[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Should we have a systems administrators list?

[W. Brad LaJeunesse]

I agree with Ben. Obviously, if a certain community sub-group decides it
wants to create their own mailing list, there is no Evergreen police to stop
you, but I think doing so is a mistake.

One of the strengths of the Evergreen community that I think we've worked at
is the lack of formal boundaries between our stakeholder groups. This isn't
a proprietary system where the developers are locked in a dungeon  and you
must speak through Swiss intermediaries. We're also a relatively small group
and I think the last thing we should be doing is splitting our forces. I
suggest keeping it together and using subject lines effectively. 

So, I agree with Ben's thoughts. I just saw Lebbeous's email and I agree
with his points as well.

---
W. Brad LaJeunesse
| President
| Equinox Software, Inc. / The Open Source Experts
| phone: 1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457)
| email: brad at esilibrary.com
| web: http://www.esilibrary.com


-----Original Message-----
From: open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org
[mailto:open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Ben
Shum
Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2012 12:15 PM
To: Evergreen Discussion Group
Subject: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] ***SPAM*** Re: Should we have a systems
administrators list?

I'm -1 to this proposal.

For many years, I've mused with other Evergreen system administrators on the
issues facing our particular role and areas for discussion.  The idea of
making our own mailing list seemed like a good idea at many points in those
discussions, and if you asked me a few years ago, I would have said yes.

But here are some potential concerns I have now:

While our role within our organizations may be to find the best practices
for implementing/running an Evergreen system (and all the related areas of
interest noted), we can also have a key role to play in Evergreen's overall
development.  As system administrators, we are often at the cutting edge of
testing, bug reporting, and troubleshooting how Evergreen performs in the
field.  We can provide invaluable feedback to the Evergreen developers when
we discuss our sys-admin issues in the existing lists / IRC.


Creating a separate list introduces the possibility that more information
can become lost between groups if people do not subscribe to every list.
While of course, many of us would likely be signed up to these multiple
lists and potentially act as representatives between groups, I do not like
to see the burden of communication between various lists/groups to become a
necessary conscious act on behalf of those subscribed to several lists.

Like say for example:

John Smith has an installation problem and mentions it only on the sys admin
list.  But it turns out to be an actual issue with the Evergreen code itself
and we have to involve developers to get it fixed for everyone in the
community.  Do we then have to take the originally reported issue from the
sys admin list and forward it to the dev list and discuss solutions?  The
extra time and potential for lost information/facts gives me concerns that
having that extra layer of communication may prove unwieldy.

Alternatively, what if someone posted a question to both mailing lists (sys
admin and dev) and different people respond on each thread (based on
whichever list they were subscribed) and the conversation becomes fractured
between two lists?  How does everything get put back together in a nice
ordered way for the next generation of users searching for information /
learning.

To summarize, in my opinion, the system administrators while definitely
having their own set of issues and topics of discussion are still a core
part of the overall Evergreen development community and we should
participate using the same areas for discussion such as the dev mailing list
and IRC so that we don't miss anything or leave anything out of the
mainstream Evergreen community.  The main thing I would want to change at
this point in time is perhaps the wording used to describe the dev mailing
list to expand beyond just technical code/patches, but to be a broader
description and reinforce the "technical discussion list" 
title.  Unless of course, the developers tell us that they'd prefer to keep
that list to talking only about real development only...  ;)

-- Ben

On 4/30/2012 8:11 PM, Justin Hopkins wrote:
> We just wrapped up the post-conference systems administrator training, 
> which was awesome. Afterwards we were talking about the utility of a 
> new discussion list focused on Evergreen systems administration.
>
> I think the topic is deep enough to warrant a list, and if this group 
> is any indication there is also sufficient interest. Systems 
> administration (troubleshooting server config issues, 
> installing/setting up Evergreen, using git, performance tuning, 
> network issues, cluster configuration, security, etc) seems to be an 
> area that deserves it's own forum. I've received plenty of great help 
> on those topics in IRC, which I'm very appreciative of, but let's face 
> it - IRC is and probably always will be the domain of developers.
>
> I'm hoping that if enough people on this list express an interest that 
> someone (Chris Sharp?) could create such a list. So let's hear it 
> sysads - should we create the "missing list"?
>
> Regards,
> Justin Hopkins
> Coordinator, IT&  Web Services
> MOBIUS Consortium Office
> c: 573-808-2309
>
> --sent from a mobile device--
>

--
Benjamin Shum
Open Source Software Coordinator
Bibliomation, Inc.
32 Crest Road
Middlebury, CT 06762
203-577-4070, ext. 113