[opensuse-project] Does the project have a publicly accessible project management tool?
General question to those more closely involved in oS project management - is there a tool we have access to that can help track tasks and progress on projects within the oS project? I'm thinking something like a Kablink (or Vibe OnPrem) task list. I've got Vibe installed at home with a limited number of users, but I'd rather track the bugzilla/bug process project in a more visible way than on a private server in my house. :) If we don't, I can set something on on the Kablink site so those who are interested can follow along and help document the tasks that need to be completed and their progress. Thanks, Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Wed, 2012-05-16 at 22:35 +0000, Jim Henderson wrote:
General question to those more closely involved in oS project management - is there a tool we have access to that can help track tasks and progress on projects within the oS project?
I'm thinking something like a Kablink (or Vibe OnPrem) task list. I've got Vibe installed at home with a limited number of users, but I'd rather track the bugzilla/bug process project in a more visible way than on a private server in my house. :)
If we don't, I can set something on on the Kablink site so those who are interested can follow along and help document the tasks that need to be completed and their progress.
Thanks,
Jim
Roger Leudecke and some others have also been interested in getting Kablink into the openSUSE infrastructure, but haven't gotten much traction since some of you talked about it at the last Brainshare. Might be worth pinging Roger to see what can be done to move this initiative forward. Bryen M Yunashko openSUSE Project -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Wed, 16 May 2012 18:51:38 -0500, Bryen M Yunashko wrote:
Roger Leudecke and some others have also been interested in getting Kablink into the openSUSE infrastructure, but haven't gotten much traction since some of you talked about it at the last Brainshare. Might be worth pinging Roger to see what can be done to move this initiative forward.
Sounds good. I might also be able to talk the Vibe OnPrem PM into helping us out (I used to work directly for him in support years ago, and I know some of the Novell BU PMs - of which he's one - very well.) If we're interested in that, I'd be happy to pursue a conversation with the folks I know to see if we can get something set up. Of course, that also means that we have to deal with the infrastructure issues that are causing us problems (particularly in the forums at present), but I'm still in Utah and have some free time next week, and am considering a visit to Provo to hash out some of those issues if I can get the right people together. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Thu, 2012-05-17 at 00:25 +0000, Jim Henderson wrote:
On Wed, 16 May 2012 18:51:38 -0500, Bryen M Yunashko wrote:
Roger Leudecke and some others have also been interested in getting Kablink into the openSUSE infrastructure, but haven't gotten much traction since some of you talked about it at the last Brainshare. Might be worth pinging Roger to see what can be done to move this initiative forward.
Sounds good. I might also be able to talk the Vibe OnPrem PM into helping us out (I used to work directly for him in support years ago, and I know some of the Novell BU PMs - of which he's one - very well.)
If we're interested in that, I'd be happy to pursue a conversation with the folks I know to see if we can get something set up. Of course, that also means that we have to deal with the infrastructure issues that are causing us problems (particularly in the forums at present), but I'm still in Utah and have some free time next week, and am considering a visit to Provo to hash out some of those issues if I can get the right people together.
Jim
-- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits
I believe that's the same people Roger's been talking to. I gather they're interested in helping out. But I think ultimately what could make it move forward is if they simply help out by actually implementing an openSUSE Vibe instance and co-administrating it with us, thus we get some expertise and they get some free advertising for their product. I believe the knowledge gap is one of the big problems here. Not many people in FOSS have heard of Kablink and it would be beneficial for the Kablink/Vibe guys to have a large public instance. They'll definitely get something out of it (provided the community likes the tool once it's implemented.) Bryen -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Wed, 16 May 2012 19:34:15 -0500, Bryen M Yunashko wrote:
I believe that's the same people Roger's been talking to. I gather they're interested in helping out. But I think ultimately what could make it move forward is if they simply help out by actually implementing an openSUSE Vibe instance and co-administrating it with us, thus we get some expertise and they get some free advertising for their product.
Yep. And now you mention it, I may (or may not) have been involved in getting Roger in touch with Tracy (the PM) at some point.
I believe the knowledge gap is one of the big problems here. Not many people in FOSS have heard of Kablink and it would be beneficial for the Kablink/Vibe guys to have a large public instance. They'll definitely get something out of it (provided the community likes the tool once it's implemented.)
I was up on the Kablink site a few days ago, and it seemed like there wasn't much new up there. I know Vibe is going strong, though, and it's possible some of the workflow stuff could come in handy for us at some point (and that's only part of the paid product IIRC - it's one of the differentiators). I'll circle with Roger and see where that was at. Thanks! Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 2012-05-17 01:07:31 (+0000), Jim Henderson <hendersj@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, 16 May 2012 19:34:15 -0500, Bryen M Yunashko wrote:
I believe that's the same people Roger's been talking to. I gather they're interested in helping out. But I think ultimately what could make it move forward is if they simply help out by actually implementing an openSUSE Vibe instance and co-administrating it with us, thus we get some expertise and they get some free advertising for their product.
Or it becomes yet another administration annoyance like the forums and many more of our tools where only a very (*very*) few can work on it, be it in terms of features or maintenance. The current situation is already ridiculous enough, let's make sure that we do *not* add more to it.
Yep. And now you mention it, I may (or may not) have been involved in getting Roger in touch with Tracy (the PM) at some point.
I believe the knowledge gap is one of the big problems here. Not many people in FOSS have heard of Kablink and it would be beneficial for the Kablink/Vibe guys to have a large public instance. They'll definitely get something out of it (provided the community likes the tool once it's implemented.)
Well I don't care at all about the "Kablink/Vibe guys", let's make sure that if we add yet another tool, it is something, for once, that is nice to use and, ideally, that can be supported by more than one or two people on the planet. Injecting a tool into the openSUSE community infrastructure primarily because it's "from Novell", no thanks, we had that in the past, we've seen how that worked out (iChain?).
I was up on the Kablink site a few days ago, and it seemed like there wasn't much new up there. I know Vibe is going strong, though, and it's possible some of the workflow stuff could come in handy for us at some point (and that's only part of the paid product IIRC - it's one of the differentiators).
I'll circle with Roger and see where that was at. Thanks!
To be honest, I believe... no, I am certain it is a mistake to go down that route: (tl;dr but I'm trying to be comprehensive) 1. The spechul tool ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Kablink has absolutely no traction in FOSS from what I can see (I might be wrong, but I believe I would have noticed) so it will be yet another liability -- let's not have the iChain debacle again, please. How many people will have expertise with it ? (let's say five at most) How many people will be able to help out with issues, downtime, etc... ? (let's say two at most) If you're counting on "upstream" Kablink devs: I don't want to hurt their feelings but, realistically, how long before it's dumped ? 2. Yet another tool? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Really? Don't we already have enough tools that create confusion (e.g. openFATE vs Bugzilla, forums vs connect) and aren't integrated in any way except for SSO ? Adding more tools will primarily be highly effective at one thing: create more silos, and we have way too many of them already (irc, MLs, forums, connect, wikis, bugzilla, openFATE, OBS, software search, docs.o.o, retro, indico). I'm not saying we need a single tool for everything (don't give me a straw man here :)) but cmon... :) There is definitely a high risk of putting an additional service into place that will become something like connect (almost completely useless in its current state IMHO, and I don't believe that will change), or create a divide like openFATE vs Bugzilla (almost the exact same kind of content (features/ideas vs issues) but in two different tools with no interconnection whatsoever). Also, from what I can remember from having seen it briefly, it has a lot of overlap with other tools that are already in place. Hence more confusion, more splitting of content and people. 3. The ugly tool? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Highly subjective, and I've only seen Kablink twice, it was a few months ago (but hasn't evolved much since then apparently) and... I mean... really? I get it that you and Roger do like the tool but do you really believe it is going to get a lot of traction ? Kablink didn't strike me as a project management / tracking kind of tool, are you sure there aren't alternatives that are both more common in the FOSS ecosystem (and hence better known and hence with a high chance in terms of acceptance) and better suited for the job (also to reduce overlap with existing tools) ? I don't count "sharing files in folders" as "project management"; actually, a feature like that is a massive issue as people will put things in there instead of github. Actually there is already such a tool in place, that is used by the boosters team (I guess it still is nowadays ^^) and has been used a bit by the board in the past, which is "retro", an open source agile kind of ticket tracker: http://retro.opensuse.org/projects/boosters-work/milestones/20/goals Retro is not bad, not that widely used though (certainly not as much as e.g. Redmine, Trac, Jira/Greenhopper) but lacks more fine grained permission setup, team/group handling, etc... to be used on a large scale by the whole project (at least from what I can remember, was already suboptimal to set it up for the boosters + for the board). But AFAICS they're thinking of using Trello instead. To end on a more positive note (after that long rant)... Don't get me wrong: some sort of task and progress tracking tool could be highly useful if used in a central manner by everyone and all the teams (artwork, boosters, infrastructure, possibly OBS, marketing, board (some things need privacy though), possibly factory, etc...) in order to have - *one* place/tool where to look for tasks, TODOs, progress/state - interconnection/linking between tasks that go over the boundaries of a single team (e.g. marketing depending on some artwork being done before they can move on) - a tool that doesn't do a dozen other things, as that'll just create even more spilling of information and, with it, confusion I don't want to spoil your motivation and am thankful as everyone else for your efforts to push things forward, but I fear that all the issues I listed above are not considered and, frankly, I have doubts that Kablink is the right tool for the job, to put it mildly :) cheers -- -o) Pascal Bleser /\\ http://opensuse.org -- we haz green _\_v http://fosdem.org -- we haz conf
To end on a more positive note (after that long rant)...
Don't get me wrong: some sort of task and progress tracking tool could be highly useful if used in a central manner by everyone and all the teams (artwork, boosters, infrastructure, possibly OBS, marketing, board (some things need privacy though), possibly factory, etc...) in order to have - *one* place/tool where to look for tasks, TODOs, progress/state - interconnection/linking between tasks that go over the boundaries of a single team (e.g. marketing depending on some artwork being done before they can move on) - a tool that doesn't do a dozen other things, as that'll just create even more spilling of information and, with it, confusion
From my personal perspective (I'd love to have such a tool available) could I add to the list support for interlinking:
- Each external object (where the tool doesn't hold the "master" or "original" information) should have the space for a URL to connect to the original version of that thing - Each display of an object within the tool should have a unique URL which will reach it directly, and these URLs should behave well (e.g. when duplicates are merged) There are other things which would be useful, but these are a minimum. I think these things should be mandatory for all tools used by openSUSE so we can (slowly, over time) link together usefully the different tools. HTH David -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Thu, 17 May 2012 08:37:54 +0200, Pascal Bleser wrote:
Or it becomes yet another administration annoyance like the forums and many more of our tools where only a very (*very*) few can work on it, be it in terms of features or maintenance.
The current situation is already ridiculous enough, let's make sure that we do *not* add more to it.
Agreed that we need to be careful about that, absolutely. If this is a tool that we can use, we could use the existing public instance of Kablink as well, though I don't know anything about who manages it or what it's running on - or have any availability statistics for that site.
Well I don't care at all about the "Kablink/Vibe guys", let's make sure that if we add yet another tool, it is something, for once, that is nice to use and, ideally, that can be supported by more than one or two people on the planet.
Also agreed.
Injecting a tool into the openSUSE community infrastructure primarily because it's "from Novell", no thanks, we had that in the past, we've seen how that worked out (iChain?).
iChain, Access manager - yeah, having been involved in the forum issues and trying to get them resolved, believe me, I hesitate to suggest this. But my choice to look at this tool isn't driven by "because it's from Novell", but because it's something I've used for this and is something I'm familiar with - and I know it can do what I'm looking for.
To be honest, I believe... no, I am certain it is a mistake to go down that route:
So before I respond to these comments below, let me say this: I am not dead set on using this particular tool. As I said above, I've used it to do project task tracking and it's good at doing that. My original thought was to use my own installation (I have the 10-user "trial" license on my server at home, and 3 users in use), but I thought that using something that was more publicly available/accessible would make the bugzilla project more transparent. In addition, if there was already a tool available, I didn't want to introduce a second tool to do the same thing, even if it was only for my own purposes (I'm a big fan of reusing existing infrastructure rather than creating new infrastructure unless it's absolutely necessary).
(tl;dr but I'm trying to be comprehensive)
1. The spechul tool ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Kablink has absolutely no traction in FOSS from what I can see (I might be wrong, but I believe I would have noticed) so it will be yet another liability -- let's not have the iChain debacle again, please. How many people will have expertise with it ? (let's say five at most) How many people will be able to help out with issues, downtime, etc... ? (let's say two at most) If you're counting on "upstream" Kablink devs: I don't want to hurt their feelings but, realistically, how long before it's dumped ?
I have had concerns about the OSS project - both that and iFolder, actually, because they don't seem to have advanced much.
2. Yet another tool? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Really? Don't we already have enough tools that create confusion (e.g. openFATE vs Bugzilla, forums vs connect) and aren't integrated in any way except for SSO ?
Adding more tools will primarily be highly effective at one thing: create more silos, and we have way too many of them already (irc, MLs, forums, connect, wikis, bugzilla, openFATE, OBS, software search, docs.o.o, retro, indico). I'm not saying we need a single tool for everything (don't give me a straw man here :)) but cmon... :)
There is definitely a high risk of putting an additional service into place that will become something like connect (almost completely useless in its current state IMHO, and I don't believe that will change), or create a divide like openFATE vs Bugzilla (almost the exact same kind of content (features/ideas vs issues) but in two different tools with no interconnection whatsoever). Also, from what I can remember from having seen it briefly, it has a lot of overlap with other tools that are already in place.
Hence more confusion, more splitting of content and people.
Well, it's a question of if the existing tools have the functionality we need. That's something that IMHO we need to do better as a project - which is part of the reason I asked if there was a tool in place already that could do what I was looking for. If there is, I want to use it. If there isn't, then let's find something that does what's needed so we can actually manage a project within the openSUSE project and see that we're making progress on it.
3. The ugly tool? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Highly subjective, and I've only seen Kablink twice, it was a few months ago (but hasn't evolved much since then apparently) and... I mean... really? I get it that you and Roger do like the tool but do you really believe it is going to get a lot of traction ?
I find it to be clean and usable. But then again, I also like the GNOME3 experience. ;) But I'm also familiar with it, which is why when Bryen mentioned that Roger was looking to do something with it for the project, I said I'd follow up and see where things are at, if they're anywhere.
Kablink didn't strike me as a project management / tracking kind of tool, are you sure there aren't alternatives that are both more common in the FOSS ecosystem (and hence better known and hence with a high chance in terms of acceptance) and better suited for the job (also to reduce overlap with existing tools) ?
Maybe there are - I honestly don't know. Kablink and Vibe both have many features that wouldn't be necessary to managing projects; the integrated wiki, discussion, etc, etc, etc - all would duplicate existing functionality. So that is a fair concern to raise. For task tracking, what I am looking for is something more comprehensive than a Google Task list (which doesn't track progress or milestones), but less formal than a full-blown project management tool like MS Project (yeah, I know, bad form to mention a MS product. ;) ) I don't need Gantt charts and stuff like that, just something that lets me easily see how far along a task and its associated subtasks are.
I don't count "sharing files in folders" as "project management"; actually, a feature like that is a massive issue as people will put things in there instead of github.
I don't either. See above. :)
Actually there is already such a tool in place, that is used by the boosters team (I guess it still is nowadays ^^) and has been used a bit by the board in the past, which is "retro", an open source agile kind of ticket tracker: http://retro.opensuse.org/projects/boosters-work/milestones/20/goals
Retro is not bad, not that widely used though (certainly not as much as e.g. Redmine, Trac, Jira/Greenhopper) but lacks more fine grained permission setup, team/group handling, etc... to be used on a large scale by the whole project (at least from what I can remember, was already suboptimal to set it up for the boosters + for the board).
I'll take a peek at that and see, that might fit my need as well.
But AFAICS they're thinking of using Trello instead.
Good to know there are a few options out there - I haven't done a lot of looking in the OSS space at what can do this, because I've used Vibe and have it installed, and it does the job well enough for what I need. But I'm certainly not saying "this is the tool we must use" - as if I could do that anyways. ;) But I brought the topic of having such a tool up because I want to be transparent in how the bug process project moves forward, and I have a few other ideas for similar types of projects that need to be pushed (I mentioned FATE already and there seems to be some interest in looking for a more effective way to track enhancements).
To end on a more positive note (after that long rant)...
Don't get me wrong: some sort of task and progress tracking tool could be highly useful if used in a central manner by everyone and all the teams (artwork, boosters, infrastructure, possibly OBS, marketing, board (some things need privacy though), possibly factory, etc...) in order to have - *one* place/tool where to look for tasks, TODOs, progress/state - interconnection/linking between tasks that go over the boundaries of a single team (e.g. marketing depending on some artwork being done before they can move on) - a tool that doesn't do a dozen other things, as that'll just create even more spilling of information and, with it, confusion
I don't want to spoil your motivation and am thankful as everyone else for your efforts to push things forward, but I fear that all the issues I listed above are not considered and, frankly, I have doubts that Kablink is the right tool for the job, to put it mildly :)
Whenever selecting a tool, it's always good to do a needs analysis. Maybe it's a fit, maybe it isn't. I'm OK with it either way - I'm not so blind as to think that this one tool is going to "save us all", be the perfect fit, or even be the best choice. But as this bugzilla project kicks off, I need /something/ that can help keep track of things because there are going to be a few moving parts to the success of the project, and if there's one thing I've learned about project management over the years, it's that if you don't track what's going on in the project, you'll fail before you even start. And I don't want to set a project like this up to fail before it even gets off the ground. :) Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
But as this bugzilla project kicks off, I need /something/ that can help keep track of things because there are going to be a few moving parts to the success of the project, and if there's one thing I've learned about project management over the years, it's that if you don't track what's going on in the project, you'll fail before you even start.
And I don't want to set a project like this up to fail before it even gets off the ground. :)
Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Perhaps on a more mundane level than project management, a simple workspace for collaborative text would be very useful. We had been talking about our own PiratePad/EtherPad instance - someone did have one going, though there were some issues with access (I guess these things have to be administered = more work). I have yet to find anything more convenient than PiratePad for throwing together ideas together and collaborating. Its downside is security, it's out there in a very open cloud space. I've noticed a few people using GoogleDocs also. As an intermediate solution, would you be able to use a management tool of your choice to maintain your own overview, importing/exporting information/lists/calendars to Google Docs? -- IRC: helen_au helen.south@opensuse.org helensouth.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Fri, 18 May 2012 07:52:50 +1000, Helen South wrote:
Perhaps on a more mundane level than project management, a simple workspace for collaborative text would be very useful. We had been talking about our own PiratePad/EtherPad instance - someone did have one going, though there were some issues with access (I guess these things have to be administered = more work). I have yet to find anything more convenient than PiratePad for throwing together ideas together and collaborating. Its downside is security, it's out there in a very open cloud space.
Yes, I'm thinking that moving into something more project-orientated is going to take more effort and slow the pace down at this stage. So I would tend to agree that while we figure out a longer-term project management strategy, something in the short term is probably the way to go.
I've noticed a few people using GoogleDocs also.
As an intermediate solution, would you be able to use a management tool of your choice to maintain your own overview, importing/exporting information/lists/calendars to Google Docs?
I can do that. I can also see if there's an easy way to set things up so the list can be exported (each Vibe page has its own unique URL, so if I expose my setup over the 'net, maybe I can just feed it in using RSS or something like that). That way we don't stall because we're figuring out how to manage the project. :) I'm happy to use Google Docs for something like this in the interim, though as Pascal said, project management isn't necessarily the same as file sharing. But it's a step towards keeping momentum going. I'm off work tomorrow (contract has been suspended due to a delay at the client), so I'm going to take some time tomorrow to gather the information from the ongoing threads and start seeing if I can put together a high-level WBS that we can start filling in with more specific tasks. Then we can find people to work on the tasks and keep the ball rolling. :) Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Fri, 2012-05-18 at 07:52 +1000, Helen South wrote:
Perhaps on a more mundane level than project management, a simple workspace for collaborative text would be very useful. We had been talking about our own PiratePad/EtherPad instance - someone did have one going, though there were some issues with access (I guess these things have to be administered = more work). I have yet to find anything more convenient than PiratePad for throwing together ideas together and collaborating.
Unfortunately, I am no longer a fan of the various Pads out there. While I totally agree that as a tool it is awesome, the software itself has been so unreliable and buggy that we cannot reliably depend on them. There have been tests to try to integrate it into our infrastructure but again, software becomes the issue. Pads providers have also provided an unpleasant surprise. The most reliable one that I frequented in the past was ietherpad. Then suddenly, one day... the folks there had a crash on their EC2 host and realized.. oops, we never did a backup of our service, did we? :-) All our data from the past that openSUSE used on ietherpad is gone forever. I've tried a number of other pads, Piratepad, typewith.me, etc. And each one just doesn't stay up for very long, disconnects after a very short period of time.
Its downside is security, it's out there in a very open cloud space.
We try to be a very open and transparent project here, so I don't consider this to be much of an issue.
I've noticed a few people using GoogleDocs also.
Some have political issues about using GoogleDocs, so we must be careful not to choose a tool that offends some people in this case. Also, with my limited experience, what I've seen (and I could be wrong in how I used it) when setting a doc to public, you still can't make it publicly accessible to edit. Seems you still have to explicitly give rights to edit. :-(
As an intermediate solution, would you be able to use a management tool of your choice to maintain your own overview, importing/exporting information/lists/calendars to Google Docs?
Overall, while pads are awesome, I find they are awesome especially for collaborating together on a live document. This was especially true for when we would work on articles and we would all come on at the same time to edit the document. But pads aren't really meant to be a permanent reference page. I don't think that usecase applies for what we'd be doing here. In this case, I think our wiki is the best place to be creating such documents. Someone gathers information as it comes along and posts it to the wiki page, and it'll be a living document that evolves over time. We're less likely to be all working on the same document in realtime as we would on a pad. So let's stick with wiki which is our main tool anyway. Granted, the wiki syntax can be a bit daunting to some people, but I think in the circle of people participating here so far, we're able to tackle that with little challenge. Bryen
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 8:04 AM, Bryen M Yunashko <suserocks@bryen.com> wrote:
I've tried a number of other pads, Piratepad, typewith.me, etc. And each one just doesn't stay up for very long, disconnects after a very short period of time.
Agreed, that always was a frustration. I never expected them to be permanent and usually made a local copy of things I worked on.
Its downside is security, it's out there in a very open cloud space.
We try to be a very open and transparent project here, so I don't consider this to be much of an issue.
True for the most part, though as a writer, if I'm doing something for a magazine, it needs to be 'unpublished' - they want fresh, exclusive material. But it's a bit of a moot point given the other limitations.
Some have political issues about using GoogleDocs.... you still can't make it publicly accessible to edit.
Two big limitations. I'm not personally a fan of Google docs and share some of the political concern, but had noticed some of the team using it.
So let's stick with wiki which is our main tool anyway. Granted, the wiki syntax can be a bit daunting to some people, but I think in the circle of people participating here so far, we're able to tackle that with little challenge.
That sounds like a plan. I'm not entirely comfortable with wiki syntax but it won't take long to fix that. I'd been thinking about some of the mini wikis I've played with (TiddlyWiki, WikiOnAStick) but if we can use our existing wiki in that way .... it's not an issue that it's a 'work in progress'? IRC: helen_au helen.south@opensuse.org helensouth.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Fri, 2012-05-18 at 08:27 +1000, Helen South wrote:
That sounds like a plan. I'm not entirely comfortable with wiki syntax but it won't take long to fix that. I'd been thinking about some of the mini wikis I've played with (TiddlyWiki, WikiOnAStick) but if we can use our existing wiki in that way .... it's not an issue that it's a 'work in progress'?
Nope, not an issue. We frequently do that here. Not everything on the wiki is a "final document." Although if you wish to, you can put on top "Work in Progress" so someone who doesn't realize doesn't get all up in arms. Hey, it happens! :-) As for the syntax, no worries. As we progress, people will jump in and clean up syntax where possible and the next time you go in to edit something, you'll see syntax examples. Bryen -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Thu, 17 May 2012 17:32:48 -0500, Bryen M Yunashko wrote:
Nope, not an issue. We frequently do that here. Not everything on the wiki is a "final document." Although if you wish to, you can put on top "Work in Progress" so someone who doesn't realize doesn't get all up in arms. Hey, it happens! :-)
As for the syntax, no worries. As we progress, people will jump in and clean up syntax where possible and the next time you go in to edit something, you'll see syntax examples.
I'm good with using the wiki as well. Doesn't have the PM features I'm looking for, but for now it's a good place to start at least capturing ideas and building out the work breakdown structure. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Thu, 17 May 2012 23:15:41 +0000, Jim Henderson wrote:
On Thu, 17 May 2012 17:32:48 -0500, Bryen M Yunashko wrote:
Nope, not an issue. We frequently do that here. Not everything on the wiki is a "final document." Although if you wish to, you can put on top "Work in Progress" so someone who doesn't realize doesn't get all up in arms. Hey, it happens! :-)
As for the syntax, no worries. As we progress, people will jump in and clean up syntax where possible and the next time you go in to edit something, you'll see syntax examples.
I'm good with using the wiki as well. Doesn't have the PM features I'm looking for, but for now it's a good place to start at least capturing ideas and building out the work breakdown structure.
Doing a little bit of digging, I see that there's an addon for MediaWiki called "Semantic Project Management" - what flexibility do we have to add a module to the MediaWiki instance used for our wiki? That might meet my PM needs; I'm going to install it in a local MW instance I have here and see how it works. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Thu, 17 May 2012 23:28:28 +0000, Jim Henderson wrote:
That might meet my PM needs; I'm going to install it in a local MW instance I have here and see how it works.
Actually the "Semantic Project Management" seems overly complicated, and I can't actually get it to work on 1.19. There's a simple Todo plugin that seems to provide some basic functionality for task management. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Fri, 2012-05-18 at 00:47 +0000, Jim Henderson wrote:
On Thu, 17 May 2012 23:28:28 +0000, Jim Henderson wrote:
That might meet my PM needs; I'm going to install it in a local MW instance I have here and see how it works.
Actually the "Semantic Project Management" seems overly complicated, and I can't actually get it to work on 1.19.
There's a simple Todo plugin that seems to provide some basic functionality for task management.
Jim
I suggest you send a note to either Rajko (simon123 on IRC) or to the wiki ML to find out what plugins they have or can install. Rajko seems quite knowledgeable about wiki plugins. Bryen -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Thu, 17 May 2012 19:56:25 -0500, Bryen M Yunashko wrote:
I suggest you send a note to either Rajko (simon123 on IRC) or to the wiki ML to find out what plugins they have or can install. Rajko seems quite knowledgeable about wiki plugins.
Perfect, thanks, Bryen. I'll do that. The Todo Tasks plugin seems to be simple, able to be project oriented, and pretty straightforward to use. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Fri, 2012-05-18 at 00:59 +0000, Jim Henderson wrote:
On Thu, 17 May 2012 19:56:25 -0500, Bryen M Yunashko wrote:
I suggest you send a note to either Rajko (simon123 on IRC) or to the wiki ML to find out what plugins they have or can install. Rajko seems quite knowledgeable about wiki plugins.
Perfect, thanks, Bryen. I'll do that. The Todo Tasks plugin seems to be simple, able to be project oriented, and pretty straightforward to use.
Jim
-- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits
I don't like the idea of adapting the wiki for that. Its supposed to be a knowledge base, and its already not terribly good for that. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Mon, 21 May 2012 13:30:34 -0700, Roger Luedecke wrote:
I don't like the idea of adapting the wiki for that. Its supposed to be a knowledge base, and its already not terribly good for that.
Actually, I set up an account on the tool that Henne pointed me at and it seems that that tool is specifically set up for this - and uses Agile/ Scrum as a development methodology (which I think applies very well anyways because the goal is to keep things moving along). Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Hi, Am 18.05.2012 00:04, schrieb Bryen M Yunashko:
So let's stick with wiki which is our main tool anyway. Granted, the wiki syntax can be a bit daunting to some people, but I think in the circle of people participating here so far, we're able to tackle that with little challenge.
I have a comment about the wiki. Granted I do not write much there but working with the "new" wiki is always a very high hurdle for me. - when I try to fix something it won't be public but is waiting for some magic maintainer to approve it. - when I want to add sites I always fail to create it because of permissions (or just the lack of understanding the structure) - I find the structure highly confusing - I always end up using other ways to make stuff public or not do it at all Summary: IMHO our wiki is NOT inviting to occasional users and contributors. Might be that I don't get it but I fear many other people don't get it too. Wolfgang -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Fri, 2012-05-18 at 08:01 +0200, Wolfgang Rosenauer wrote:
Hi,
Am 18.05.2012 00:04, schrieb Bryen M Yunashko:
So let's stick with wiki which is our main tool anyway. Granted, the wiki syntax can be a bit daunting to some people, but I think in the circle of people participating here so far, we're able to tackle that with little challenge.
I have a comment about the wiki. Granted I do not write much there but working with the "new" wiki is always a very high hurdle for me.
- when I try to fix something it won't be public but is waiting for some magic maintainer to approve it. - when I want to add sites I always fail to create it because of permissions (or just the lack of understanding the structure) - I find the structure highly confusing - I always end up using other ways to make stuff public or not do it at all
Summary: IMHO our wiki is NOT inviting to occasional users and contributors. Might be that I don't get it but I fear many other people don't get it too.
Wolfgang The magic maintainer crap especially has broken it.
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Hello, Am Freitag, 18. Mai 2012 schrieb Wolfgang Rosenauer:
I have a comment about the wiki. Granted I do not write much there but working with the "new" wiki is always a very high hurdle for me.
- when I try to fix something it won't be public but is waiting for some magic maintainer to approve it.
At least in the main, Portal and SDB namespace, yes. The openSUSE namespace does not require any approval. The idea was to ensure a better article quality in the namespaces that are relevant for end users. But yes, it can be annoying when you wait for a fix to be published...
- when I want to add sites I always fail to create it because of permissions
This shouldn't happen - can you give an example including the exact error message (or a screenshot)?
(or just the lack of understanding the structure)
Well, that would mean that you "just" choose a "wrong" pagename or namespace. This might annoy some wiki maintainers ;-) but shouldn't block creation of a page.
- I find the structure highly confusing
Funnily the main goal of the new wiki was to get a clean structure ;-) Note that I didn't say we reached that goal ;-) However one of our problems is that a large number of pages _will_ cause some chaos, independent of how much you think about the structure :-( (Nevertheless: If you have a good idea how to enhance the structure, please speak up.) Regards, Christian Boltz -- programmers' biggest strength is that they're lazy bastards. [Claudio Freire in opensuse-factory] -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Hey Wolfgang, On 18.05.2012 08:01, Wolfgang Rosenauer wrote:
- I find the structure highly confusing
Can I ask you a personal favor? Can you take a couple of minutes from your busy schedule and elaborate on that as PM to me? In particular I would like you to answer the following questions from the top of your head (without looking it up I mean) if you can. * What are Namespaces? * What are Portals? * How do you think people can collaborate in a wiki? * For whom do you think is the openSUSE wiki? That would be very helpful. Thanks Henne -- Henne Vogelsang http://www.opensuse.org Everybody has a plan, until they get hit. - Mike Tyson -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Hi, Am 21.05.2012 15:28, schrieb Henne Vogelsang:
On 18.05.2012 08:01, Wolfgang Rosenauer wrote:
- I find the structure highly confusing
Can I ask you a personal favor? Can you take a couple of minutes from your busy schedule and elaborate on that as PM to me? In particular I would like you to answer the following questions from the top of your head (without looking it up I mean) if you can.
* What are Namespaces? * What are Portals?
I know the general meaning of namespaces and I can guess what portals are in the wiki. It doesn't make sense to write a lot about it because I for sure do not know details and that's maybe why "I find the structury highly confusing".
* How do you think people can collaborate in a wiki?
I do not get that question.
* For whom do you think is the openSUSE wiki?
Aeh, for everyone involved in the project and interested persons? I'm not sure what you want to say. Let me explain what I wanted to say instead: I use wikis sometimes but it's not my main task to write documentation in wikis. I use the new openSUSE wiki rarely (even more rarely than the old one) because I don't know the details about the above and I use my time for something else instead of working through every detail of our wiki. But from time to time I see that there is a need to write some FAQ or documentation for stuff _I_ know. The last time (which was quite a few weeks in the past) I failed miserably and was not able to add a page - because either I didn't know where it belongs - or it failed for permission reasons - yes, I asked on #opensuse-wiki and got no answer I do not say it's impossible to work through that but I find it a high bar for people not used to the system. ATM I want to add some documentation and will hopefully work through during the next days and in case it's needed I'll share my experience again with current data. Wolfgang -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 2012-05-18 07:52:50 (+1000), Helen South <helen.south@opensuse.org> wrote:
But as this bugzilla project kicks off, I need /something/ that can help keep track of things because there are going to be a few moving parts to the success of the project, and if there's one thing I've learned about project management over the years, it's that if you don't track what's going on in the project, you'll fail before you even start.
Agreed.
And I don't want to set a project like this up to fail before it even gets off the ground. :)
Perhaps on a more mundane level than project management, a simple workspace for collaborative text would be very useful. We had been talking about our own PiratePad/EtherPad instance - someone did have one going, though there were some issues with access (I guess these things have to be administered = more work). I have yet to find anything more convenient than PiratePad for throwing together ideas together and collaborating. Its downside is security, it's out there in a very open cloud space.
I've noticed a few people using GoogleDocs also.
Collaborative editing is a very different topic actually, let's take that as a separate thread/topic/task.
As an intermediate solution, would you be able to use a management tool of your choice to maintain your own overview, importing/exporting information/lists/calendars to Google Docs?
I believe that there would be real added value in using a "project management tool", especially to - track things that need to be done - dependencies between tasks - whom is taking care of what We definitely don't need gantt charts and probably not even estimations of effort (although it might come handy for a few things if it is used by everyone on openSUSE, e.g. thinking of OBS development). * topics/categories/groups/projects * status (todo, in progress, done, frozen, canceled) * dependencies/links to other tasks * description * comments * integration with opensuse.org accounts and SSO * obviously web based * maybe subtasks * maybe effort estimation and time tracking If we go down that route, and I believe we should, let's make it properly for once and take our time to pick the right tool: * let's gather requirements * let's talk to a few people and teams to see whether they would use it (if there is very low adoption and we just end up with 5 people using it, it's just a burden) * let's make a list of candidates (tools) and see whether people have experience with them and feedback to give (ChiliProject, RedMine, Trac, Trello, Retro, ...) Anyone interested in driving this? I'm definitely interested in taking part as I have some experience with such tools but I'm too swamped to drive it. I must say that personally, I'm a big fan of the Features/"RFC" kind of pages the Fedora folks are doing in their wiki for specific tasks and topics (e.g. introducing systemd, moving everything to /usr, etc...), e.g. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/systemd https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/UsrMove IMHO we should set it up like that and make an RFC page on our wiki to collect all findings, give context, list stakeholders, and ultimately the decision. Document for posterity in a more visible and clear manner, if you will, rather than having it buried in lengthy email threads. No need to slavishly follow the structure of Fedora's pages, they have a slightly different purpose, but most of the document structure could be mimicked (Summary, Owner, Current Status, Detailed Description, Benefits, Roadmap, add "Potential Issues" etc...). cheers -- -o) Pascal Bleser /\\ http://opensuse.org -- we haz green _\_v http://fosdem.org -- we haz conf
On Sat, 19 May 2012 12:02:03 +0200, Pascal Bleser wrote:
As an intermediate solution, would you be able to use a management tool of your choice to maintain your own overview, importing/exporting information/lists/calendars to Google Docs?
I believe that there would be real added value in using a "project management tool", especially to - track things that need to be done - dependencies between tasks - whom is taking care of what
Yes. The more I look at it, the more I think maybe the MediaWiki "Todo Tasks" plugin provides sufficient functionality to do this, with the added functionality of e-mailing the task owner. It doesn't track status, but it tracks what needs to be done, and in that regard it's a step in the right direction.
We definitely don't need gantt charts and probably not even estimations of effort (although it might come handy for a few things if it is used by everyone on openSUSE, e.g. thinking of OBS development).
I think we need to track dependencies, though (something a gantt chart would do) - and time estimates are useful to ensure we move forward on stuff. If we have to adjust the time estimates, that's fine - project management isn't about the PM plan being a "roadmap" but more of a "directional guidance" - and if we see something bogging down, we can solicit additional help on a task that's holding things up. But that's more effective if you have an estimate as to the effort to complete a task to begin with - otherwise you don't know (falling back into PMP- speak) what the "earned value" is on the task and how it's tracking to the "planned value" - which is how you know if you're ahead of or behind schedule.
* topics/categories/groups/projects * status (todo, in progress, done, frozen, canceled) * dependencies/links to other tasks * description * comments * integration with opensuse.org accounts and SSO * obviously web based * maybe subtasks * maybe effort estimation and time tracking
These are the reasons why I initially was thinking Vibe would be a good choice - its task management module has nearly all of these features. The integration with opensuse.org accounts/SSO does mean some level of integration with Access Manager, which will slow things down (in terms of implementation), though OpenID might be an option (which I think means we can just implement and point to the OpenID provider) - I can look and see if that's something that can be added and what would be involved. But that is a bit of "cart before the horse", too, if we organize a project to select a tool.
If we go down that route, and I believe we should, let's make it properly for once and take our time to pick the right tool: * let's gather requirements * let's talk to a few people and teams to see whether they would use it (if there is very low adoption and we just end up with 5 people using it, it's just a burden) * let's make a list of candidates (tools) and see whether people have experience with them and feedback to give (ChiliProject, RedMine, Trac, Trello, Retro, ...)
Essentially, we need a project to decide on a project management tool. :) So the first step would be to identify who the stakeholders are so we're sure we're assessing the needs from the proper audience.
Anyone interested in driving this? I'm definitely interested in taking part as I have some experience with such tools but I'm too swamped to drive it.
I'm interested, but at the same time, while my time is presently somewhat free, that's subject to change depending on availability of contract work or taking on a full-time position. Perhaps you and I could work together (would you have time if we split the load?) to drive this.
I must say that personally, I'm a big fan of the Features/"RFC" kind of pages the Fedora folks are doing in their wiki for specific tasks and topics (e.g. introducing systemd, moving everything to /usr, etc...), e.g. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/systemd https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/UsrMove
IMHO we should set it up like that and make an RFC page on our wiki to collect all findings, give context, list stakeholders, and ultimately the decision. Document for posterity in a more visible and clear manner, if you will, rather than having it buried in lengthy email threads.
Agreed. E-mail is good for bashing ideas out, but it gets difficult to follow after a while (even following via NNTP on gmane.org, which is what I'm doing) and we need to make sure we don't start repeating ourselves. :)
No need to slavishly follow the structure of Fedora's pages, they have a slightly different purpose, but most of the document structure could be mimicked (Summary, Owner, Current Status, Detailed Description, Benefits, Roadmap, add "Potential Issues" etc...).
Agreed, but a consistent structure is something I'd highly encourage, as having a repeatable process means that we can more accurately predict the outcomes - and predictability is something that I think is highly desirable. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Hello, Am Samstag, 19. Mai 2012 schrieb Jim Henderson:
Yes. The more I look at it, the more I think maybe the MediaWiki "Todo Tasks" plugin provides sufficient functionality to do this, with the added functionality of e-mailing the task owner. It doesn't track status, but it tracks what needs to be done, and in that regard it's a step in the right direction.
That would mean to add another tracking tool - we already have bugzilla, FATE, retro (did I miss something?) Let me ask a (maybe silly) question: Why don't you just use bugzilla for task management? Not everything there has to be a bug, bugzilla can also manage tasks ;-) IMHO the point is to have _one_ TODO list where developers can see what they can work on. Please don't add another place that needs to be checked every day - at least if you don't have very good arguments ;-) (Sorry if this sounds like a rant ;-) Yes, I know that the wiki extension can send mails, but that doesn't scale. It works if you are involved with 5 tasks, but it will fail with 50. I experienced the same with bugzilla - some years ago, my only reason to open bnc in a browser was to report bugs or to add a comment. For everything else, I read the bugzilla mails. In the meantime, I heavily rely on using bug lists in a browser (BTW: sorted by modification date) and basically ignore [1] the bugzilla mails because I would drown in them.
Essentially, we need a project to decide on a project management tool. :)
;-))
So the first step would be to identify who the stakeholders are so we're sure we're assessing the needs from the proper audience.
If you ask around, please also ask "which tool or page do you use daily?", not only "which additonal tool do you want?" Regards, Christian Boltz [1] I filter them into a folder to have an archive, but I never open that folder in my mail client -- Eine "Sprache", in der man <xsl:call-template name="foo"> <xsl:with-param name="arg">blubber</xsl:with-param> </xsl:call-template> schreiben muß, wo jeder andere foo(blubber) schreibt, *muß* irgendwie ein Erfolg werden. Jedenfalls für Festplatten- und Speicherverkäufer. [Stefan Reuther] -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Sun, 20 May 2012 01:27:44 +0200, Christian Boltz wrote:
Hello,
Am Samstag, 19. Mai 2012 schrieb Jim Henderson:
Yes. The more I look at it, the more I think maybe the MediaWiki "Todo Tasks" plugin provides sufficient functionality to do this, with the added functionality of e-mailing the task owner. It doesn't track status, but it tracks what needs to be done, and in that regard it's a step in the right direction.
That would mean to add another tracking tool - we already have bugzilla, FATE, retro (did I miss something?)
Let me ask a (maybe silly) question: Why don't you just use bugzilla for task management? Not everything there has to be a bug, bugzilla can also manage tasks ;-)
IMHO the point is to have _one_ TODO list where developers can see what they can work on. Please don't add another place that needs to be checked every day - at least if you don't have very good arguments ;-)
I don't know that bugzilla is an optimal solution for tracking project tasks - but it might be. Thing is we'd need additional product/component creation to do project management, but it's really geared towards products rather than project management.
So the first step would be to identify who the stakeholders are so we're sure we're assessing the needs from the proper audience.
If you ask around, please also ask "which tool or page do you use daily?", not only "which additonal tool do you want?"
Absolutely. But one of the important points here is that project management for something like this is somewhat different than bug/defect tracking (or enhancement tracking), so a tool that's going to be effective also needs to be one that's not designed for a different purpose bent and twisted to accommodate the needs of doing project management. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Hello, Am Samstag, 19. Mai 2012 schrieb Jim Henderson:
On Sun, 20 May 2012 01:27:44 +0200, Christian Boltz wrote:
Am Samstag, 19. Mai 2012 schrieb Jim Henderson:
I don't know that bugzilla is an optimal solution for tracking project tasks - but it might be. Thing is we'd need additional product/component creation to do project management, but it's really geared towards products rather than project management.
I'd say bugzilla is good for tracking - and it doesn't care about what you are tracking ;-) Is there really a difference between tracking a bug and tracking a TODO? I doubt ;-) If you want to test bugzilla for project management, you can (ab)use the existing component "Action Items" in product "openSUSE.org" (optionally with a [prefix] in the bug summary). Creating additional components shouldn't be a problem [1]. However I want to avoid having a bugzilla component just for a test (we'd have to keep this component forever), so please do the first test within the "Action Items" component ;-)
Absolutely. But one of the important points here is that project management for something like this is somewhat different than bug/defect tracking (or enhancement tracking), so a tool that's going to be effective also needs to be one that's not designed for a different purpose bent and twisted to accommodate the needs of doing project management.
My impression is that project management means, to say it with Henne's words, "get the shit done". That's also true for bugreports, so the difference can't be that big ;-) Needless to say that bugzilla has two big advantages: It is already there (you can start using it today), and most people already know how to use it. Regards, Christian Boltz [1] AFAIK Coolo or AJ can create them, so we don't depend on the bugzilla team -- No, we sane people usually simply don't care and put such things in the same category as other software for studying fairytales. However people who believe in other imaginary beings like Allah, Shiiva, or the Spaghetti Monster might feel offended. [Markus Slopianka in opensuse-project] -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Sun, 20 May 2012 14:46:48 +0200, Christian Boltz wrote:
I don't know that bugzilla is an optimal solution for tracking project tasks - but it might be. Thing is we'd need additional product/component creation to do project management, but it's really geared towards products rather than project management.
I'd say bugzilla is good for tracking - and it doesn't care about what you are tracking ;-) Is there really a difference between tracking a bug and tracking a TODO? I doubt ;-)
Probably not a lot of difference, true; I've just never run across a project manager who used bugzilla for general project management, even when it was a tool that was available to them.
If you want to test bugzilla for project management, you can (ab)use the existing component "Action Items" in product "openSUSE.org" (optionally with a [prefix] in the bug summary).
Creating additional components shouldn't be a problem [1]. However I want to avoid having a bugzilla component just for a test (we'd have to keep this component forever), so please do the first test within the "Action Items" component ;-)
We could give it a go and see how it works out.
Absolutely. But one of the important points here is that project management for something like this is somewhat different than bug/defect tracking (or enhancement tracking), so a tool that's going to be effective also needs to be one that's not designed for a different purpose bent and twisted to accommodate the needs of doing project management.
My impression is that project management means, to say it with Henne's words, "get the shit done". That's also true for bugreports, so the difference can't be that big ;-)
Project management (full project management, that is) involves a lot more than just tracking tasks - you should also be tracking stakeholder interests, risks, expectations, deliverables, schedules/costs, and other stuff. It's more than just task tracking, though tasks are certainly a key piece of the puzzle. But, for example, keeping track of who has a stake in the project, what their influence/importance is, and interactions with them - that's not something well suited to bugzilla. Or maintaining a risk register that documents potential and actual risks, proactive planning to work around the risk if it's got a high probability of happening.
Needless to say that bugzilla has two big advantages: It is already there (you can start using it today), and most people already know how to use it.
Both are good positives for it, that's true. But with the other aspects of project management that are important to project success, it still feels a bit like "trying to bend something to do something it wasn't designed to do". Doesn't mean it's not worth a try, though.
Regards,
Christian Boltz
[1] AFAIK Coolo or AJ can create them, so we don't depend on the bugzilla team
That's good to know. :) Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
My impression is that project management means, to say it with Henne's words, "get the shit done". That's also true for bugreports, so the difference can't be that big ;-)
Project management (full project management, that is) involves a lot more than just tracking tasks - you should also be tracking stakeholder interests, risks, expectations, deliverables, schedules/costs, and other stuff. It's more than just task tracking, though tasks are certainly a key piece of the puzzle. But, for example, keeping track of who has a stake in the project, what their influence/importance is, and interactions with them - that's not something well suited to bugzilla.
Or maintaining a risk register that documents potential and actual risks, proactive planning to work around the risk if it's got a high probability of happening.
Needless to say that bugzilla has two big advantages: It is already there (you can start using it today), and most people already know how to use it.
Both are good positives for it, that's true. But with the other aspects of project management that are important to project success, it still feels a bit like "trying to bend something to do something it wasn't designed to do". Doesn't mean it's not worth a try, though.
I'd say it's probably not worth a try, as a PM tool is supposed to save time and keep the true state of delivery (including dependencies and undone work) in order. Both will only happen if the tool is easy to use in the context. Partial or inaccurate information in a PM tool is worse as it confuses. David -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Hey, On 17.05.2012 18:03, Jim Henderson wrote:
But as this bugzilla project kicks off, I need /something/ that can help keep track of things because there are going to be a few moving parts to the success of the project, and if there's one thing I've learned about project management over the years, it's that if you don't track what's going on in the project, you'll fail before you even start.
If you haven't found it yet you can use http://retro.opensuse.org. It's there, it's maintained, it includes goal planner, story management, issue-tracker, simple wiki etc. Basically everything you said you need I think. The contact to get a project set up or anything else would be admin@opensuse.org Henne -- Henne Vogelsang http://www.opensuse.org Everybody has a plan, until they get hit. - Mike Tyson -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Mon, 21 May 2012 15:40:54 +0200, Henne Vogelsang wrote:
Hey,
On 17.05.2012 18:03, Jim Henderson wrote:
But as this bugzilla project kicks off, I need /something/ that can help keep track of things because there are going to be a few moving parts to the success of the project, and if there's one thing I've learned about project management over the years, it's that if you don't track what's going on in the project, you'll fail before you even start.
If you haven't found it yet you can use http://retro.opensuse.org. It's there, it's maintained, it includes goal planner, story management, issue-tracker, simple wiki etc. Basically everything you said you need I think. The contact to get a project set up or anything else would be admin@opensuse.org
Cool, I hadn't found that yet. Sounds like a perfect fit, will take a look. Thanks, Henne. :) Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 2012-05-17 01:07:31 (+0000), Jim Henderson <hendersj@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, 16 May 2012 19:34:15 -0500, Bryen M Yunashko wrote:
I believe that's the same people Roger's been talking to. I gather they're interested in helping out. But I think ultimately what could make it move forward is if they simply help out by actually implementing an openSUSE Vibe instance and co-administrating it with us, thus we get some expertise and they get some free advertising for their product.
Or it becomes yet another administration annoyance like the forums and many more of our tools where only a very (*very*) few can work on it, be it in terms of features or maintenance.
The current situation is already ridiculous enough, let's make sure that we do *not* add more to it.
Yep. And now you mention it, I may (or may not) have been involved in getting Roger in touch with Tracy (the PM) at some point.
I believe the knowledge gap is one of the big problems here. Not many people in FOSS have heard of Kablink and it would be beneficial for the Kablink/Vibe guys to have a large public instance. They'll definitely get something out of it (provided the community likes the tool once it's implemented.)
Well I don't care at all about the "Kablink/Vibe guys", let's make sure that if we add yet another tool, it is something, for once, that is nice to use and, ideally, that can be supported by more than one or two people on the planet.
Injecting a tool into the openSUSE community infrastructure primarily because it's "from Novell", no thanks, we had that in the past, we've seen how that worked out (iChain?).
I was up on the Kablink site a few days ago, and it seemed like there wasn't much new up there. I know Vibe is going strong, though, and it's possible some of the workflow stuff could come in handy for us at some point (and that's only part of the paid product IIRC - it's one of the differentiators).
I'll circle with Roger and see where that was at. Thanks!
To be honest, I believe... no, I am certain it is a mistake to go down that route:
(tl;dr but I'm trying to be comprehensive)
1. The spechul tool ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Kablink has absolutely no traction in FOSS from what I can see (I might be wrong, but I believe I would have noticed) so it will be yet another liability -- let's not have the iChain debacle again, please. How many people will have expertise with it ? (let's say five at most) How many people will be able to help out with issues, downtime, etc... ? (let's say two at most) If you're counting on "upstream" Kablink devs: I don't want to hurt their feelings but, realistically, how long before it's dumped ?
2. Yet another tool? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Really? Don't we already have enough tools that create confusion (e.g. openFATE vs Bugzilla, forums vs connect) and aren't integrated in any way except for SSO ?
Adding more tools will primarily be highly effective at one thing: create more silos, and we have way too many of them already (irc, MLs, forums, connect, wikis, bugzilla, openFATE, OBS, software search, docs.o.o, retro, indico). I'm not saying we need a single tool for everything (don't give me a straw man here :)) but cmon... :)
There is definitely a high risk of putting an additional service into place that will become something like connect (almost completely useless in its current state IMHO, and I don't believe that will change), or create a divide like openFATE vs Bugzilla (almost the exact same kind of content (features/ideas vs issues) but in two different tools with no interconnection whatsoever). Also, from what I can remember from having seen it briefly, it has a lot of overlap with other tools that are already in place.
Hence more confusion, more splitting of content and people.
3. The ugly tool? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Highly subjective, and I've only seen Kablink twice, it was a few months ago (but hasn't evolved much since then apparently) and... I mean... really? I get it that you and Roger do like the tool but do you really believe it is going to get a lot of traction ?
Kablink didn't strike me as a project management / tracking kind of tool, are you sure there aren't alternatives that are both more common in the FOSS ecosystem (and hence better known and hence with a high chance in terms of acceptance) and better suited for the job (also to reduce overlap with existing tools) ?
I don't count "sharing files in folders" as "project management"; actually, a feature like that is a massive issue as people will put things in there instead of github.
Actually there is already such a tool in place, that is used by the boosters team (I guess it still is nowadays ^^) and has been used a bit by the board in the past, which is "retro", an open source agile kind of ticket tracker: http://retro.opensuse.org/projects/boosters-work/milestones/20/goals
Retro is not bad, not that widely used though (certainly not as much as e.g. Redmine, Trac, Jira/Greenhopper) but lacks more fine grained permission setup, team/group handling, etc... to be used on a large scale by the whole project (at least from what I can remember, was already suboptimal to set it up for the boosters + for the board).
But AFAICS they're thinking of using Trello instead.
To end on a more positive note (after that long rant)...
Don't get me wrong: some sort of task and progress tracking tool could be highly useful if used in a central manner by everyone and all the teams (artwork, boosters, infrastructure, possibly OBS, marketing, board (some things need privacy though), possibly factory, etc...) in order to have - *one* place/tool where to look for tasks, TODOs, progress/state - interconnection/linking between tasks that go over the boundaries of a single team (e.g. marketing depending on some artwork being done before they can move on) - a tool that doesn't do a dozen other things, as that'll just create even more spilling of information and, with it, confusion
I don't want to spoil your motivation and am thankful as everyone else for your efforts to push things forward, but I fear that all the issues I listed above are not considered and, frankly, I have doubts that Kablink is the right tool for the job, to put it mildly :)
cheers Wow, there are tools there I didn't ever hear of:). I think you missed a nice close-sourced one I saw AppStream devs using. That weird scattering mess is why I was pushing for Kablink in the first place. Trash some of
On Thu, 2012-05-17 at 08:37 +0200, Pascal Bleser wrote: the old tools, integrate others into Kablink via extension. Granted, your criticisms regarding Kablink are not invalid... but it is the only software of its kind that I have experience with, and the willingness of Novell to help with integrating and developing it to suit our usage is quite an incentive. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Wed, 2012-05-16 at 18:51 -0500, Bryen M Yunashko wrote:
On Wed, 2012-05-16 at 22:35 +0000, Jim Henderson wrote:
General question to those more closely involved in oS project management - is there a tool we have access to that can help track tasks and progress on projects within the oS project?
I'm thinking something like a Kablink (or Vibe OnPrem) task list. I've got Vibe installed at home with a limited number of users, but I'd rather track the bugzilla/bug process project in a more visible way than on a private server in my house. :)
If we don't, I can set something on on the Kablink site so those who are interested can follow along and help document the tasks that need to be completed and their progress.
Thanks,
Jim
Roger Leudecke and some others have also been interested in getting Kablink into the openSUSE infrastructure, but haven't gotten much traction since some of you talked about it at the last Brainshare. Might be worth pinging Roger to see what can be done to move this initiative forward.
Bryen M Yunashko openSUSE Project
Its exactly for reasons such as this that I was pushing for it. We are a project with no project management! -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
participants (9)
-
Administrator -
Bryen M Yunashko -
Christian Boltz -
Helen South -
Henne Vogelsang -
Jim Henderson -
Pascal Bleser -
Roger Luedecke -
Wolfgang Rosenauer