to meet up with a bunch of people with whom I
want to coordinate this.
I will hurry myself as much as feasible, but some features simply take
time, and my mision is to foster long-term active development, which
means that it's equally important to not frustrate users nor
developers; the next thing we'll do is sit together and find what the
"minimum viable release" is that doesn't obstruct future development
and get that ready for the masses!

As said, we'll not abandon anything anytime soon, but we will focus on
developing "forward", whilst keeping 3.7 nicely running and bug-free.
Part of that plan is that I consider the 3.8 release to be "relatively
soon", but that really depends on the feature set we define to be in
3.8. I won't be doing that definition alone; we'll all discuss this.
Basically, I feel that the most important features of 3.8 are Python 3
and Qt5, but these also come with effects on a lot of other subsystems.
Note that anything that doesn't make it into the 3.8 release is far
from being abandoned – we'll definitely crank up the release frequency.

I feel I'm already being overly specific and lengthy; a lot of this
process will actually unfold in the next two, three weeks. Clearly,
we'll have to come up with some kind of documentation (and if it's just
a blog post) that explains how we want to proceed, and I promise we'll
do that, as things fall into place.

On a personal note, I'm super happy to be part of this, and I know I've
been handed an impressive piece of software, a fantastic and actually
historically rich ecosystem, and anyone who's been observing me on the
mailing list hopefully realizes how much I like the community. The
speed of all this surprises even me, so please bear with me while I
sort out how to actually *do* all this. There's really so much more
that one wishes one had the time (and army of developers) for to
implement than I'll be able to do within a couple years of time frame,
so the trick really is finding out what the project needs the most.

Therefore, the thing I'd really like to ask everybody right now is to
do is sit down and think about where they'd like the project to move
from here, and discuss that. We're setting up a very Python Enhancement
Process-alike thing so that such ideas don't go to waste, without
adding the bureaucratic overhead of having a hierarchical idea
collection process. It's certain that if anything, we must encourage
users to become contributors, no matter whether it's in shape of bug
reports, pull requests, requests for architectural features, or simply
by engaging with each other. Same goes for developers (which are users,
too): I'll need you to be as productive as possible, so I'll try to get
into your way as little as feasible. 

So, now I'll have to mentally prepare for FOSDEM; if you're there, come
see me, say hello, but please don't expect me to have qualified answers
for complex development questions just yet :)
Anyway, I **know** you'll either be in the SDR devroom at FOSDEM on
Sunday, or neglecting your social live by watching the videos, so

see you and:

Best regards,

Marcus
(freshly baked GNU Radio Project Maintainer)

On Wed, 2018-01-31 at 15:24 -0500, Ben Hilburn wrote:
> Hi all!
> 
> As usual, there is a lot going on in the project and community,
> including GSOC & SOCIS, GRCon planning, and new development. There
> are also some big changes happening in the project leadership that I
> want to announce.
> 
> First, our Chief Architect and Foundation CTO, Johnathan Corgan, is
> moving into a new role as a Technical Advisor for the project. He
> will no longer be leading the project's technical development, but
> will remain part of the project leadership, sharing his technical
> knowledge and guidance. Johnathan has been a member of the GNU Radio
> project for 12 years, and served as the Project Maintainer for much
> of that. Additionally, for many years GNU Radio's infrastructure only
> existed because Johnathan paid for them with his own funds.
> Johnathan's contributions and leadership have been critical to GNU
> Radio's tremendous success, and the he deserves significant credit
> for the work he has done for the project and community.
> 
> Here's a note from Johnathan, himself, about the change:
> 
> > I've watched GNU Radio grow from its origins in the enthusiast
> > community to a mainstream tool used extensively for government,
> > academic, and commercial wireless research and applications. To
> > have helped steward its design and implementation over the last
> > decade, especially as an open source project with a purely
> > volunteer community, has put me in contact with many talented and
> > creative developers. Finally, teaching almost a hundred GNU Radio
> > courses and consulting on GNU Radio projects in over a dozen
> > countries has been the highlight of my career.
> > 
> > While I will continue to engage with users and provide technical
> > assistance to the GNU Radio project, its forward growth depends on
> > new leadership and commitment. I look forward to seeing what's
> > next.
> > 
> 
> As Johnathan transitions to his new role, well known developers in
> the community will be taking on expanded responsibilities. Marcus
> Mueller will become the Project Maintainer, responsible for merging,
> tagging, and generally maintaining the codebase. Derek Kozel, Bastian
> Bloessl, Andrej Rode, Philip Balister, and Nate Temple will become
> Project Officers, taking on various development and community efforts
> to keep the project moving forward.
> 
> My position leading the project and Foundation remains unchanged, as
> do the roles of Martin Braun (Community Manager, PyBOMBS maintainer,
> Foundation Officer), and Nathan West (VOLK maintainer). While Andrej
> and Derek are expanding their development roles, Andrej will also
> continue as our web & devops infrastructure admin, and Derek will
> continue to organize GRCon18. Felix Wunsch will continue leading GNU
> Radio's participation in GSoC & SOCIS.
> 
> Our major priorities in the near-term include integrating the latest
> pull requests, publishing a clear process for community suggestions &
> contributions to the project, and getting to the long-awaited 3.8
> release. If you're interested in these topics, keep an eye on the
> list and IRC! You'll start to see some announcements and activity
> very shortly.
> 
> We have a strong core team of experienced GNU Radio developers and
> community members, and I'm really excited about the work that will
> get done over the coming months. If you want to get involved, please
> don't hesitate to reach out! We love working with new contributors.
> And, as always, if you have any questions, just let us know.
> 
> Lastly, I would like to once again publicly thank Johnathan for all
> of his hard work and contributions as a leader in our community over
> the last 12 years!
> 
> Happy Hacking,
> Ben
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