[SAC] [MOTION] Grant me 50 hours of sysadmin work

Committees SAC mailing list
1

During the meeting of this Friday it was proposed to grant a contract
for a fixed amount of hours to be spent on sysadmin work.

Looking at the numbers (https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/SAC:Budget) there
should be enough money for buying 100 hours at 100 EUR / hr.

This motion is for approving spending half of those 100 hours on
buying my own time. With such a contract I could continue with
doing what I'm already doing but ensuring continuity for one month.

For a record of what I've been doing so far I think the archives
of this mailing list contain all the details, but it's roughly about
trac improvements, spam fighting, SAC procedures documentation
updates, git services and general tickets backlog activity.

I'm asking for 50 hours as I think Martin Spott might also be
interested in taking the other 50. If this is not the case,
I might be available for more after the first slot completes.

I hadn't found info about voting procedure for SAC, would the one
documented for Board decisions apply ?

https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_Voting_Procedure

I'm concerned about being able to reach the minimum of votes
as only a tiny fraction of the people listed on the active SAC
members page did show up at the meeting, namely:

- Alex Mandel (chair)
- Norman Vine
- Howard Buttler
- Martin Spott
- Sandro Santilli (myself)

The active members wiki page:

https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/SAC#Active

So, SAC members, please cast your votes.

I'll give my +0 (abstained for conflict of interest, support as I think
sysadmin work should be payed).

--strk;

2

Le lundi 23 mai 2016 15:55:37, Sandro Santilli a écrit :

During the meeting of this Friday it was proposed to grant a contract
for a fixed amount of hours to be spent on sysadmin work.

Looking at the numbers (https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/SAC:Budget) there
should be enough money for buying 100 hours at 100 EUR / hr.

This motion is for approving spending half of those 100 hours on
buying my own time. With such a contract I could continue with
doing what I'm already doing but ensuring continuity for one month.

For a record of what I've been doing so far I think the archives
of this mailing list contain all the details, but it's roughly about
trac improvements, spam fighting, SAC procedures documentation
updates, git services and general tickets backlog activity.

I'm asking for 50 hours as I think Martin Spott might also be
interested in taking the other 50. If this is not the case,
I might be available for more after the first slot completes.

I hadn't found info about voting procedure for SAC, would the one
documented for Board decisions apply ?

https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_Voting_Procedure

If there are no SAC specific rules, I suppose the default voting rules for
OSGeo commmittees should apply :

https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Committee_Guidelines

"""
Motions may also be made by email on the primary email list of the committee.
As long as the motions collect at least two +1's, and no -1 vetos over a
period of two business days, they will be considered passed, subject to the
judgement of the chair (who might choose to defer a motion to a meeting for
instance). Some committees may chose to only rarely "meet", instead handling
most committee business by email.
"""
( also used by a number of software projects like GDAL, MapServer, ...)

I'm concerned about being able to reach the minimum of votes
as only a tiny fraction of the people listed on the active SAC
members page did show up at the meeting, namely:

- Alex Mandel (chair)
- Norman Vine
- Howard Buttler
- Martin Spott
- Sandro Santilli (myself)

The active members wiki page:

https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/SAC#Active

So, SAC members, please cast your votes.

I'll give my +0 (abstained for conflict of interest, support as I think
sysadmin work should be payed).

--strk;
_______________________________________________
Sac mailing list
Sac@lists.osgeo.org
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/sac

--
Spatialys - Geospatial professional services
http://www.spatialys.com

3

Sandro Santilli wrote:

[...]

This motion is for approving spending half of those 100 hours on
buying my own time. With such a contract I could continue with
doing what I'm already doing but ensuring continuity for one month.

For a record of what I've been doing so far I think the archives
of this mailing list contain all the details, but it's roughly about
trac improvements, spam fighting, SAC procedures documentation
updates, git services and general tickets backlog activity.

[...]

+1

  Martin.
--
Unix _IS_ user friendly - it's just selective about who its friends are !
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

4

+1

..Tom

Sent from my iPhone

On May 23, 2016, at 09:55, Sandro Santilli <strk@kbt.io> wrote:

During the meeting of this Friday it was proposed to grant a contract
for a fixed amount of hours to be spent on sysadmin work.

Looking at the numbers (https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/SAC:Budget) there
should be enough money for buying 100 hours at 100 EUR / hr.

This motion is for approving spending half of those 100 hours on
buying my own time. With such a contract I could continue with
doing what I'm already doing but ensuring continuity for one month.

For a record of what I've been doing so far I think the archives
of this mailing list contain all the details, but it's roughly about
trac improvements, spam fighting, SAC procedures documentation
updates, git services and general tickets backlog activity.

I'm asking for 50 hours as I think Martin Spott might also be
interested in taking the other 50. If this is not the case,
I might be available for more after the first slot completes.

I hadn't found info about voting procedure for SAC, would the one
documented for Board decisions apply ?

https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_Voting_Procedure

I'm concerned about being able to reach the minimum of votes
as only a tiny fraction of the people listed on the active SAC
members page did show up at the meeting, namely:

- Alex Mandel (chair)
- Norman Vine
- Howard Buttler
- Martin Spott
- Sandro Santilli (myself)

The active members wiki page:

https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/SAC#Active

So, SAC members, please cast your votes.

I'll give my +0 (abstained for conflict of interest, support as I think
sysadmin work should be payed).

--strk;
_______________________________________________
Sac mailing list
Sac@lists.osgeo.org
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/sac

5

+1 on the motion.

Christian

PS: Just a side note, the hourly rate seems a bit high from my point of view, is this a standard rate for freelance Sysadmin work? Just a question, I am all for paying Sandro his work.

Am 23.05.2016 um 15:55 schrieb Sandro Santilli:

During the meeting of this Friday it was proposed to grant a contract
for a fixed amount of hours to be spent on sysadmin work.

Looking at the numbers (https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/SAC:Budget) there
should be enough money for buying 100 hours at 100 EUR / hr.

This motion is for approving spending half of those 100 hours on
buying my own time. With such a contract I could continue with
doing what I'm already doing but ensuring continuity for one month.

For a record of what I've been doing so far I think the archives
of this mailing list contain all the details, but it's roughly about
trac improvements, spam fighting, SAC procedures documentation
updates, git services and general tickets backlog activity.

I'm asking for 50 hours as I think Martin Spott might also be
interested in taking the other 50. If this is not the case,
I might be available for more after the first slot completes.

I hadn't found info about voting procedure for SAC, would the one
documented for Board decisions apply ?

  https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_Voting_Procedure

I'm concerned about being able to reach the minimum of votes
as only a tiny fraction of the people listed on the active SAC
members page did show up at the meeting, namely:

  - Alex Mandel (chair)
  - Norman Vine
  - Howard Buttler
  - Martin Spott
  - Sandro Santilli (myself)

The active members wiki page:

  https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/SAC#Active

So, SAC members, please cast your votes.

I'll give my +0 (abstained for conflict of interest, support as I think
sysadmin work should be payed).

--strk;
_______________________________________________
Sac mailing list
Sac@lists.osgeo.org
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/sac

6

Christian Willmes wrote:

PS: Just a side note, the hourly rate seems a bit high from my point of
view, is this a standard rate for freelance Sysadmin work? Just a
question, I am all for paying Sandro his work.

It depends :slight_smile:

Hourly rates may well vary within a range of, let's say, 65 and 125
Euros, or even more or less, alway depending on the type of job and
customer. Some customers are requesting an even lower rate (but at the
same time suggest to bill more hours than it actually took to finish
the work). On the other hand you'll make other customers laugh at you
by demanding less than three-digit rates.

Cheers,
  Martin.
--
Unix _IS_ user friendly - it's just selective about who its friends are !
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

7

Okay, I see! :slight_smile:
Thanks.

Am 23.05.2016 um 16:42 schrieb Martin Spott:

Christian Willmes wrote:

PS: Just a side note, the hourly rate seems a bit high from my point of
view, is this a standard rate for freelance Sysadmin work? Just a
question, I am all for paying Sandro his work.

It depends :slight_smile:

Hourly rates may well vary within a range of, let's say, 65 and 125
Euros, or even more or less, alway depending on the type of job and
customer. Some customers are requesting an even lower rate (but at the
same time suggest to bill more hours than it actually took to finish
the work). On the other hand you'll make other customers laugh at you
by demanding less than three-digit rates.

Cheers,
  Martin.

8

On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 3:55 PM, Sandro Santilli <strk@kbt.io> wrote:

During the meeting of this Friday it was proposed to grant a contract
for a fixed amount of hours to be spent on sysadmin work.

Looking at the numbers (https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/SAC:Budget) there
should be enough money for buying 100 hours at 100 EUR / hr.

This motion is for approving spending half of those 100 hours on
buying my own time. With such a contract I could continue with
doing what I'm already doing but ensuring continuity for one month.

For a record of what I've been doing so far I think the archives
of this mailing list contain all the details, but it's roughly about
trac improvements, spam fighting, SAC procedures documentation
updates, git services and general tickets backlog activity.

+1

I'm asking for 50 hours as I think Martin Spott might also be
interested in taking the other 50. If this is not the case,
I might be available for more after the first slot completes.

(I hope he actually asks for it)

[...]

Markus

--
Markus Neteler
http://www.mundialis.de - free data with free software
http://grass.osgeo.org
http://courses.neteler.org/blog

9

On 23 May 2016 at 15:55, Sandro Santilli <strk@kbt.io> wrote:

During the meeting of this Friday it was proposed to grant a contract
for a fixed amount of hours to be spent on sysadmin work.

Looking at the numbers (https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/SAC:Budget) there
should be enough money for buying 100 hours at 100 EUR / hr.

This motion is for approving spending half of those 100 hours on
buying my own time. With such a contract I could continue with
doing what I'm already doing but ensuring continuity for one month.

For a record of what I've been doing so far I think the archives
of this mailing list contain all the details, but it's roughly about
trac improvements, spam fighting, SAC procedures documentation
updates, git services and general tickets backlog activity.

+1

Regarding the "git services":
I haven't seen the meeting minutes, yet, so apologies if I'm not being
up to date.
I'm unclear what is the general OSGeo strategy about the git services
- last I remember, we have been evaluating GitLab, Gogs, etc.
If that would be the case, I don't think there is point in spending paid hours
on GitLab, Gogs, etc. if we find out those are not going to serve us
in long term.

I don't want to play the the terrible role of the party killer, but so
far we have heard
literally **nothing** from the Community about the GitLab/Gogs/... proposals.

Best regards,
--
Mateusz Loskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net

10

On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 08:04:09PM +0200, Mateusz Loskot wrote:

I'm unclear what is the general OSGeo strategy about the git services
- last I remember, we have been evaluating GitLab, Gogs, etc.

That's still the case.

If that would be the case, I don't think there is point in spending paid hours
on GitLab, Gogs, etc. if we find out those are not going to serve us
in long term.

Agreed, I don't intend to spend paid hours on Gogs.

--strk;

11

On 23 May 2016 at 19:14, Sandro Santilli <strk@kbt.io> wrote:

On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 08:04:09PM +0200, Mateusz Loskot wrote:

I'm unclear what is the general OSGeo strategy about the git services
- last I remember, we have been evaluating GitLab, Gogs, etc.

That's still the case.

OK.

If that would be the case, I don't think there is point in spending paid hours
on GitLab, Gogs, etc. if we find out those are not going to serve us
in long term.

Agreed, I don't intend to spend paid hours on Gogs.

Don't agree on anything, please.
I don't ask anybody to do unpaid work.

I'm asking about the decision status, if, perhaps,
SAC agreed to allocate N paid hours to evaluate number of
git-related services.

Best regards,
--
Mateusz Loskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net

12

On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 07:31:08PM +0100, Mateusz Loskot wrote:

I'm asking about the decision status, if, perhaps,
SAC agreed to allocate N paid hours to evaluate number of
git-related services.

There was no talk at all about git-related services in the meeting,
but feel free to start a new thread about it.

--strk;

13

Hi Markus,

Markus Neteler wrote:

On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 3:55 PM, Sandro Santilli <strk@kbt.io> wrote:

I'm asking for 50 hours as I think Martin Spott might also be
interested in taking the other 50. If this is not the case,
I might be available for more after the first slot completes.

(I hope he actually asks for it)

This might prove to be more difficult than expected.

In order to allocate extra time I'd need to put a long-standing
customer-relationship on hold but that's probably not going to resume
after the OSGeo job is done. In order to fill the gap, I'd need OSGeo
to grant about 150 paid work hours pa at minimum as compensation until
an alternate is available and, let's be honest, I think this is
unlikely to happen due to various reasons.

Moreover I've been advocating *against* paid sysadmin work at OSGeo for
most of the time, thus by billing my own time I'm not going to gain
much credibility :wink:

Right now I'm clueless about how a solution might work out.

Best regards,

  Martin.
--
Unix _IS_ user friendly - it's just selective about who its friends are !
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

14

On May 24, 2016, at 5:50 AM, Martin Spott <Martin.Spott@mgras.net> wrote:

Moreover I've been advocating *against* paid sysadmin work at OSGeo for
most of the time, thus by billing my own time I'm not going to gain
much credibility :wink:

Martin,

I admit my unease with paid OSGeo sysadmin work too, especially set against significant contributions that folks like yourself specifically have made. Even so, it's something we can try. If it doesn't work out, or we don't get much for it, we can always go back to what we were doing before.

The paid admin should not be self-directed, at least in terms of major projects undertaken. Sandro shouldn't take payment for building out new infrastructure (and incurring more SAC maintenance debt) that specifically benefits his project participation or achieves his political objectives (he may have a few ;). I don't think this should be a problem, and I would suggest that the committee designate someone to act as the paid admin's "manager" insofar as directing which specific efforts should be done with the resources. It would be Sandro's responsibility to keep the committee informed of the activities underway and successes achieved. The approach will prevent Sandro from having to go ask a bunch of people on the internet to make a decision on stuff they may or may not understand. You would make an excellent candidate for this if you have a few cycles to spare to do it.

My $0.02 anyway...

Howard

15

On Tue, May 24, 2016 at 08:45:33AM -0500, Howard Butler wrote:

I would suggest that the committee designate someone to act as the paid
admin's "manager" insofar as directing which specific efforts should
be done with the resources.

I'd be very happy if Martin would agree on taking the management role.

That said, Hobu, what's your vote on the motion ?

To recap, the votes so far have been:

  Sandro Santilli +0
  Martin Spott +1
  Tom Kralidis +1
  Christian Willmes +1
  Markus Neteler +1
  Mateusz Loskot +1

BTW, three business days have gone since motion proposal, which
according to the adopted guidelines [1] for committee votes would
make the motion passed (2 would have been enough).

[1] https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Committee_Guidelines

--strk;

16

Sandro Santilli wrote:

To recap, the votes so far have been:

  Sandro Santilli +0
  Martin Spott +1
  Tom Kralidis +1
  Christian Willmes +1
  Markus Neteler +1
  Mateusz Loskot +1

BTW, three business days have gone since motion proposal, which
according to the adopted guidelines [1] for committee votes would
make the motion passed (2 would have been enough).

[1] https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Committee_Guidelines

I consent to this result as well as to Sandro's conclusion, thus, in
Alex' absence I take the freedom of declaring the motion passed.

Cheers,
  Martin.
--
Unix _IS_ user friendly - it's just selective about who its friends are !
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

17

On Sun, May 29, 2016 at 07:12:51PM +0000, Martin Spott wrote:

Sandro Santilli wrote:

> To recap, the votes so far have been:
>
> Sandro Santilli +0
> Martin Spott +1
> Tom Kralidis +1
> Christian Willmes +1
> Markus Neteler +1
> Mateusz Loskot +1
>
> BTW, three business days have gone since motion proposal, which
> according to the adopted guidelines [1] for committee votes would
> make the motion passed (2 would have been enough).
>
> [1] https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Committee_Guidelines

I consent to this result as well as to Sandro's conclusion, thus, in
Alex' absence I take the freedom of declaring the motion passed.

Thanks Martin, I'll see with Venka about taking the next step.

--strk;

18

Hi Howard,

Howard Butler wrote:

I don't think this should be a problem, and I would suggest that the
committee designate someone to act as the paid admin's "manager"
[...] You would make an excellent candidate for this if you
have a few cycles to spare to do it.

I've been waiting for Alex to comment on this case because, from my
perspective, it intersects with the role of SAC chair and therefore
Alex should have a say.
Unfortunately Alex appears to be absent. Anyway, if he agrees, I'll do
as well.

Many thanks for placing your trust me,

  Martin.
--
Unix _IS_ user friendly - it's just selective about who its friends are !
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

19

On 06/03/2016 07:24 AM, Martin Spott wrote:

Hi Howard,

Howard Butler wrote:

I don't think this should be a problem, and I would suggest that the
committee designate someone to act as the paid admin's "manager"
[...] You would make an excellent candidate for this if you
have a few cycles to spare to do it.

I've been waiting for Alex to comment on this case because, from my
perspective, it intersects with the role of SAC chair and therefore
Alex should have a say.
Unfortunately Alex appears to be absent. Anyway, if he agrees, I'll do
as well.

Many thanks for placing your trust me,

  Martin.

I'm happy with Martin, overseeing the work.

-Alex

20

This mail is to communicate I've finished my 50 hours of sysadmin work.
I will be happy to step aside and let someone else take a peek at it
for the next 50.

Following is a list of the tickets closed as part of the work:

* Add information about ASCII only character requirement to
   https://www.osgeo.org/cgi-bin/auth/ldap_edit_user.py
   https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/1768

* Signup text is confusing
   https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/1769

* Password reset link is not https
   https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/1772

* Fix Trac error on submission, as it's blocking legit users:
   https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/1694

* Refuse to create two accounts with the same email:
   https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/1683

* Add email confirmation flow to user creation form:
   https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/1665

* Expose a password reset tool for the web
   https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/1741

* Ticket/Wiki vandalism on MapGuide trac
   https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/1739

* UserID forms protection from CSRF attacks
   https://git.osgeo.org/gogs/sac/web-cgi-bin/issues/1
   https://git.osgeo.org/gogs/sac/web-cgi-bin/issues/2
   https://git.osgeo.org/gogs/sac/web-cgi-bin/issues/3

* Document OSGeo Userid fields
   https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/1696

* New "Mailing list" component on osgeo trac
   https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/1728

* TracSpamFilter upgrade
   https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/1725
   https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/1726

* GRASS Trac Spam support
   https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/1724

* IndexError: list index out of range on trac submissing
   https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/1694

Note that some time also went into triaging, (registering) users
support, bayes filters training and trac spam cleanup.

--strk;