On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 7:19 AM, Mark A. Hershberger mah@everybody.org wrote:
On 02/21/2013 04:13 AM, Siebrand Mazeland (WMF) wrote:
B. Who is MediaWiki's release manager, and what can we expect of the person who has that role?
[..] Absent an explicit statement from anyone inside Foundation, we've been a bit confused.
So, I'll WP:Bold and answer Siebrand's question: I am MediaWiki's release manager. Here is what you can expect of me:
Manage the release schedule. At least initially, I will be making the releases.
Work to get bugfixes backported to 1.19. I don't have Gerrit rights to commit to the REL1_19 branch, but that will keep me from fixing "bugs" by fiat.
Champion features that non-WMF users want. This includes things like searching inside a category and a WYSIWYG editor.
Work with community members to triage non-security bugs in released versions of MediaWiki.
Is there something else the MW release manager should be doing? Let me know.
Is there anyone in the WMF who disagrees with this assessment?
Not that I'm aware of. Thank you, Mark, for taking this on!
Re: Greg's title as "Release Manager". Wikimedia Foundation is relatively unique in having both "releases" and "deployments" that are distinct. Most of the industry uses these terms interchangeably. When we went to advertise this position, we could have more accurately (by MediaWiki dev community standards) called this position a "Deployment Manager", but that's not what the role is typically called in other organizations, so we went with "Release Manager".
Greg is largely going to be focused on Wikimedia cluster issues in his role. He'll be responsible for making sure *someone* is on the task of publishing a release tarball, and may get more involved if there are widespread concerns about quality or a rethinking of our current strategy, but for the forseeable future, the role is largely supportive. Greg may well have cycles to help Mark with the release process, but Mark will take the lead on it.
One potential grey area is security releases, which need simultaneous release and deployment. That's an area we'll need to work in close collaboration.
This all make sense?
Rob