On Fri, 21 Mar 2008, Jonathan Rochkind wrote:

> I think that by allowing a  larger group of people in, we get more done
> and have _better_ services. But there's definitely a balancing act,
> between stability and more hands.  I don't want to see it balanced too
> much toward stability 'guarantees' though. Letting in people we trust to
> know what they know and what they dont' know and only touch the stuff
> they are volunteering to be responsible for I think can do that.
>
> For instance, I'm happy to be responsible for the planet. And not much
> else.  Just being responsible for the planet, I'd be 'wasting' a 'slot'
> if we only allowed 2-3 people in---plus I'm not really an experienced
> sysadmin!  But I'm willing to manage the planet, and if I weren't doing
> it, someone else would have to. I suppose if we can really find 2-3
> experienced sysadmin willing to spend a lot of time on code4lib for
> free...  but isnt' spreading out the work more a better idea?

Depending on the apps being maintained, it's sometimes useful to have an
admin for each individual app, plus basic sysadmin (and possibly
webserver admin) for the box.

Personally, I'm getting kinda rusty in my sysadmin duties, and I've never
dealt with CentOS (or RedHat -- my linux experience in general is rather
lacking ... most of my experience is in Solaris / FreeBSD / MacOSX )

But on the issue with having lots of sysadmins -- it's ideal that you have
a backup for various roles, in case someone's on vacation, etc, but you
can run into the problem where everyone waits for someone else to step up
and do something.  (eg, one of my co-workers has been maintaining the
DC-SAGE webserver for years ... people keep requesting new features, but
aren't stepping up to implement them ... and the sad thing, it's a group
of sysadmins.)

I personally might be able to help with things on an ad-hoc basis, but
I've already got a few 'volunteer' systems that I'm behind schedule on
implementing.


> As far as the 'formalization' idea---if what you want is a small group
> of people deciding who gets shell access, you can have that without
> bylaws and a board. Just create the small group of people. Two seperate
> questions. If a junta in charge of code4lib sysadmining is a good idea,
> create one.

I'd be afraid of someone letting the power go to their head.  It's also
possible that OSU has policies on people with root/administrator access on
their network, which might override anything decided in this forum.


> So maybe that's the answer right there. We find 2-3 people to take
> _primary_ app-level responsibility for code4lib.org (ryan ordway still
> has primary OS-level responsibility), and they are the junta. If someone
> else (like me) wants access to do some smaller part, the junta approves
> him or her (and the junta can revoke them).  That makes sense to me.

You can't have 2-3 people take primary responsibility unless they're each
primary for a different component.  (see earlier comment regarding the
bystander effect)


> Anyone volunteering to be that junta?   :)

Not it!


-Joe