[Twisted-Python] Plan/Goal for GitHub Sponsors

[Adi Roiban]

On Sun, 3 Jan 2021 at 20:30, Jean-Paul Calderone <exarkun at twistedmatrix.com>
wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 23, 2020 at 4:41 PM Adi Roiban <adi at roiban.ro> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I started a separate discussion to confirm the goal for a future
>> fundraising.
>>
>> Top priority - Pay someone to help with the review queue
>> Nice to have - Move server/services to Azure VM -  We have at least $100
>> monthly allowance for Azure.... not sure if we still have the huge $2000
>> allowance on rackspace.
>> Nice to have - Migrate Trac wiki to GitHub Wiki
>> Nice to have - Migrate Trac Ticket to GitHub Issues
>>
>
> I have a suggestion for another priority to be inserted above that top
> priority - pay someone to look after the day-to-day logistics of the
> project.  For example: to triage tickets in the issue tracker (identify
> duplicates to avoid redundant effort, classify issues by feature request vs
> defect vs regression, etc), keep track of the release process so releases
> are completed in a timely manner, identify and eliminate friction in the
> development process, and identify big-picture directions / priorities /
> roadmap items and track and coordinate efforts to achieve them.  I don't
> think someone could be hired to set the Twisted roadmap but someone could
> be hired to solicit this information from core developers and the wider
> community and organize it into a coherent plan.
>
>
Many thanks for your comments.
I agree.

In this case, I think that for any near-future fundraising effort
(including GitHub Sponsors) we should have a single goal:

1. Raise money to hire a project manager.

That will be a part time job and the person will work on other projects.

The job activities will be (non exhaustive list - feel free to suggest):

* triage tickets
* act as the release manager (the actual release has some automation) so
this is more about communication
* identify friction in the development process and document and try to get
consensus for a propose solution (the actual implementation can be done by
someone else)
* identify big-picture directions / priorities / roadmap items and track
and coordinate efforts to achieve them.
* help with fundraising / communication to future sponsors

--------

Do you have any idea of the required effort for a project manager for
Twisted?
Maybe we can start with raising money to hire someone for 10 hours per week.
Please suggest a different number of hours if you think that 10 hours are
not a good start.

I think that at least for the first month, 10 hours per week is not much...
but maybe after the second month, we can have 5 hours per week for project
management
and use extra money for the review queue or implement the top priority
tasks identified by the project manager.

---------------

Then, if we raise more than 10 hours per week, we can dedicate that money
to code review.

Then, if we ran out of reviews in the queue, use the leftover money for
reducing operation overhead / removing roadblock.


> Ideally this person could also look after fundraising efforts to ensure
> that there are funds to continue to support their other activities.
>
>
We have a catch-22 situation here ... we need to hire someone to work on
fundraising ... we need to raise funds to hire someone :)

I can volunteer to bootstrap this effort and try to raise initial money to
find a project manager that can look after future fundraising.
I don't have much free time and I am not a good project manager or
communication manager :)

Right now, I don't know who we could hire and what could be the selection
criteria ...

But I think that we can focus to see if we can raise 10 hours per week and
then worry about finding the right person :)

Helping with the review queue is great but it's a purely reactive
> activity.  This is fine so far as it goes but it leaves the project without
> a coherent direction, which in turn makes less productive use of the
> resources available.  The project should continue to operate reactively to
> address issues raised by the community but to really stay relevant, the
> core Twisted team itself also needs to identify coherent future goals and
> work to achieve them.
>
> Messing with CI configuration, wikis, issue tracking, etc, may also all be
> beneficial but they're not useful goals in themselves - they should all be
> in support of a goal like reducing operational overhead to allow resources
> to be directed elsewhere or removing roadblocks that stand in the way of
> other contributors having an impact.
> <https://twistedmatrix.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/twisted-python>
>

True.

See the updated GitHub Sponsor page

https://github.com/sponsors/twisted?preview=true

Let me know what you think and if you think that is ready to make it public.

We need feedback on everything on the preview page:

* Project goal
* Support tiers
* Project description

Cheers
-- 
Adi Roiban
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