[SAC] Direction, budgeting, and resources

[Martin Spott]

Hi Howard, Frank,

On Tue, Dec 02, 2008 at 02:55:49PM -0500, Frank Warmerdam wrote:
> Howard Butler wrote:

> I think there are limits with regard to volunteers and making some kinds
> of progress.  I and others hesitate to step forward to take on new
> responsibilities - especially stuff that seems quite technically 
> challenging.
> 
> Here I'm thinking of resolving our LDAP problems, and hooking more services
> up to it. Also a few other tough problems on osgeo1 that seem hard to solve
> partly because we have a small pool of folks with "primary administrator"
> access.

>From my point of view we don't have "LDAP problems". We have an Apache
configuration on 'osgeo1' which seems a bit 'inconsistent' to me, which
makes debugging Trac-LDAP authentication stuff much more complicated
than it should be and somehow there's nobody who feels responsible
either to a) make it more consistent or b) grant others the 'clearance'
to move Apache config stuff around. In fact, nobody really dares to
touch the Apache config ....  but this is not an LDAP issue - the LDAP
service works perfectly if configured appropriately.

I have to admit that I feel a bit unsatisfied about this - nevertheless
I have not forgotten that I had been the one who promised to take care
for the "LDAP issues" ....  I just didn't realize how involved this
attempt would turn out to be.

> > If we were to mix in paid or in-kind resources into SAC for
> >completing some long-standing tasks, do you see it as being a net 
> >benefit?  Would it hurt SAC's prospects for long-term sustainability?
> 
> I would like to see some paid system administration time available as
> long as it isn't too expensive.  I would like to see this used to roll
> out some new services, review existing security and perhaps lift some
> existing routine work off volunteers (I really wouldn't mind someone
> else being mailman-man!).

I suspect I'd be leaving the group if someone is going to get paid for
the interesting, 'authoritative' stuff while the boring rest is being
left to the volunteers. In the end, this might still be a net win for
the SAC.

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