[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS

[Rjd0060]

On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 11:25 PM, MZMcBride <z at mzmcbride.com> wrote:

> Hi.
>
> OTRS (<https://ticket.wikimedia.org/>) is a critical piece of Wikimedia's
> infrastructure. It currently handles nearly all customer service inquiries
> directed at Wikimedia. Trusted volunteers triage and respond to this
> e-mail.
>
> Wikimedia is currently running OTRS version 2.4. The most recently
> released OTRS version is 3.2. There's been an outstanding request to update
> Wikimedia's OTRS installation for just shy of three years now:
> <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/22622>. OTRS' inventor kindly offered to
> donate his time to help with an upgrade, but due to a number of factors,
> this has become an untenable solution.
>
> Given the bug's fast-approaching birthday, the security concerns of
> running outdated software, the Wikimedia Foundation apparently being
> overburdened and uninterested in maintaining this piece of software, and
> mounting volunteer frustration, I'm wondering whether this is an area
> where the Wikimedia chapters or some other group might be able to lend a
> hand in supporting the maintenance of this piece of important
> infrastructure. Broadly, the Wikimedia Foundation isn't acting on this
> issue and it seems to have little interest in maintaining or supporting
> this software any longer.
>
> Given recent discussion about various Wikimedia movement roles, I'm
> wondering whether a Wikimedia chapter or a grant or some other movement
> player could either take on supporting the existing OTRS installation (by
> hiring a contractor), evaluating and implementing better/different
> response software, and/or moving the response system elsewhere.
>
> MZMcBride
>
>
>
>
>

I've been working on OTRS since 2008 and have been an OTRS administrator
for much of that time.  As somebody who devotes a lot of his time to
OTRS-related work, I'm extremely disappointed in the lack of support the
OTRS team has been dealing with.  As MZMcBride points out, there are a
number of reasons why the software needs to be updated.

Last year, we handled roughly 40,000 general inquiries in over 35
languages.[1]  This alone should be a convincing reason as to why we should
have at least somewhat up-to-date software, clean of security issues and
other problems.[2]

While I realize that there have been other priorities, I would have thought
that with 3 years of waiting, eventually OTRS would be important enough for
somebody to give some much needed attention to.

[1] -
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/24/the-incredible-work-of-the-wikimedia-volunteer-response-team/
[2] -
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&component=OTRS&product=Wikimedia

-- 

Ryan
User:Rjd0060