Aye, these are valid points, and there are very real issues with what we
have (and don't have) currently.
But why do we need a separate organisation to address them? Why can they
not be addressed at home, on mw.org? Why hasn't any of this
consolidation happened already, before adding another level of complexity?
Some comments inline, too, but they're less relevant to my main
point/question.
On 04/08/14 16:27, Derric Atzrott wrote:
This reply is as I understand the situation to be. If
anyone else can
provide a bit more insight into things, or correct me where I am wrong,
I would be grateful.
Hi,
What would be the purpose of this organisation and separate community,
exactly? Has there been any demonstrated need or even want for such an
organisation amongst the community it would proportedly serve?
This is something that has been in the works on Wikitech-l for some time
now. The folks on Wikitech-l and the WMF have come to the decision that
they can't really dedicate the resources required to handle third parties
properly (someone correct me if I am wrong on this).
I thought that was what the release managers were supposed to be doing.
I could be wrong.
They are going to be working with the folks over at
Debian, among other
places, to get the vary Linux distributions packages up-to-date and keep
them up-to-date.
They are also going to be giving the installer a little bit more love than
it currently has, and working on additional database support. The WMF is
paying them for their work. Its a contracted deal to offload some of the
development and release tasks that primarily benefit third-party users to
someone who can actually dedicate the time and effort to listen to third-
party users.
But is there any reason these would need to be off
mw.org etc and out of
the existing communities? Why they would need an entirely new community?
How would that help?
Given the luck that enteprise has had in the past at
getting some features
added to Mediawiki (without coding them ourselves that is), I believe that
a need has definitely been demonstrated. As an enteprise user myself, I
personally want this and like the idea, so while I can't speak for
everyone, at least one person in the community wants it.
In open source, that's how it works - unless you get lucky or it's
fairly generic, you need to code specific pieces you need yourself, or
explicitly pay someone else to do it. Developer time isn't free, even if
they are donating it.
A new organisation would not change that.
I ask in particular because as a third-party
sysadmin myself, it's hard
enough following all the relevant discussion and information that
concerns releases as it is already.
I think the idea is that they will be
consolodating these as much as
possible. Though, I will say that I think they should keep using this
list as the primary list for enteprise instead of having their own
mailing list as well. Unless the enterprise list is to be deprecated.
It would be nice to just be able to subscribe to two lists as a
third-party user, mediawiki-enteprise-l and announcements-l.
If you have custom extensions, large scale, and/or like to keep up to
date, wikitech-l is pretty much a requirement too, since architectural
changes and whatnot are discussed there, and they will affect how you do
things even if you don't have a particular stake in the outcome.
If you do, however, the only way to ensure your voice is heard is to
speak up for yourself, or hire someone directly to do so. This is
unfortunate because some discussions (such as the Architecture Summit)
can be particularly time-consuming and potentially costly, but my
experience there and on various lists (with the WMF, with the Marks, and
others) has been that nobody else will speak for you unless they have an
explicit reason to do so. Someone else paying them to do so is not such
a reason, because people answer to the people who pay them, not random
people out on the sidelines.
Adding another
organisation on top
of that, with its own lists and websites to check and follow, and
another layer of community to go through to get things upstreamed, seems
highly premature when we can't even consolidate the basics (release
notes, date announcements, even testing) at home.
I suspect that they will be more
able to help third-party users get things
upstreamed. Or at least that is my hope.
They should also be handling release notes and date announcements entirely
now for third-party users (assuming I've understood correctly). I think
that this will lead to more consistent and easier to understand release
notes and announcements.
I can't really say anything about testing. I'm not terribly familiar with
any of our testing infrastructure to be honest.
These things can easily be done without a new organisation and
community. They just take time and resources regardless of where they
wind up.
The new organisation and community would also take time and resources.
On top of that.
Considering we
also have no guarantee that any new organisation would be
more receptive to the needs and concerns of the third-party end users
than the WMF is currently, and there would still be things we would need
to go to the WMF directly about anyway (thus making it even harder to
figure out where to go for something), I find this all very worrying.
They are
being paid to be more receptive, so I hope that they will be.
I should hope that they will also be able to act as a liason between
third-party users and the Mediawiki development community.
Personally, I don't find it worrying, I actually find it quite refreshing.
Its about time third-party users were treated as first-party citizens! :D
Thank you,
Derric Atzrott
Aye, we need better. But it's been a year already with a much more
contained scope, and even that has proven far more difficult than those
involved expected, with subsequently little progress. In light of this,
extending the scope seems highly premature.
Hence worrying. I want the better to actually happen.
-I