[Koha-devel] RM for 2.4 [news from france]

[Chris Cormack]

Paul POULAIN wrote:

>
> Hi Chris & koha-devel mailing list,
>
> Your mail was interesting. However, before choosing anyone, i wanted 
> to give you some informations (from France) :
> * SAN ouest provence. It's a large "médiathèque" (= french library 
> with multimedia, not only paper books), as large as Nelsonville in 
> fact, which means large for france.
> * Ineo is a large -french & european- company that is involved in 
> library world. They have something like 70 employees, 25M€ income each 
> year.
>
Thats very cool.

> I was with them in Nelsonville last month.
> The result of this trip (apart from meeting in real life stephen, owen 
> & joshua that was really great) was that SAN decided definetly to go 
> with Koha.
> And that's a very very very important news (not sure to have 
> permission to announce it officially, but announcing it anyway ;-) )
>
> For many reasons. First of all, in France, they will give a very big 
> boost to Koha reputation (that is already good it seems !)
> Second, they plan to add some (many) features to Koha. They have 
> dedicated 3 (yes, three) developpers for this. I'll add them in koha 
> dev list in a few minut (they gave me sf nicknames yesterday : btoumi, 
> hpassini, alaurin). I'll suggest them to introduce themself here (none 
> of them three were in Nelsonville)
>
> What i'll request is to write what they will add & publish it ASAP. In 
> fact, i/we already have written some pages (in french) about that. 
> Still has to be completed & translated. But should arrive soon.

Excellent

>
> What will Ineo do in this matter ? Ineo, as a large company, will help 
> SAN to go to Koha. So, they will coordinate dev of new features, help 
> them migrating, teach...
> More than this, Ineo answered an RFP from a french university (Angers. 
> I think Nicolas Morin reads this list, but he can't say anything on 
> this topic & I can't ask him anything either). They will probably 
> answer RFP from another university (Antilles, french too but closer 
> from US than france)
> This means Ineo want to appear as a major company in Koha-project. My 
> opinion is that the best way for them to appear is... to take the role 
> of Release Manager.
> That's an important thing for another reason. Ineo is not known in the 
> OSS world yet, so, taking this role would be the "ticket" for them, 
> imho, to prove they want to play a fair game.
>
> They still don't have decided officially. But that should arrive very 
> very very soon. I cc Francois Laurent Contenay (he was in nelsonville) 
> & could be dedicated to this role by Ineo. Once again, that is not an 
> official information, just to warn you.
>
> So, the next question is : who, from Joshua or Ineo would be the best 
> RM ?
> My opinion is that Joshua has more experience in Koha, but there are 
> many other reasons that make me prefer Ineo :
> - With frenchies (once again ;-) ) on the top of developper list (me, 
> henri damien, sylvain machefert -for ensmp-, SAN, Ineo), it's easier 
> to have ppl with the same working hours. Coordinating would be easier. 
> We just have to be very very careful not to work only with/for 
> frenchies, but stay a world-wide project. That would probably be our 
> main risk (not to be careful enough).

Yes, we have a lot of Koha installations to do here in New Zealand 
(including another public library), and will be working heavily again on 
Koha. So id imagine id be committing a lot more code again.

> - SAN ouest provence has a deadline : they want Koha to be ready on 
> January, 1st. And Ineo don't want them to fail (because Ineo want to 
> be able to say to futures libraries : look, Koha is great, we are 
> koha-experts) It means we need a Release Manager that can work heavily 
> on head. Even 24/7 if needed.
>
I dont personally think the release managers should nessecarily be 
committing code ... I think that the release manager should not be a 
programmer but more someone who knows the project and can manage the 
programmers.
IE the release manager doesnt have to touch CVS really, as long as he 
can direct others who can.
I think there is always a danger (I fell into the trap myself when I was 
looking after 1.0 and 1.2) that a programmer is tempted to sneak 
features in.
I think now that project has grown as big as it has, we want a manager 
who can devote themselves to setting goals, checking they are met, 
communicating with the developers etc.

So maybe we are thinking of different roles? Id be thinking of Ineo 
having huge input into helping set the goals, and doing lots of 
development.Perhaps doing the QA.
Perhaps they have someone who could fulfil the role I was thinking of, 
or perhaps others were thinking of a more hands on/code writing release 
manager.

> So how could we "use" Joshua ? He answered the question himself :
> > My primary concern with 2.4 will be Quality Assurance both in existing
> > code and any new code that is committed.
>
> Great, we have a QA manager volunteer. That's what we still lacks.
>
> Let me know your opinion/reactions.

Maybe we could switch it round, Ineo doing QA (the most essential job 
IMHO if you want to impress clients)

Just some thoughts on a wednesday night after spending all day in Koha 
meetings.
Dont take anything to seriously, im just thinking out loud :)

Chris