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

[rupert THURNER]

If WMF is serious about letting development activities grow in other
countries this might be taken into account in FDCs allocation policy. Last
year Wmch offered to pay one additional developper for wikidata. It was
refused because of "too much growth". For wmch this would have been just
money flow while the person would have been managed by wmde's existing
project team. For donors in Switzerland such a contribution  would be easy
to communicate. Much easier to communicate than 400000 instead of 300000
went as contribution to WMFs 30 mio budget.

Rupert
Am 24.07.2013 22:56 schrieb "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?
>
> 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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