[Koha-devel] Thoughts about timing and Koha schedules

[Kathryn Tyree]

Hi Brendan and all,

I'll note the Catalyst perspective/experience on this.

The financial year/deadlines in NZ are also July-June or Jan-Dec. The
only time of year that is 'typically' quieter for us as a company is Mid
Dec-Mid Jan while many of our customer libraries are closed. We take
holidays, and catch up on upgrades for any libraries who like to test
while their office is quiet.

We wouldn't expect to be able to commit any more time to community
efforts by changing the release dates. At present we have three people
with community roles/monthly responsibilities, and everyone puts time
into testing/patching when other work is quiet no matter what the time
of year. If something urgent like security vulnerabilities are found,
everyone who is needed in the patching effort drops everything else
until those are fixed.

It feels a bit like trying to find a time of day when everyone can come
to a community meeting - it'll never happen! Therefore I think the most
important thing is that the dates are fixed.

I'd agree its something to put to the main list/everyone.

Cheers,
Kathryn

Kathryn Tyree
http://catalyst.net.nz/ 











Message:
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2015 01:56:45 -0700
From: Brendan Gallagher <info at bywatersolutions.com>
To: Koha Devel <koha-devel at lists.koha-community.org>
Subject: [Koha-devel] Thoughts about timing and Koha schedules
Message-ID:

<CANGWTFRMD2Jp2_Lqsr4bf=G0Rs6ywA7WjWNqUO2tJBiMkvZycA at mail.gmail.com>
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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