TOC Meeting Notes - 2024-06-11

Owned by Xavier Antoviaque
Jul 12, 2024
3 min read

Meeting Summary

Attendees:

  • Ed Zarecor

  • Régis Behmo

  • Dave Ormsbee

  • Anant Agarwal

  • George Babey

  • Adolfo Brandes

  • Dustin (joined later)

Key Points Discussed:

  1. Meeting Logistics:

    • Ed Zarecor mentioned the meeting transcription and recording.

  2. Casual Catch-Up, Attendee Arrivals and Travel Plans

    • The meeting began with attendees greeting each other and sharing travel plans. One participant mentioned they were flying on the 29th and the flight duration was around 12 hours, which was longer than expected.

    • There was a casual exchange about current locations and activities. One of the attendees was in a basement at the Holiday Inn in New York, Ireland, watching the cricket T20 World Cup. This led to a brief discussion on cricket, where attendees shared their support for different teams in the ongoing World Cup.

  3. Team Availability and Organizational Structure

    • The meeting continued with updates on team availability and some organizational context. It was mentioned that several team members were unavailable due to conflicts, vacation, or other commitments. 

  4. Incident with OtterBot Tool:

    • There was an incident where the OtterBot tool recorded conversations beyond the meeting due to a participant staying in the meeting for a long time.

    • The incident led to discussions about code of conduct and legal exposure concerns.

    • Decision: Autobot and similar AI tools will not be used in Open edX meetings.

  5. 2025 Open edX Conference

    • Ed provided updates on productive conversations with Carlos and Remy from the school applying to host it in 2025.

  6. Redwood Release Update

    • The Redwood release was discussed, highlighting a delay due to a security bug that needed to be resolved. The release, initially scheduled for June 10th, was postponed to the following Monday to ensure the security fix was applied adequately. There was an emphasis on the significance of addressing the security concerns thoroughly before proceeding with the release.

  7. Architectural Discussion:

    • Ed, Adolfo Brandes, and Dave Ormsbee presented on the architectural direction of the Open edX platform.

    • The primary objective was to ensure all participants agreed on the high-level architectural goals for the platform. Goals include responding to acute needs and making long-term investments in the platform, and developing a plugin architecture to address the need for greater integration flexibility and customization by third parties. 

      1. This new architecture would enable developers and users to plug in external components easily and customize the platform according to specific needs without affecting the core system stability.

      2. Discussion on the plugin system for micro front ends, developed by Aperture team at 2U with support from Adolfo and other community members.

      3. Emphasis on making the plugin system simple, flexible, and stable for both developers and operators.

      4. Future plans include adding more plugin slots, unifying backend and frontend plugin communication, making plugins discoverable, and potentially an admin UI for plugin management.

    • The participants were encouraged to provide feedback on the proposed changes and think about future considerations that might impact the platform's development. This was part of an ongoing effort to iterate on the architecture based on actual user needs and technological advancements.

    • Various viewpoints were expressed regarding the implementation challenges associated with the new architecture. Some participants were concerned about the potential complexity of integrating a robust plugin system without compromising the platform's performance and security.

    • The long-term implications of the architectural changes were also discussed. Participants were interested in understanding how the proposed changes would affect the platform's scalability, maintainability, and ability to adapt to future technological changes.

    • The architectural discussion aimed to foster a collaborative approach to enhancing the Open edX platform, ensuring that it remains a robust, flexible, and user-friendly system for educational institutions, developers, and learners worldwide.

  8. Standards and Integration:

    • Discussion on leveraging accepted standards like LTI and XAPI while maintaining internal standards like OLX.

    • Consideration of integrating with key players in the ecosystem like H5P and Salesforce for better product quality and interoperability.

    • Challenges with existing standards and the importance of identifying strategic partners for integration.

  9. Deprecation of Unused Features:

    • Focus on reducing maintenance burden by deprecating rarely used features and repositories.

    • Example: The deprecation of the e-commerce platform and transition to WooCommerce plugin.

The meeting involved detailed technical discussions, strategic planning, and decision-making to enhance the Open edX platform's architecture and usability.