Desktop Secrets Management for the Future (Privacy and Security)

• Daiki Ueno

While the D-Bus "Secret Service" API is integrated well in the GNOME desktop through gnome-keyring and libsecret, the architecture is getting outdated as flatpak apps come to the fore. One of the biggest problems of the current architecture is that the secrets are not properly isolated per application and that allows one application to request another application's secrets. To address this, there was an idea proposed at GUADEC 2013: provision applications with a session key through kernel keyring and let the applications locally encrypt their secrets. This approach, however, was still suboptimal, because it requires authentication and access control in kernel keyrings. In this talk we discuss the threat models taking into account of flatpak based workflow and propose an approach to overcome those by combining the local encryption idea with public-key cryptography, TLS-PSK, and hardware-based security.

Gitlab - A Year in Review and What Should Come Next (Project Organisation and Governance)

• Sriram Ramkrishna

It's been over two years since we've made the initial transition and this talk will have a retrospective on the impact the move has on the project, but what also can we do to continue to make a better experience.  This talk will be both a review of metrics and a brainstorming session on further projects that we can pursue.

Designing Multi-Process Application Security (Privacy and Security)

• Christian Hergert

Browser technology over the past decade has taught us practical lessons about how to increase application security through the use of sandboxes. However, sandboxes seem to necessarily require using multiple processes to limit damage from various software components. You don't want a bug in your image decoder to exploit access your email and contact databases, potentially corrupting or siphoning data to an attacker. This talk will discuss design strategies and implementation details for how to implement multi-process applications for the Linux desktop using GNOME technologies such as DBus, bubblewrap, and Flatpak.

Hack: Embedding Learning Tools in the OS (Application Development and Deployment)

• Meg Ford
• Manuel Quiñones

Hack is a new GNOME-based learning project that teaches kids to code. In this talk we will give a high-level overview of Hack, and the different components which are integrated in a real operating system (Endless OS): the games, the toolbox to modify their source code, the quest system to guide the player, and the inter-process communication systems that we use to glue everything together.

Moving GNOME to Another Reality (Design of User and Developer Experiences)

• Lubosz Sarnecki

AR and VR did not only introduce a new class of output devices, but with tracked controllers and hands also the requirement for a new set of user interactions. This talk investigates solutions in existing implementations and points out how the classical UX model with keyboard and mouse translates to these new devices. The technical aspect of these requirements will also be highlighted. The audience will get an overview of the status of Open Source in VR and the opportunities for GNOME. We will propose an implementation that integrates VR in the GNOME desktop, featuring 3D window management and desktop input synthesis.

Help - I'm Falling in Love with Flatpak

• Richard Brown

Environmentally Friendly GNOME (Project Organisation and Governance)

• Philip Withnall (Endless)

How environmentally friendly is GNOME, both the software and the project? What can we do to make it better, at a technical level and at a social level? This is going to be a talk of observations, and maybe some thoughts about solutions, but I don’t have all the answers. Graphs may be involved.

Building the GNOME Community in Africa (Community Building and Diversity)

• Stellamaris Njage (Software Developer)
• Sigu Magwa

Africa, we believe, is a totally unique market/audience in terms of accessing and using technologies. We have run technology communities and organised technology events in Kenya for almost 5 years which we would share our experiences up to this point. We will also give proposals for what we think is a better approach into achieving better penetration and adoption of GNOME in terms of users and contributors to GNOME.

Freedesktop-sdk Status Update and Future Plans (Application Development and Deployment)

• Valentin David (Codethink)
• Adam Jones

The flatpak base runtime provided by the freedesktop-sdk project is the runtime which GNOME and KDE runtimes are based on. It's also the base for any flatpak app that uses those runtimes or the freedesktop-sdk runtime directlyIn this talk we will discuss new improvements the community have made during the 18.08 release cycle, and we will also present what new updates and features we have been working on for the new 19.08 release! Some of the topics we will touch include: Improvements since 18.08 QA improvements (CVE, ABI) Some adjustments on the release model 19.08 new features and updates

GNOME UX: Strategies & Tactics (Design of User and Developer Experiences)

• Allan Day

This talk is about the GNOME user experience: the experience of those using GNOME software. In particular, it is about where that UX needs to go, and how we can get there. In the first half of the talk, I'll talk about strategy: what GNOME's goals and priorities need to be, if we want to succeed. I'll start by talking about where the desktop is positioned in 2019, and what the opportunities are for GNOME, as well as the risks that we face. In the second half of the talk, I will talk about the approaches and methods that are needed to help us meet our strategic goals. In doing so, I'll talk about how design and development needs to be thought about and organised, and how the process of creating great UX needs to evolve if we are to succeed.

About Maintainers and Contributors (Project Organisation and Governance)

• Georges Basile Stavracas Neto (Endless Foundation)

We go to great lengths to ensure a consistent and smooth experience to those who use GNOME, but do we do the same for those who make it? This talk is about the multitude of challenges, joys, glooms, and routine of being a GNOME application maintainer. The idea came after writing about being a free software maintainer [1], and observing the massive repercussion it had. Turns out, we barely talk about how we maintainers feel, the challenges we face but are lost amidst bug trackers, merge requests, and IRC conversations. The talk will be done in 3 parts: Very brief overview about my trajectory from a user to a contributor to a maintainer; The different situations that happen after becoming a maintainer Potential strategies for dealing with the maintainership struggles  The tone of the talk, however, is less about giving answers, and more about exposing situations, sharing stories and struggles, and opening a safe space to talk about it. Non-maintainers will have the chance to look and appreciate what does it take to be a maintainer.

Recruiting diamonds in the rough - finding open source developers

• Kat Gerasimova

Introducing User Research to non-UXers (Design of User and Developer Experiences)

• Renata Gegaj

User research is a crucial point for following a user-centered design approach. However, smaller teams may not have the resources to prioritize it. In this session, we will cover the value of doing research, choosing the right methods. Organizing and running research in just a few steps with minimal resources, to get user feedback that will help improve your product. These methods can be applied by designers, engineers or any team member. We will go through the process step by step, using examples from research conducted for various open source projects like GNOME, Thunderbird, I2P, Briar, HTTPS Everywhere. Most importantly, we will discuss how to effectively use the results to have an impact on the development decision-making process.

Is the Linux Desktop Really Dead? (Design of User and Developer Experiences)

• Robert McQueen

The Linux desktop is dead. At least, this has been the claim of many people. But is it really? So many core platforms have moved to open source software over the past decade. Although Windows now includes a copy of Linux, the desktop has not moved. While mobile phones have taken the world's attention, the desktop is still the primary work and study platform, and average use has continued to grow since the launch of the smartphone. And yet, since Apple launched the iPhone and turned that into its primary profit machine, it has not invested in updating its desktop operating system. Isn't there potential to update the desktop into the 2020 version of itself? And isn't it possible for GNOME to be the organization that does that? What if we dreamed big? What if it were possible for Linux to conquer a niche beyond its original niche of engineers in order to capture a meaningful slice of the consumer desktop market? It often seems that this dream has been lost. Certainly isn't that the reason for the claim of many that the Linux desktop is dead? But what if it weren't. This talk is about the case for why it isn't, for why it is so important that the future of the desktop be free software, and for a potential strategy for achieving that. Our strategy is about picking a niche that is winnable, then none of the other players are going after, and yet it needs real attention in order to be won. Our company is pursuing this strategy because the Linux desktop has incredible technology and potential, and with the right design and strategy, we can open a new market and transform our odds of success. Tesla comes to mind in an era of cars that have not been updated for decades and yet they had so much potential for innovation. And yet, this is only one company. What can we do as a community of individuals and companies to push GNOME into new markets and into a world in which it can capture tens of percentage points? Today that seems crazy, but is it really? This talk is a case for why it isn't, and what we need to do.

Accessibility Features for Mutter/GNOME Shell on Wayland (Application Development and Deployment)

• Oliver Fourdan

Historically, accessibility features in GNOME on X11 were handled by different components such as Xorg itself for keyboard accessibility, “mousetweaks” for mouse accessibility, GNOME settings daemon for locate pointer, AT-SPI registry daemon, etc. All these features relied on the ability to query the input devices on behalf of other clients or generate fake input events, neither of which is possible with Wayland anymore. The purpose of this talk is to present the current status and the technical solutions chosen in mutter/gnome-shell to make these features available on both X11 and Wayland.

Designing GNOME Mobile Apps (Design of User and Developer Experiences)

• Tobias Bernard

GNOME Mobile has come a long way since last year's GUADEC. We now have all the main widgets needed to make GNOME apps adaptive, i.e. work well across all form factors from phone, to tablet, to desktop. A number of core and third-party apps have already been ported, and new apps are being built with to be adaptive from the start. In this talk I'll give an overview of the most important adaptive design patterns, how existing apps are using them, and how you can use them in your own apps.

The Growth of GNOME (Project Organisation and Governance)

• Neil McGovern

The GNOME Foundation has seen some generous donations recently, and we are now seeing the impact of these with new staff coming on board at the Foundation. This talk will look at the future of the Foundation and the project, and highlight key plans for the future growth of GNOME.

Product metrics & respecting privacy

• Robert McQueen