[Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

[Balázs Viczián]

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 at wikimedia.org>

> On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 6:44 AM, David Cuenca <dacuetu at 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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