Is WMF planning to outsource any of its engineering activities in the future? Or are there enough projects in the queue that makes the effort reasonable?
Otherwise I believe there is no point for any chapter to build out any software engineering capacity above their local needs or at all.
Balázs
2013/7/24 Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org
On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 6:44 AM, David Cuenca dacuetu@gmail.com wrote:
I don't agree with Romaine's view that it is a cultural problem, but it
is
true that the WMF management seems to prefer to have all development concentrated in SF.
Hardly. About half of WMF's engineering staff is distributed (both inside and outside the US), and we've encouraged and supported software engineering efforts by chapters. I'd actually love to see much more of that happen, and see other chapters build engineering capacity over time. It's legally challenging for WMF to have office presence in multiple jurisdictions, but having independent orgs like Wikimedia chapters build out development teams doesn't suffer from that challenge.
We're an open source project; being able to decentralize effort is our strength. The caveat I would add is that you actually need to ensure that complex projects are resourced sufficiently. Wikidata is a success in part because it's a well-resourced, well-managed team, and the partnership in areas where WMF does need to help was carefully negotiated.
So, which other chapters are up for building out serious software engineering capacity?
Erik
Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
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