[IAEP] maintenance

[Tomeu Vizoso]

On Sat, May 1, 2010 at 00:48, Sebastian Dziallas <sebastian at when.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 1:29 PM, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Tomeu,
>>
>> Thank you for writing down this summary and for making a proposal as
>> to how we can address this problem. I would add that the problem
>> reaches farther than the core Sugar modules themselves: Sugar without
>> Sugar Activities is not very useful to the learner. We need to
>> maintain a core set of activities as well.
>>
>> I agree that getting the deployment team revived is critical to any solution.
>
> I *do* care. While my sugar-core code-related action possibilities
> might be limited for now (though I'm hoping to improve that over the
> summer), I'll do everything possible to back such an effort from a
> Sugar on a Stick perspective.
>
> Thanks for bringing this up. It *is* an important conversation to have
> and I'm glad we're having it.

Thanks to you, SoaS plays an important role in making available to
users the latest releases of Sugar as they are out. OLPC deployments
also have a big interest in SoaS and I hope they can pool resources in
SLs for work on SoaS.

Regards,

Tomeu

> --Sebastian
>
>> regards.
>>
>> -walter
>>
>> On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 6:38 AM, Tomeu Vizoso <tomeu at tomeuvizoso.net> wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> follows a plan about how to improve the situation regarding
>>> maintenance of our software modules. If you care about it, please
>>> reply even if only to say so, or even better, comment on it and
>>> suggest improvements. I will assume that lack of replies mean people
>>> don't care about it and will stop caring about it myself.
>>>
>>> == The problem ==
>>>
>>> The process by which our software reaches to children is complex and
>>> involves several organizations. Sugar Labs is one of those and its
>>> responsibility is to provide the raw sources that organizations
>>> "downstream" such as OLPC, Fedora and Paraguay Educa will modify,
>>> package, ship and install. It's very important that modifications done
>>> downstream are kept to a minimum so that all downstreams share as much
>>> work as possible. This means that the raw sources we provide need to
>>> contain the features that downstream need in each release and that it
>>> contains as few bugs as possible.
>>>
>>> In order to provide good "raw sources", we have a series of processes
>>> that assure that the expected features are present and that the worst
>>> bugs are either fixed or at least well-known. These processes include
>>> testing, bug triage (keeping the bug database in order), source
>>> release, code review, user experience design and code development. An
>>> important role present in most of those processes is that of the
>>> module maintainer.
>>>
>>> A module maintainer takes responsibility for a part of the source
>>> code. The maintainer will release code at known times and will have
>>> worked so it has gone through the processes outlined above. Of course,
>>> the maintainer cannot do all the work by herself, but is ultimately
>>> responsible for it. Normally the maintainer will have spent most of
>>> her time triaging and fixing bugs, and will be trying hard to keep the
>>> module "in order" so that in future releases the maintenance burden
>>> doesn't grow too much as new code gets in. An important process in
>>> keeping the maintenance burden in check is "code review", by which the
>>> maintainer checks that the new code that gets in a release won't
>>> increase the maintenance burden too much.
>>>
>>> The problem is that very few people in Sugar Labs are willing to do
>>> that maintenance work. We have people keen on packaging Sugar,
>>> deploying it, training teachers on it, developing new activities and
>>> new Sugar features, people write books about Sugar, setup help lines
>>> to support Sugar users, universities are given grants to study the use
>>> of Sugar, load machines with it, etc. Big amounts of volunteer time
>>> and money are being spent around Sugar but almost nothing is going to
>>> maintenance. Paradoxically, any use of Sugar requires that it is
>>> reasonably stable and most investments are made with the assumption
>>> that Sugar will keep being developed.
>>>
>>> I also want to make explicit that almost all maintenance effort has
>>> come from a few volunteers that are tired and disappointed about the
>>> little importance that has been given to this work. We are very close
>>> to have no maintainers at all in Sugar, meaning as well that nobody
>>> with the needed experience will be around to mentor new maintainers.
>>>
>>>
>>> == Proposal A: Get downstreams working better inside Sugar Labs ==
>>>
>>> I would say that the main reason why so many people are keen in
>>> investing on Sugar but so little goes into maintenance is
>>> miscommunication. Downstreams don't know how Sugar is developed, who
>>> develops it nor what is to gain by investing upstream nor what they
>>> risk by not doing so. And we cannot keep sitting on our hands waiting
>>> for each of them to have an epiphany.
>>>
>>> I don't want to give the impression that nobody is doing any of that
>>> outreach work, Walter has met with OLPC deployment representatives and
>>> has tried to explain it to them, Bernie is volunteering at Paraguay,
>>> Gonzalo is working at the OLPC deployment in Argentina and I have
>>> traveled to Uruguay to talk about this. But while these individual
>>> efforts have had a positive effect by themselves, we still have lots
>>> of other downstreams to reach and we also must follow up on those
>>> relationships. My hypothesis is that we are losing great opportunities
>>> by not having better covered this area.
>>>
>>> In order to do that, I think SLs should give maximum priority to
>>> revive the deployment team:
>>> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Deployment_Team
>>>
>>>
>>> == Proposal B: Get our community thinking about resourcing ==
>>>
>>> If the deployment team was working as it should (with participation of
>>> several downstreams), the needs of our users and partners would be
>>> voiced there. But it's not enough with voicing needs, it can even be
>>> harmful if we make exigences on overworked volunteers because some
>>> will burnout and stop contributing. We also need to think about how we
>>> can get the resources to address those needs.
>>>
>>> A community team would be working on improving Sugar Labs' community
>>> of doing things. They would be making sure that SLs is a good place
>>> for downstreams to work together on Sugar and also a good place for
>>> volunteers to give their time and skills.
>>>
>>> Again, some individuals have been doing pieces of this, but my other
>>> hypothesis is that we need a coordinated effort. I find very
>>> disappointing that almost zero conversations are held about how to
>>> resource what we want to happen.
>>>
>>>
>>> == A concrete plan ==
>>>
>>> So I have voiced needs, but how are we going to resource them?
>>>
>>> First step is to create the teams and keep them alive. Doing so takes
>>> very little time if we stick to the minimum required. A team can be
>>> considered alive if it has a coordinator, a members list, regular
>>> meetings, a to-do list and an updated mission statement. I estimate
>>> that this can take the coordinator less than 10 hours per month.
>>>
>>> Of course, some team coordinators will also want to lead the team with
>>> a stronger effort commitment and will be proposing strategies,
>>> starting discussions, inviting members, etc. But that's something that
>>> is not strictly required for starting a team. If the team is kept
>>> alive, people will come and things will start to happen.
>>>
>>> So in order to get started, we need to find 2 individuals who care
>>> enough about Sugar to devote to it 10 hours per month of their time.
>>> It's also ok if the team's first item in the TODO list is to find a
>>> new coordinator, no need for a long term commitment.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Tomeu
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
>>> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Walter Bender
>> Sugar Labs
>> http://www.sugarlabs.org
>> _______________________________________________
>> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
>> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>>
>