[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Holdings View in Web Client

Fri Mar 30 10:45:43 EDT 2018

Hi,

In regards to this question:

> What can we do to get this fixed in 3.2 if not sooner?
And the responses thus far:

> 1. Fix it yourself.
> 2. Hire someone else to fix it.
> 3. Wait for someone else to do 1 or 2.
> #4: work together to get it fixed (i.e. funding through development partnerships)
I also would like to talk about the role of positive advocacy in getting 
attention on particular bugs, which may not guarantee that they get 
fixed, but certainly could draw enough developer attention towards the 
bug to result in it getting fixed. I guess this is really another spin 
on Jason's solution #3 - wait for someone else to do 1 or 2.

What exactly is positive advocacy? It's raising discussion on the lists, 
just as we did here, to ask about a bug and to see if it also has an 
impact on other Evergreen sites. It involves participating in LP 
discussions or raising questions in IRC. It not only involves discussing 
why the bug is important, but contributing to discussions on the best 
approach to fix it. In the case of this particular bug, for example, 
there was discussion of adding a "show empty libraries" option and a 
question of whether it should replace the "show empty volumes" option or 
not. Getting feedback on questions like this is very helpful. If a 
developer decides to take on the bug, it will give them a clear 
direction for moving forward. Positive advocacy also includes committing 
to test a fix when it is available.

On a related side note, that Sandbox request form we use for Bug 
Squashing Day is never turned off. If you ever want to test a bug fix 
when it's not Bug Squashing Day, feel free to submit it or contact me 
directly. If I have the a server and the time, I'm happy to load fixes 
so that people can help with getting that bug fix merged to Evergreen. 
It's available at https://goo.gl/forms/PE4fYfWDh5AixYpy2

I use the word 'positive' because I do think there is a thin line 
between advocating that *we* as a community work together to fix a bug 
and treating the community as a *they *that should be fixing a given bug 
or introducing a new feature. FWIW, I am not saying that Scott was doing 
this when he raised his question. Given the amount of sponsored 
development that has come for both enhancements and bug fixes from 
PaILS, it's clear that he already recognizes his organization's role in 
contributing to the improvement of Evergreen. In general, though, I have 
seen this sentiment in other discussions, and, as frustrating as it can 
be when you're dealing with a problematic bug, we have to keep in mind 
that we're all on this together. The more people who take on the 
responsibility of helping improve Evergreen in some small or even large 
way, the better the software will be for all of our users.

I'm guessing that part of the original question really related to how 
positive advocacy turns into an actual bug fix. With the release of 3.1, 
I think we're all seeing that 3.2, when the xul client will no longer be 
available for our users, is just around the corner. Although the web 
client has come a long way, I think it's natural that there is some 
anxiety over remaining bugs that are preventing staff from using the new 
client or making it difficult for them to use it.

Based on my observations over the past eight years, I would say all of 
the following are factors in whether a bug gets fixed through these 
community channels.

Does the bug break critical functionality? For example, you can't build 
the software, bib records can no longer be saved, you can no longer 
perform checkouts. Generally, these are the types of bugs that get High 
priority in Launchpad and are fixed very quickly.

Is there a developer capable of fixing a bug who has the time to work on 
it or are they in the middle of some other large project, like a migration?

How long will it take to fix the bug? Is it a complex or easy fix? 
https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/1187993 has been a 
high-priority bug for five years now, but it's complex and will take 
many developer hours to fix. It's more difficult to get large fixes done 
without asking a developer in your own organization to fix it or funding 
the fix.  Sometimes, low priority bugs get fixed simply because they're 
quick and easy and more people may be capable of fixing it.

Does the developer believe it will also affect the people in their own 
organization? In organizations that have a developer, the positive 
advocacy may be the thing that brings it to the attention of some 
cataloger or circ person who then communicates to their developer that 
it is indeed a critical issue. If the problem is related to serials and 
the developer works at a library that doesn't use serials, they are less 
likely to work on it.

Think of it in terms of volunteering that you may do in your own home 
communities. If somebody asks you to bake something for a bake sale to 
raise funds for a cause you believe in, you may quickly say yes without 
a thought. If they ask you to organize the bake sale, the answer may 
depend on whether you have time or on how strongly you feel about the 
cause. If you don't care about the cause at all (i.e. you can't 
understand why anyone would ever want Evergreen to work that way), you 
may never say yes no matter how much time you have. If the fundraiser is 
actually a capital campaign project for a new library, it doesn't matter 
how many people feel strongly about the issue, you may still need to 
hire a professional fundraiser to organize the campaign for you.

No matter how much positive advocacy I personally do for specific bugs, 
in the end, I know if the MassLNC organizations feel strongly about a 
bug fix or feature, we need to be prepared to fund it or have one of our 
internal developers work on it. There are times when I've gritted my 
teeth while funding a project, either because I think the software 
should just work that way or because I feel like we've already invested 
enough into the feature. However, I also know we are also indebted to 
many developers in this community who have quickly fixed issues, both 
large and small, as a result of our positive advocacy. In the end, it 
all balances out.

Kathy

On 03/29/2018 02:02 PM, scott.thomas at sparkpa.org wrote:
> Jason,
>     Thank you for this information. Regarding this particular bug, it is too serious to leave to #3, and we don't have the wherewithal to do #1 so we may try to do #2...but will likely need funding partners...which brings us to #4: work together to get it fixed.
>
> Scott
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Open-ils-general [mailto:open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Jason Stephenson
> Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2018 1:44 PM
> To: open-ils-general at list.georgialibraries.org
> Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Holdings View in Web Client
>
> On 03/29/2018 11:27 AM, scott.thomas at sparkpa.org wrote:
>> I agree this is an impediment to implementing the Web Client in
>> centralized or semi-centralized cataloging departments (of which we
>> have many). I am just not conversant on the ins & outs of how to get
>> fixes into a release versus a maintenance release versus a patch
> Bug targeting is done by one of the members of the drivers group. It is usually done only for bugs that have patches or where someone is working on it and is likely to have a patch ready in time for the release. We (mostly I) sometimes break the unwritten rules and target bugs prematurely.
>
> As for how to get specific bugs fixed, you basically have 3 options:
>
> 1. Fix it yourself.
> 2. Hire someone else to fix it.
> 3. Wait for someone else to do 1 or 2.
>
> HtH,
> Jason
>

-- 
Kathy Lussier
Project Coordinator
Massachusetts Library Network Cooperative
(508) 343-0128
klussier at masslnc.org
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kmlussier

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://libmail.georgialibraries.org/pipermail/open-ils-general/attachments/20180330/204f8576/attachment-0001.html>