Monthly Open Source Design call

Open Source Design meta Monthly call
273

(Using the template from Sven :folded_hands: Meeting Agenda Template )

Notes from the community call on the 7th of Jan 2026

  1. New topics for today’s agenda (5 min.)

    1. New project look at - JanD trying to come up with content for a structure re. be involved in design and open sourceproject & join the Open Source Design.net organisation - JanD has been writing about this!
    2. Progamming UI project JanD wants to share
    3. Update from Lisa re. website Jekyll - Lisa
    4. Angelo wants to also share details re. website updates - Angelo
    5. Open Collective + money talk - Eriol
    6. FOSDEM 2026 - Eriol

  2. Come in, say hello: Who is here, some background information about ourselves (country/culture, profession, open source involvement - in what role?), wishes for this meeting and for our community (15 min)

  1. How we are doing: (30 min.)

  • Things we are working on.

    • Content for a structure re. be involved in design and open sourceproject & join the Open Source Design.net organisation
      • JanD has worked on a document outlining OSD.net doing design contributions on OSS projects Open Source Design: Designing in Open Source - Google Docs
      • Adding feature ideas, labels etc how to make an impact in OSS projects
      • What the key phrases and things you’ll hear again and again in OSS
      • https://opendesign.guide/ was mentioned as doing some work but then not
      • Is documentation a good place to start for designers? Many projects don’t have these user-focused documentation that is very focused on the executables
      • The issue with writing documentation is that it’s harder for a junior/newcomer to come in and start writing manuals for things they don’t have any prior knowledge about, since they haven’t been part of the project before
      • re: documentation.. if y’all know people going to fosdem and want doc / design help we have a fringe event https://ubuntu.com/blog/design-and-documentation-clinics-at-fosdem-fringe-2026
      • This means that usually the best people to start writing about that are the ones that did the implementation initially
      • Next Steps/Actions: If people want to pick up a topic that needs ‘filling in’ then community members absolutely can and should pick that up please! Helping to edit these sections as well as writing issues, mailing lists etc.
    • Website improvements

  • Open Collective + money

    • We got $8 from google to work on governance/deicision making in OSD.net when Eriol did this and asked: me says:https://github.com/Erioldoesdesign/open-source-design-community-governance
    • Open Source Design - Open Collective
    • Google have now timeline and few/no expectations on how this work gets done.
      • They would very much like to see
        • Stories, needs, wants, thoughts opinions from the OSD.net community on how governance was, is and should be and why, then have a peson digest, synthesise and understand those stories and thoughts together and then form recommendations, proposals, suggestions, documents (tbc defined)
        • They want to be able to talk about this work more widely and replicate it if they want to
      • There is an advisory team for this work made up of around 4-5 people from the core maintainer team as a ‘overview’ of how this gets spent/done
      • Next steps are: Writing up the project outline for ‘applications’ and interest for the OSD.net jobs page but also the advisory team needs to consider how we might shortlist and choose folks that put in applications and why this is a preferred way of doing this rather than hiring someone/s we have a good idea can do the work well. (this isn’t a contract or job role with infrastructure, it’ll be a project someone will work on and invoice for so we won’t be acting as ‘employers’ in any official way.

  • FOSDEM

    • We have a full room!
    • Eriol wants to document how to run FOSDEM devroom this year so next year someone else can do it if they want to
    • Also we’re figuring out in the core maintainer team how to spend/distribute our travel stipend funds in an eqitable way!
    • If volunteers are needed who to direct them to? please email erioldoesdesign@gmail.com
    • Next steps are: Do FOSDEM! woohoo!

  • Progamming UI project (from JanD) Save for next time!

  1. About this meeting: (10 min.)

  • What went well for this meeting?

    • Any feedback from folks that attended re. this?

  • What could we improve for the next meeting? What goes into the minutes and what doesn’t?

    • Any feedback from folks that attended re. this?