[Koha-devel] Thoughts about timing and Koha schedules

[Marcel de Rooy]

Hi Brendan,

This sounds very reasonable.

But I just want to add that August is probably not that great for releasing a new version. In July and August the community is not on its most active state of the year :)



Marcel



________________________________
Van: koha-devel-bounces at lists.koha-community.org [koha-devel-bounces at lists.koha-community.org] namens Brendan Gallagher [info at bywatersolutions.com]
Verzonden: vrijdag 21 augustus 2015 10:56
Aan: Koha Devel
Onderwerp: [Koha-devel] Thoughts about timing and Koha schedules

Hi All -

ByWater is on its 7th year, so we have a solid set of data for analyzing, and recently I've noticed a few things.  Let me try and paint the picture.

Major Koha releases are every six months and usually the 22nd day of the month, with the target being November and May.  (Please correct me if I am wrong)

Library funding cycles in the US run either fiscal year (July to June), Calendar year  (January to December), or some odd fiscal year close to the July~June year.  Ok that being said from the time management situation with ByWater that introduces a few complexities.

(Let me describe the workflow and maybe you'll see what I am talking about)  Most of the time a library will sign a migration contract with us that dictates we must have them "go-live" before a certain fiscal date OR the library isn't really able to "sign" a contract for services until a certain fiscally motivated date (which places us into a similar roll-out).  That being said we find that May and November (plus and minus a month) are our busiest times of the year.  I've got 3 people on the road for education/training, 3 people heavily in the fields of migrations scripts, and 3 developers that are heavily in the field of meeting development expectations for lots and lots of go-lives (*note - plus additional staff to support an influx in tickets or other support needs during a go-live period).

So if we slide the releases to say February and August - I would be able to dedicate more man power (9+ people from the above paragraph) around the heavy testing/ debugging / bug writing/squashing periods for a release.  I know I know - there isn't really a time that Koha doesn't need more testing, but I've noticed that the volunteer effort is usually much greater/demanding the closer we are to major release date.

I am wondering if others are finding the same with their work schedules (other support providers, academic institutions, public institutions, and my favorite volunteers).  Are there certain times of the years where your day job is predictably busy that you aren't able to dedicate the resources that you want towards the greatest project in the world Koha.

With the data set that we're sitting on here, we are constantly seeking ways that we can contribute more.  Just a thought and was curious if others analyzed a similar aspect with their environment and perhaps maybe we should bring such a discussion into the open or a general IRC meeting.  Especially any of us that are support providers we should be always be thinking about how we can do more for Koha.

Thanks and Cheers (another sleepless night thinking about my favorite subject - Koha),
Brendan

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Brendan A. Gallagher
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