[maemo-community] maemo.org paid contributors (was Re: Monthly Sprint Proposal)

[From: Tim]

Hi,

I don't think the main issue is _our_ (or even the community's) 
perception of maemo.org employee performance. I think it is all about 
giving the community something that they can look to and easily 
see/discern that progress is being made.

Of course, a lot of argument can be made about how the community doesn't 
really need to see any of that -- they're not "paying" for the service 
after all. Unfortunately, everyone involved desires to see an open 
community where the "backbone" is always visible -- and always working. 
(Some would call this a mistake, but I think it's one of the values that 
drives maemo.org's success).

So, all of this reporting, isn't really to assess performance (well, ok, 
it really will help with that too), but more to appease a hungry 
community who has been bred by this philosophy of openness.

On a related, but slightly different note, I was wondering if something 
like Bugzilla (or other) would be beneficial in 
creating/logging/tracking Sprint tasks. Any opinions?

Tim



Jeremiah Foster wrote:
> Hello,
>
> On Apr 7, 2009, at 8:20, Quim Gil wrote:
>
>> when it's the time for contract renewals (every six months)
>> Tero will basically come to you (the council) and ask whether you are
>> happy or not in order to proceed.
>
>
> You have an obligation to be a bit more formal than that.
>
> The professionals who work on maemo.org work very hard, they deserve
> the courtesy and respect of being treated with professionalism. For
> example, the virtual machine which runs garage.maemo.org is heavily
> burdened and has spikes in polling making it hard to administer. I
> think Niels does an amazing job keeping it running and available to
> the community, but that might not be visible to the council since they
> do not log in to the server and do actual work there.
>
> Turning to the council for a judgement of people's performance leaves
> lots of room for personal opinions and unprofessional appraisals, this
> will almost certainly be an area of contention that will require
> delicate handling.
>
> What you both (qole and Quim) seem to forget is that there are people
> in these positions. Neither of you are being particularly professional
> in your ad hoc decision making. I strongly encourage both of you to
> think about the people involved, how to clearly define the roles so
> that those in them understand their responsibilities and can execute
> them, and to clearly define the roles and obligations of the council
> vis-a-vis the maemo.org staff.
>
> If you want greater transparency and accountability, you need to
> assume greater responsibility for that to happen.
>
> Jeremiah
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-- 
http://tim.samoff.com