CHAOSS Weekly Community Call, January 6, 2026  🔗 **Source:** [CHAOSS Weekly Community Call, January 6, 2026](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clMyxHTPGhQ) uh record too. Okay. Hey everybody, you're here at the first meeting of 2026. Yay for chaos this and well it's not the first meeting for chaos but it's first weekly community call of the year. Hooray. Hooray. Really glad to see everybody. I do miss people, you know, because I'm just kind of here in my house. So I miss people. There we go. I'm a little rusty even. Gez, what what's going on with that? It's weird. >> You're doing a great job so far. >> Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. I need some reinforcement today. >> That's it. You got a lot of >> That's all I got. Okay, that's okay. >> Uh, all right. Yay. So, if you uh This is a very deep question, I know, but starting off strong. Um, yeah. If you want to add something to your name that tells us like what are you hoping for in 2026? It could be something personal. It could be something for the world breakthrough. Something something you want to learn. Yeah, that's good. Get a full-time role at Inca. Yes, Sophia. I feel that. I do. Yes, that is a goal, I think. Just Yeah. To get to get through the week. I I love it cuz that's not a given, right? Like I mean it's it's an effort. So I get it. I appreciate the uh Yes. I appreciate you. Uh okay. So welcome back. Yay for 2026. We can check that off. We did that. We yayed. Do we do we want to chat at all about 2026 or do we just want to go into it or like our break or anything? Do we want to have a little >> debrief? Yeah. If anybody wants to to brief us on their their de debrief us then yes feel free. How was your break? We want to know. >> I hosted family and when my parents are here they are a lot of work. They just kind of they want they want to do things but it was good. I actually did things that I hadn't done in the city. So I appreciate that. >> So you were a tourist in your own town. I love that. >> I was. Yes. We just had a new art museum edition that had it had actually closed the museum for two years doing the edition. So, I was able to get over to see that and it was beautiful. We got together with friends for New Year's Eve and we did it by uh renting uh the so the UK forestry service rents out these forestry cabins and so we rented this like f huge five- bedroomedroom cabin and no one had to host uh and it was great and we played games and drank wine and cooked food and had a good time. >> Where were the cabins? Where are the cabins? >> Uh they're in different forests. So we've uh we've done this other times in the past too. We did Sherwood Forest once and those cabins are actually really nice. Uh this is Delamir Forest which is um kind of north. It's kind of between Manchester and Wales. Um it's really close to the uh Welsh English border. >> Okay, >> that was fun. But yeah, they have like I don't know like a dozen sites where they do these cabins and then the proceeds go back to the forestry service. So, you feel like you're having a good time and doing something a little good. >> I'm looking at the forest right now. Looks green and pretty. >> Yeah, it was nice. >> You just take a >> Okay, I'm Do you want to go? >> No, no. I was wondering how you got there, but I'm guessing a train. >> Uh, no. We drove actually cuz the the trains don't go very close to the forests. So, >> okay, >> we took a car. >> Okay, now I'm done. >> All right. Okay. So, I I think two things that was um like big for me. Um we my community had like a village Christmas tried to recreate our Christmas was like say 30 years ago and then we were just mainly reminising and it was so good like a lot of us even dressed like people would dress like 30 years ago. It was really really a good time. Then the second thing I did was to declutter my home. Oh my gosh. Out with the hood, in with the new. And um I was able to like gather good stuff for goodwill and charity. And I really really enjoyed it. >> That sounds amazing. That sounds like so much fun. >> Yes. Thank you. I enjoyed myself. >> Sadly, I'm doing the 30 years ago dress in my head and I'm pretty sure I still look like that. >> I'm with you, Matt. Don't worry. Like, I have I have clothes in my closet that are older than my Yes. 20something children. So, yeah, for sure. Anybody else want to just give a quick share on how their break was, how their end of year was. Okay. All right. Well, I'm glad to see all your faces. It makes my heart happy. So, thanks for showing up today and being back with me. Um, the first thing I just wanted to say was just so everybody knows, so if you're new to the community, we do archive these minutes. We aren't going to delete them. So, I'll just go through and copy and move them to a different doc, and that will free up this doc right here for 2026, a fresh new doc. So, um, this link will stay the same. We'll just copy and paste it out. But there'll be a link at the top up here. So like up here then we I've already done some for 2025 because there's a lot in this in this part of the docket in particular. So this one's already been archived a little bit but we will do the rest of 2025 and do all the others. >> I'm just curious. It just I I was just thinking about this when you were talking about how you how you do this. I love that the link stays the same, but I wonder if some of the performance problems that we have are because it's the same doc because on the back end, Google keeps all of those revisions and all of that history. >> I don't understand how Google Docs exactly works. It might be worth a little bit of research to see if because I know sometimes even though we archive them that some people still have performance problems and it just occurred to me that because of the way that they do the history and the versions and the revisions. I don't know. I I wonder I really don't want the link to change but yeah I don't know. >> That is super interesting. I never even considered that. on that is that's a really good point. That is a really good point. So I >> or it might not have any impact at all. I could be completely wrong. >> Well, I'll just do some some googling and see. >> I don't know. Um that's a great point. >> Did I hear you two done? I mean, for what it's maybe didn't say this, but for what it's worth, like we had this performance issue before we did all the stuff on the left side, you know, before we merged all the stuff into one giant dock. Um, so I don't know if that makes any difference. >> Yeah, I don't know. But I would like to make this as quick as possible for folks wi without sacrificing the the uh convenience of having it all in one link for everybody. And also just as an aside on the newcomer channel this morning, um this doc actually serves as a good list of all of our of our working groups. Um which was a curious benefit that I had not really thought of before. But yeah, this is everything and what everybody's doing allin one. So that was kind of nice to be able to just point somebody to this doc and say, "Have at it." You know, go look at all whatever you want to look at because it's all in here. So >> I like the one dock. I have I've always liked that for sure. Yeah. >> What you'd say is a nice bonus as well. >> Yeah. But to your point, it is gigantic now that we're just so awesome and we keep expanding. >> So, you know, we'll just probably keep getting more awesome. So it might be a problem we have to solve again in the future, but we can cross that bridge when we come to it. Any other questions on this? I also just for working group leaders, I did post something in the uh working group leader Slack just because I know we have some newer folks that might not realize where their minutes go. So I wanted to make sure everybody knows. Okay. Well, let's go ahead and move on. Um I don't know if y'all have noticed but we have been having some interest from folks in GC already. So um people are asking me like a newcomer ch newcomer chat this morning. We had folks asking me about the GOC projects and I don't have an answer and I don't want us to make an decide right this second. That's not um that's not what I want. But uh I just want to make sure it's on radar people's radars that like yeah this is a thing that's already kind of ramping up. So, we should maybe decide so we can at least tell people yes or no. Um, sooner than later, I think, especially if it's a no, I want to give people a chance to kind of, you know, either decide if they want to stay in chaos, but also have a chance to look at other projects, too, if they're if that's what their goal is. So, just putting that up there. >> I do think maybe we should really think about this and make a very deliberate decision early. Um because it felt like last time I think one of the projects did it and it was super disruptive I think for everybody because there was just such a massive influx in the community with with people asking questions in all of the Slack channels and it was it was a lot. >> Yeah. Um >> I don't want to be a downer but it's it's a lot. >> You're not wrong. Like it is it is a lot. Um I mean we can even see it already starting and like we haven't even like they haven't even opened it yet and we're already getting an influx of folks I have seen anyway. Um so yeah uh we we yeah so I just want to make sure it was on somebody's radar. Everybody's radar actually. So if we are going to do it let's do it. If we're not, then that's totally fine and we should just make that known because I feel like what people are doing are looking at past lists and reaching out to those projects and trying to like get a leg up cuz it is so competitive. So, they want to like create that relationship before anybody else or you know as early as possible. So, I'm fairly certain that's where people are coming from is that they're looking at our list of past applicants and and reaching out to those projects. So >> there have to be projects that uh like do this well. You can't imagine that everybody has the same like pain that we feel. >> Yeah. >> Here I just >> it doesn't seem like that would work real well if it just was really difficult for everybody. >> Yes. Yes. Agreed. I feel like based on the the volume of folks who are participating, I feel like the bigger projects are going to have the the resources to deal with it um better obviously than the smaller ones and they'll have processes in place and like dedicated people to like make sure it goes through and all that. um which is kind of un not unfortunate but it kind of leaves out that experience of working for a smaller project I think which is kind of too bad because it's a different experience and it's also valid. I I actually think that the problem is a little bit different. I think that the reason we get hit so hard with Google Summer of Code is because Chaos is an incredibly inclusive project where there are so many things that anyone can work on. Whereas, if you're looking at like some, I don't know, some really hardcore piece of technology where you need, you know, very specific skills, they're going to get less of an influx than what a project like Chaos is going to get. Um, I think maybe maybe I'm wrong. I don't I don't know cuz I haven't really I haven't really had GOC in any of the other projects that I that I work on, but I suspect it has more to do with the fact that our technology is so incredibly accessible and there are so many things that people anybody can do. You don't need to have any specific skills to contribute to to chaos. >> Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, I think I agree too because like um one is even like our projects are Python based. So like a lot of people are very you know conversant and the projects are not very deeply technical like the ones I usually see on the list are very like Java mini a lot of projects and I think another reason might also be like Google shrink their funding a lot so there's there are lesser projects and I think there might even be lesser projects this year as well um but I do think that in terms of timeline line we should also like decide fast like early enough so that like we can get because I I think in the previous year sometimes um grim lab might want to participate but like there's no time or like um mentor to just put forward and like if you start the conversations early maybe during chaos con um I know there are going to be workshops for the project so like during chaos con if we start those conversations early. Um then we can you know commit people to be mentors early enough. Um and also like just adds to letting people know early because the influx is usually very overwhelming, right? So has her hand up. Yes, thank you Don. So I I wanted speaking of um starting the conversations early if we decide that we want to do this and thinking why don't we have someone responsible for the project first we'll be specific about the project is it is it grimal lab or any other project that needs um people's contribution or or g rather and then we pick someone that um is interested in being a project manager to manage the influx to manage people's question and people's task instead of leaving it um in the open for anyone to to coordinate. Yeah. Go ahead, Sean. Uh so we did do G-So last year and um we did have a good deal of success but there are two things happening that are that have changed G-S a lot. The the first is that you get we had almost 10 times more applications for one project than we ever had for like five or six projects before. So the weight of reviewing the applications is now on the order of what it was like when we did the Google season of docs. So the you know on Augur we've been discussing whether or not we want to do it this year and we're kind of leaning against it frankly just because of the incredible labor load and that of course it arises directly from the prominence of AI right everybody can go out and create a really great proposal now and so there's a lot of effort that has to go into figuring out who actually understands this stuff and who knows AI um to a few of the other comments I will note that most of the projects that Gox accepted before have been software projects. Though I think some of the other things that we do uh have have made it in as sort of point solution software projects before. I I do think they lean towards open source software as opposed to like metrics development or things like that. But that's that's kind of beside the point. The the point I'm making is that it's very very labor intensive to do the reviews right now. That concludes my words. Okay, those are all good. If I missed any of the comments people were making, I realized we weren't taking any notes on that. Um, we uh feel free to drop them in here. Like I said, we don't have to decide this obviously today, but um it's nice to start the conversation. I think we kind of get our brains and like Sean said, they've already been talking about an auger, so that's good. Matt, were you going to say something? >> Yeah, it just it seems like maybe there's two things. One is um like the initial inquiry that people have. And maybe that could be stemmed a little bit like the way that we have the newbie bot by just saying you have to just type G-SK and there's your information. That's all we're going to say. Um but then to Sean's point like then there's the application to the projects which I don't know how that can be overcome. So like just like people having random inquiries like maybe we could just say there's here's a file everything you everything you need to know is there. >> Yeah. And the system they have is pretty good now. Uh we didn't get a lot of random questions last year during the application period. Uh people understood the process much better than they had three or four years ago. >> I feel oneoff questions. I feel like last year we had like and Elizabeth might remember like kind of an influx of a bunch of people just in the project like before the applications even began that a lot of noise. >> Yeah, >> we were getting that in all the channels too and like the working group channels like the data science working group we were getting a lot of questions about GOC and it was it was definitely outside of the newcomer channel. >> Yeah. And at Augur, we've gotten a lot of people who are obviously interested in GOC this coming year who are contributing right now. And so I think that might be one of Google's solutions for for some of this AI challenge is just to encourage people to become involved sooner. So we're already seeing that whether or not we participate is almost beside the point right now because I don't know, I'd estimate we're probably getting three to five new contributors every single week on Augur right now. And Adrian and I think that's mostly from GSOC, >> like people trying to hedge a bet. >> Exactly. People trying to like become known because they can see that >> the way that you get the project assigned now is different than it used to be. >> And this earlier engagement does seem to be a factor. I, you know, I don't I don't know how people talk like I'm not in the conversations. Yeah. Three to five new people per week, Sophia. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's been fantastic. And it's also been a bit overwhelming for Adrian and I. Um, >> I bet >> we have like 40 open PRs right now and almost most of the open ones are from Gox students and some of that's half of those are from over the break when we didn't really do much. So >> yeah. And I think then if we if we decide not to do it and we let that be known, I wonder if that would taper off, folks would stick around or if they would just be like, "Okay, cool. I'm going elsewhere somewhere else that can build that relationship." So, I feel like that might help. >> Yeah. I I I think if we make a when we make a decision about what we're and if we can communicate what projects we might put forth, Yeah. it might sort of narrow where people go if we decide to do it. Um, like I said on Augur, we're we're actively thinking about not doing it. We haven't decided anything yet, but >> yeah, >> we're concerned about that labor right now. >> Rightly so, honestly. Rightly so. I mean, if it hasn't even opened yet and we're already getting three to five new contributors a week, like geez. Oh, yeah. It's going to be a lot. >> Yeah. This I I don't know. I can't I maybe it started with Htoberfest to Reese's point. like maybe this is a Hectober fest like it got the momentum going >> but I I we don't know like this has never happened before so trying to figure out why is hard >> and I think last year too to earlier points about them kind of uh being everywhere in all the channels is a lot of times they will show up and just be like how can I contribute and you know well that's that's now now we're in a conversation because there's a lot here's the quick start here's you our YouTube channel. Here's all the things. Um, education project, like all of it. Um, so I think to to Matt's point, if maybe we just have a G-SBOT anyway, whether we do it or not, and just has if you want to contribute, here you go. You know, like for you folks, here you go. >> Yeah. Yeah. Know that seems that sounds not like it's not a bad approach. >> Okay. based on this conversation like the temperature in this room doesn't seem too hot towards G Sig. >> Well, well, I mean, I will say we we got some really good contributions. I I won't say it wasn't worth it because because the quality of the work for the we did choose was good, but it's a lot of work still. >> Yeah. I'm not talking about like if you got contributions last year. I'm just saying like based on like the current conversation here, it's lukewarm maybe is what I Sorry. >> It's with a caveat, you know, we would need to do some major like planning and to Inca's point have like maybe a project manager to oversee it all. Like >> we would need to put some some steps into place, some structure to it. So it's not a no, definitely no, but it's definitely a yes and yes and >> yes and have a strategy. >> Yeah. All right. All right. Well, I want to make sure we have time to also talk about Chaos Con for those folks because it's coming up very quickly. Um, but we also have this on the agenda. Just wondering who put that on there. >> That's me and Sean. I'm glad you're here. So, I was talking to Claire and um it looks like perhaps next year Curious is going to be opening some some of their meetings like bit more broadly. So I think there's upwards of maybe 30 universities that have OSPOS right now and um I think the hope is is to have many of those conversations occur with Curious at least around OSO and the operations of Ospose um and even metrics that OSOS could use but more over on the curious side and um the science research working group, Sean, that you're that you've been leading. I think there's interest in folks kind of joining in on that conversation, you know, like stopping the university working group because the OSPO conversation would happen at Curious and then any of the researcher or scientific conversations would just not occur in two places but only occur in the science research working group. Is that a working group that you're planning on still doing in 2026 and all that kind of stuff? >> Yeah, I mean I I think I it's a small it's a small working group. It's it doesn't have sort of the unified financial support that Curious does, but it's been active. Uh there's like four people who are pretty routinely there. >> Yeah, this would bring a couple more over like >> Yeah. to have these conversations around like what are the metrics and what are people looking at from a research perspective as researchers or scientists like what are the things they care about >> I think it I think you you're raising also a larger strategic question for chaos because scientific software is a specialization I think academic is similar but it's from the institutional perspective instead of from the scientific community perspective in the conversations I've been in Um, and I'm just talking out loud here. Um, but I guess how how much the question for chaos I think is how much specialization into these different threads do we want to incubate and how much do we want to say okay curious great this conversation is started with you you carry it on and we're there as sort of an affiliate or helper organization. Yeah, I mentioned to Claire like if they wanted if they were having like the open curious meetings, you know, around university I suppose and they wanted to do say like a month-long deep dive on what might be some metrics that could be helpful, then just invite us over there like we're happy to join. >> Yeah. >> And as opposed to trying to support something for a year on our end >> when the conversations are kind of occurring in two places. So >> one of the um one thought that just jumped into my head is and I I think it's real is the other groups in open source like cur curious not so much but there's been some other efforts on the scientific side that various people have led and one of the things chaos does very well compared to every other project that's not in the LF is have meetings occur at routine times that I can count on um a lot of the academic scientific groups that I've participated in are kind of like hit and miss for when there's actually a meeting. So, I think the only guidance to curious would be have a regular meeting. Tell us about it. We'll crow promote it. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, for sure. I think Claire's gonna she's doing a lot of the kickoff for this open meeting around Fazdam. That's like And so that's when those conversations will be happening. >> Yeah. And she's got a whole other meeting that following week, right? >> She does actually. The one that's in Dublin. >> Right. Right. Um, so I mean would you be okay with me suggesting that people from the university working group if they have an interest in research and scientific software >> and kind of >> Oh yeah >> to to join that community or that working group. >> I just I don't want to like inter like join when you're like that's not what we're doing. I just >> No, no, it's it's I mean I think it's there's the people who are interested in that side of it will come and the people who aren't won't and >> correct and the people who are interested in OSPOS can go over to the work and the people who are interested in kind of the being that researcher being that scientist that's running scientific software and they're interested in the metrics. >> Yeah. >> Their software. Yeah. They would join this one. >> Yeah. And somebody put in about the to-do group. I don't think it might have been Elizabeth. >> Yeah, our meeting is actually our OSPO working group is actually a joint working group with the to-do group. It appears on both both calendars >> and we have a we have a Slack channel in the to-do group Slack for the chaos hospital working group. >> Part of the problem that Claire and I kind of pointed out is that in the university working group there were kind of two sets of people. There were people who were trying to run the OSO and there were the people who were um involved in scientific research and they kind of had a different set of questions and as a result like one meeting would be about say OSPO related metrics and the next meeting would be around say the development of a research project and the metrics that are important there. Um, and it ended up kind of creating this like back and forth where we never really had a clear vision of what we were doing because it would kind of jump between these two different groups. >> Yeah. And I think I think the scientific groups had the benefit of not having that con conflict and purpose. >> Yeah. And so the idea was that we're like why don't we just stop the university working group have people ospoish go over to curious because they're going to have the open community calls probably starting in 2026. people who are on the the science research side join join the one that we already have and be part of that conversation and build that out the best that we can. Okay. >> Yeah. I'm going to put I'll put a message to the university working group in Slack um this afternoon to kind of spell this out. Okay. And you just had a meeting today, didn't you? On the science >> Well, we did. We had I was there. Nobody else was there because all the scientific and research people are still on break right now. That's true. Very, very true. Okay. >> Um, okay. Great. Thank you. >> You know me, one less working group. That's >> the goal. >> Get rid of them. >> All right. Um, okay. So, we have one more quick thing on the agenda. No, quick thing. Um, just the goals and objectives. No big deal. Uh, I think I'm not sure who put this on there, but I think this is a question for the board. Don't Doesn't the board usually set those up? I believe the last time we revisited them, I think we decided to kind of keep the goals that we had because they were still pretty relevant. I think it'd be worth revisiting them. Um, we're also busy with other discussions right now. So, it might I don't know that we'll do it for the very beginning of the year. >> I'm okay with having this conversation here as well. >> Yeah, it doesn't need All right, so let me back up. This doesn't need to be a board discussion. We as a chaos community can, you know, can talk about our own goals and objectives for for what we want to do. And we can look at the goals and objectives that the board set. I think it was about two years ago. And we can use those as a starting point and iterate on them, but it doesn't have to be we don't have to do that behind closed doors in the board. We can just do that here in the community. I think that makes more sense. Matt's got a good point. >> Okay. I think we have uh I want to say they're listed on the are they listed on the website? We were going to put them on the website and then there were issues with how we display them and I'm not sure they ever ended up on the website. >> I feel like I've seen them on the website, but I'm not positive. >> I don't know where they would be about. >> I might be wrong. I could be remembering. >> Well, there's those are the old ones. Those are the old ones. We were supposed to replace them, but we got caught up in what do we do with that chaos history thing, >> I think. and we never finished it. >> Okay. Okay. So, in answer to this question, the answer is no. We don't have any we don't have goals. We have last year's goals which we can use which we >> but we those were intended to be multi-year goals. They weren't they were goals like moving forward into the next year, but they were intended to be things that would live on beyond a year. So, so we're not going to we do we do still have goals and objectives. We're not going to throw those away. I think they're an excellent starting point to iterate from. I will take that task item to find those goals. I I can remember I can picture that graphic in my head, but I just don't know where that went. Yeah, if you go back to a couple of the um a couple of board meetings back, they they should be in one of the board presentations. >> Okay. >> And if you can't find them, let me know. I can >> Okay, cool. And then next week I will bring them up here. >> Is that cool? I'm not sure who put this in here. Is that okay? >> I did. Um Hadink. Yes, it's cool. Um, >> okay. We We lost you. I don't know if you were still talking. Sorry, Eddie. We lost your audio. Okay. All right. Well, we have uh 10 minutes left. I know we have some Chaos Con things to talk about. So, if there's nothing else for the main meeting, we will shift gears into ChaosCom planning. Is that cool with everybody? All right, I'm going to go ahead and just stop recording and if that's cool, too. Maybe stop share and stop recording. I guess we could keep recording. live., CHAOSS Weekly Community Call, January 6, 2026, YouTube, 01kp8k0e61sq4msxhxgn73h9rg.