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

[Sumana Harihareswara]

I am sorry for breaking threading; my "undigestify" plugin is giving me
an error.

I'm looking at <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/22622> -- "Upgrade
Wikimedia OTRS installation from 2.4.x CVS to the latest version
(3.2.1)" -- and I see that Wikimedia Foundation's Rob Halsell has been
trying to get in touch with Martin Edenhofer, the OTRS inventor, to get
him onto the next step of helping out.  If anyone knows Edenhofer and
can ask him to reply, that would be great, even if it's just to say
"sorry but this isn't something I can take on".  Resolving that will
reduce the "cookie-licking"
<http://communitymgt.wikia.com/wiki/Cookie_Licking> and make it easier
for others to coordinate.

I believe one thing that's needed is a clear commitment or confirmation
from the Foundation -- do we plan to upgrade or replace OTRS, or not?
If so, what is our timeframe? I've asked CT Woo, head of WMF Operations,
to please comment on the bug or on the list.  Since there are security
implications, I've also notified our Security Engineer, Chris Steipp, to
remind him of the current situation.

And another thing that's needed is clarity from WMF Legal on whether it
would be okay for a chapter or other affiliated group to work on
upgrading/moving/hosting/switching from OTRS, and whether there are EU
data privacy restrictions.  So I've asked Legal for comment.  Once we
understand that better, I can help Peter Gervai and Madman get going,
whether to help with an in-place upgrade, a move, or something else;
thank you so much for your offer!

Rjd0060, thanks for the link to open bugs in WMF's Bugzilla about OTRS
problems
<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&component=OTRS&product=Wikimedia>.
 I've asked our Bug Wrangler, Andre Klapper, and our bug wrangling
intern Valerie Juarez, to take a look at those tickets just to
double-check their priority so it's clear what problems the out-of-date
OTRS system is causing.

I've also emailed labs-l to follow up on Madman's question regarding the
status of <https://labsconsole.wikimedia.org/wiki/Nova_Resource:Otrs>
(the OTRS Labs project).

Thomas Morton, if you can forward me the note where the WMF promised an
update to OTRS early this year, that would be great to help me chase
this down. :-)

I am glad that people have been bringing this up and pushing for a
better toolset and experience for our volunteers.  Hope I can help.

-- 
Sumana Harihareswara
Engineering Community Manager
Wikimedia Foundation