[sakai2-tcc] Infrastructure discussion for future meeting?

[David Adams]

Charles Severance wrote:
> So here is my proposal.  Lets make a confluence page called "Important
> Unfunded Mandate List" and put this stuff there and then add detail and
> even prioritize them and even meet about this from time to time
> (including San Diego).
>
> By calling it the "Important Unfunded Mandate List" we *emphasize* that
> resources are needed and until resources arrive no progress will be made.
> And then if those "hypothetical" folks who want give resources (I always
> doubt these really exist) at least have a list of unfunded mandates that
> could use some funding.

I think perhaps you overestimate how comfortable other institutions
might be with initiating deep fixes like we've been discussing. It's
one thing to fix a small parsing bug or rendering issue or add some
simple logic to fix a single JIRA bug report. But these problems run a
lot deeper and will require a strong understanding of how Sakai works
at the lowest levels. The only people who grok Sakai that deeply are
on this mailing list.

Creating the list of architectural issues is a necessary step, but I
wouldn't get too tied up in prioritizing or using the whole list to
beg for resources. My key point was that the TCC needs to pick a very
few items from the list--I'd start with one single project that has
the most interest from TCC members--and say, "Here's the TCC's next
project. We have TCC member X who will coordinate the project, we have
this rough solution in mind, we need a team of 2-5 developers, a QA/UX
person, and an operations person to dedicate 10-30 hours per week for
8-12 weeks to the solution. We start on May 28 and will have daily
standups at this number. Here's our mailing list and project-specific
wiki. Who's in?"

That level of specificity and purpose will be required to shake the
"hypothetical" resources free. Otherwise, it will remain just be a big
list of things no one will ever tackle.

Another big reason institutions are shy about taking leadership on
these projects themselves is the risk that their contributions will be
ignored or turn out to have been misguided. If the TCC takes the lead,
they can be relatively sure the work will be going to good use, will
be technically sound within the Sakai architecture, and will end up in
the community code and will generate a clear benefit and not a
fruitless burden. Not to mention it's good experience and training for
their staff to be able to work directly with the icons of the Sakai
community.

-dave