Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Jeremy Blosser <jblosser-smgl AT firinn.org>]

Jumping in at the top instead of the bottom of the thread for completeness
but will try to head off the various questions / rabbit trails on the way.

On Apr 05, flux [flux AT sourcemage.org] wrote:
> I'm going through our developer list for cleanup. I know some developers
> are kept in the list because they are admins. This got me thinking
> though, and I would like to propose a separate list of the Source Mage
> admins, in addition to the developer list. It has the following
> advantages:

I have thought for years about suggesting a separate component for server
admins, if for no other reason than to clarify who does what (this was more
of an issue back when Tome was heavily drifting into "admin" over the real
job of "documentation"; that doesn't happen so much anymore).

However I don't think I've been thinking about what you're talking
about--you're just talking about a list of those who have server access,
while I've been thinking about an entire component in its own right such
that there is a class of those called "developers" that are admins, just
like there is a class of those called "developers" that are documentation
people.  To me this is just consistent--right now the criteria for staying
on the dev list is commmits OR adding documentation; we just need to add
something for work done on the servers.

No, not every person with server access needs to be a developer.  For one,
we have resources on 3rd party servers like ibiblio, where our devs have
less access than they do.  For another, we allow people to contribute docs
without being developers... grimoire patches too, though someone who is a
dev at least has to commit those.  Those are not a 1:1 comparisons, but it
at least establishes that the type of work being done brings its own
considerations.

However, just like we've acknowledged that documentation is a valid way to
contribute, so is server administration.  My own commit history is pretty
bare the last couple of years, but I would wager I've still given more
hours to the project than several who are still on the dev list because
they commit every month.  And I've done that because I want the project to
carry on and succeed at its goals, and the work is needed.  I know I'm not
one of the confusing backup admins or anything, but I'll use that example
anyway since I've probably made it 6 months between commits myself even
when PL.

So if anything I'd like to see a full component, with a component lead,
defined duties, and members who are developers and stay developers as long
as they keep contributing through that component (or any other component
they help with).  Terminology-wise we've treated the servers like
"familiars" or other pets and I've thought about calling the member
developers Druids but I'm not sure of the component name.  The concept is
Menagerie but that's not really a used term to me anyway.

Pragmatically the current "membership" would probably be me, Kowis, and
Bainter.  Dave's the other one who has root access on fawkes but he doesn't
have to be a developer to have that; for any of these server resources
there is the concept of who owns and manages the resource independent of
the project structure itself and Dave's got root because I own the box more
than anything else.

Concretely the duties for that bunch have been to make sure we have the
services we need to make the project go, whether that's maintaining and/or
building things ourselves or being liaisons between the project and those
that own external stuff we're allowed to use.  I've done the lion's share
of the stuff off-fawkes and we have resources only Dave and I or even only
I have access to, but they're all failover/nice-to-have things that could
die and we'd keep going.

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