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Sprint Planning Meeting 2020 08 06

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Erik Moeller edited this page Aug 6, 2020 · 1 revision

Sprint Planning Meeting, SecureDrop, August 6, 2020

Sprint timeframe: Beginning of Day (PDT) 2020-08-06 to Beginning of Day (PDT) 2020-08-20

1) Retrospective

What we said we would do:

  1. Release SecureDrop 1.5.0

Sprint goal fully met. Release-specific issues discovered in QA and fixed.

  1. Complete template consolidation investigation, document implementation plan

Sprint goal partially met. Investigation underway.

  1. Complete read/unread research, decide scope of first iteration and begin implementation

Sprint goal partially met.

  • Additional interview completed.
  • Prototype iteration with "new" indicator and revised research plan completed.
  • Further interviews scheduled.

Additional accomplishments:

  • Great progress on "reply badges" feature for SecureDrop Client, including clearly scoped phase 1 deliverables
  • Parallelization of translation tests working again: https://github.com/freedomofpress/securedrop/pull/5432
  • Another HTTPSEverywhere ruleset update
  • Important progress on reproducible builds:
  • Good progress on the focal branch beyond scope of initial spike

Other team comments

What went well

  • Active discussion about longstanging sticking points, such as reproducible builds +2

  • More tangible progress on the next server LTS migration

    • focal builds will unlock further testing on upgraded instances as the only major issue there was py3.7-related package dependencies

  • closure of a sort on the docs build saga

What can be improved

  • Humans still spending a lot of time with packaging & release mechanics +1+1

    • workstation kernel builds as one example, lots of intermediate steps and PRs across multiple repos required. Could be streamlined with something like a Salt-managed set of VMs to create a standard build env and process flow? +1 to the idea of using Salt in Qubes to get the build env. But, it will be slow unless you have a Powerful box running Qubes (not laptops)

    • Also humans spending a lot of time with testing tasks (especially dom0 changes)

    • Suggestion: Initial research spike on build simplification

  • Reasoning about packaging, particularly the reproducibility of intermediate artifacts, would be helped by more whiteboarding/diagramming sessions. +2

    • Kushal: Agree, diagrams would help a lot.

    • Mickael: Yep. When we have these conversations, it's helpful to get visual cues. Investigating tooling improvements?

    • Allie: I've started some research on tooling for whiteboarding, but didn't get very far yet. Jen posted link to https://miro.com/.

    • ACTION: Let's do a collaborative diagramming session soon :)

What’s still a mystery

  • What's up with the u2mfn kernel mod problem? Why is it so sporadic?+1

    • Investigating role of GRUB boot loader, still don't have clean repro on new kernel

Learning time debrief

Allie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc (Hammock driven development zzzz)

Conor: Jen volunteered to shed light on the reproducible wheels (one piece of the overarching reproducible builds quest) https://reproduciblewheels.com/

Erik: continued my Qt4 learning time to such an extent that I (think I) was able to produce a reasonable fix for the updater rendering issue without sacrificing use of Qt designer

Kushal: https://kushaldas.in/posts/use-doh-over-tor-for-your-qubes-system.html learned a bit more about Qubes

Kev: no pals progress, used my time last week for Jen's RAFT intro and a privacy meetup that has offered us a slot to talk about SD in mid-September

Mickael: no progress this sprint, but Defcon is happening this weekend, so will use learning time to watch talks

2) Review key dates and time commitments

2020-08-06              : PTO: John, Ro
2020-08-07              : FPF holiday
2020-08-06 to 2020-08-09: DEFCON (virtual)
2020-08-10              : PTO: Mickael
2020-08-10 to 2020-08-12: PTO: Kev
2020-08-12              : SecureDrop Fundraising Event
2020-08-13 to 2020-08-14: FPF-internal unconference
2020-08-14              : PTO: Kushal (will try to attend unconference)
2020-08-17              : PTO: Mickael
2020-08-17 to 2020-09-14: Personal leave: Ro

After sprint period:

2020-08-21              : FPF holiday
2020-08-24 to 2020-08-28: PTO: Kev
2020-08-25              : Tails 4.10 release
2020-09-22              : SecureDrop 1.6.0 release / Tails 4.11 release

TBD                     : Pilot ends, decision point on SecureDrop Workstation

Time check: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nqTw-6cTHOl3NOfv0oCEMUmGZko63n_D5BhnOlwODcw/edit#gid=0

3) Agree upon top 3 priorities for the next two weeks

  • Start building test packages for Focal

    • Add build logic to SecureDrop Core

    • Add Focal channel to apt-test

    • Resolve Python 3.8 compatibility issues

  • Complete phase 1 of template consolidation for SecureDrop Workstation

    • Inventory template-specific configurations

    • Create more detailed implementation plan as a result of smaller R&D spikes

  • Support SecureDrop fundraising event [not tracked as sprint tasks]

    • Record and rehearse SecureDrop Workstation demo (Conor, Ro)

    • Support fundraising event (all invited)

4) Select and estimate tasks

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fMnu8odOVU1eTx_FDAxMF6IquabrVbvBxNP2H5ft3JQ/edit#gid=0

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