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

[Strainu]

2013/7/24 Balázs Viczián <balazs.viczian at wikimedia.hu>:
> 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?

I'd say this has already happened de facto with Wikidata. And projects
are always a bunch - just not always aligned with the WMF priorities.
Perhaps outsourcing some resources to local developers would help
solve some of the long-opened bugs for projects related to a certain
project.

Strainu

>
> 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
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikimedia-l mailing list
>> Wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
>> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list
> Wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>