Proposal for in-house developers at TDF

Board Discuss
#21

HI,

Hi Paolo,

It is not the responsibility of the board to micromanage the team.

To evaluate the quality of your proposal.

It would have been the responsibility of other fellow members of the board to contribute to a proposal but you may have noticed that the community did such a good job that only a few actual proposal from the board were deemed necessary.

It looks as if you are thinking in circles :wink:

I guess each one of us prefers to think in different shapes but de gustibus non disputandum est.

You do not response to the idea to have a trial period etc.

I believe you missed some of the interactions on board-discuss as the answer has been already provided:

https://www.mail-archive.com/board-discuss@documentfoundation.org/msg05567.html

https://www.mail-archive.com/board-discuss@documentfoundation.org/msg05579.html

Thanks. Mark is making a valuable point there. The trial as mentioned there is however based on the persons performing and not on TDF's responsibility.

OK, so that's a criticism.

Could you now provide your proposal so that we can transform that in a constructive feedback and see if it actually provides an improvement for the hiring process?

Cheers,
Cor

Ciao

Paolo

#22

Hi Paolo, hi Kendy,

I wrote:

Could I ask the two of you to work out a joint proposal, how to
finalize the document?

It could be a working group or a shared, editable document, or
something else entirely - but would be great to see this finished
soonish, and with wide board support.

To reiterate the question, is that something the two of you would be
willing to collaborate on?

The other option I see, is to select a small working group (board and
perhaps community members) during the next board call, with the
mission to synthesize a 3rd, new proposal from all input received so
far.

Cheers,

-- Thorsten

#23

Hi,

Hi Paolo, hi Kendy,

I wrote:

Could I ask the two of you to work out a joint proposal, how to
finalize the document?

It could be a working group or a shared, editable document, or
something else entirely - but would be great to see this finished
soonish, and with wide board support.

To reiterate the question, is that something the two of you would be
willing to collaborate on?

It seems like you missed my previous answer:

https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/2022/msg00530.html

I've been willing to work together with anyone in a transparent and public way.

I've been waiting for Kendy to propose improvements for the past 3 months but I'm yet to receive some.

I guess that if Kendy hasn't proposed improvements in 3 months he's probably satisfied of the progress so why do you keep pushing him?

The other option I see, is to select a small working group (board and
perhaps community members) during the next board call, with the
mission to synthesize a 3rd, new proposal from all input received so
far.

Why are you once again proposing a small group to do things behind closed doors?
Could you explain the rationale?

Why are you saying that now we have to create a 3rd proposal?

Then as far as I can see there is 1 proposal to employ two developers and suddenly a new proposal appeared to employ 1 mentor, what is the 3rd one for?

Cheers,

-- Thorsten

Ciao

Paolo

#24

Hi Paolo, all,

Paolo Vecchi wrote:

> To reiterate the question, is that something the two of you would be
> willing to collaborate on?
It seems like you missed my previous answer:

https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/2022/msg00530.html

Indeed I saw your answer, but it very much sounded like a no to me
(and we didn't find the time in a call yet to clarify).

Since you bring it up here:

I've been willing to work together with anyone in a transparent and
public way.

So would you be ok to sit down with Kendy to work out a proposal for
the _process_ of getting to a final document?

> The other option I see, is to select a small working group (board and
> perhaps community members) during the next board call, with the
> mission to synthesize a 3rd, new proposal from all input received so
> far.

Why are you once again proposing a small group to do things behind closed
doors?

It is one option to make effective progress. As you state, it appears
that all people with an opinion have spoken up here; what's now left
to do, is to come up with a document, for which many (if not all)
directors can stand behind it. If community members like Michael
Weghorn or Michael Meeks would like to be part of that working group,
we should of course consider that, too.

But see above, for an alternative suggestion how we can move this
forward.

Cheers,

-- Thorsten

#25

Hi,

Hi Paolo, all,

Paolo Vecchi wrote:

To reiterate the question, is that something the two of you would be
willing to collaborate on?

It seems like you missed my previous answer:

https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/2022/msg00530.html

Indeed I saw your answer, but it very much sounded like a no to me
(and we didn't find the time in a call yet to clarify).

Why would you need a call to clarify?

I think the community may like to know why you are creating "opposing sides" and why your want a "small group" to discuss things behind closed doors.

I still haven't received any explanations for it.

Since you bring it up here:

I've been willing to work together with anyone in a transparent and
public way.

So would you be ok to sit down with Kendy to work out a proposal for
the _process_ of getting to a final document?

The process up to now is that I had to get to a final document on my own as neither you or Kendy actually contributed to it.

The document is here: https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/sfJeNq7H9GS8YPe

What other parts of the _process_ of having a final document are missing?

The other option I see, is to select a small working group (board and
perhaps community members) during the next board call, with the
mission to synthesize a 3rd, new proposal from all input received so
far.

Why are you once again proposing a small group to do things behind closed
doors?

It is one option to make effective progress. As you state, it appears
that all people with an opinion have spoken up here;

Yes, it appears that we have covered all the important elements required in the final document I've published thanks to the contributions from the community.

  what's now left
to do, is to come up with a document, for which many (if not all)
directors can stand behind it.

What are the elements that would stop directors from supporting it?
I haven't seen any coming from you.

Can you list some and the eventual improvements?

  If community members like Michael
Weghorn or Michael Meeks would like to be part of that working group,
we should of course consider that, too.

Michael Weghorn contributed a lot to the proposal and I'm very grateful for that.

Michael Meeks made a completely different proposal to employ a mentor.

The 2 proposals should follow different paths as they are not aimed at fixing the same issues.

As said in previous email I think that another mentor is not going to improve on the issues listed in my proposal but I guess that the community and then the board could publicly discuss if would make sense investing on a new one while also investing on two developers to actually tackle the issues.

But see above, for an alternative suggestion how we can move this
forward.

Another suggestion could be to confirm to the team to start working on the job description for the 2 developers and then once they are settled see if a new mentor is needed.

Cheers,

-- Thorsten

Ciao

Paolo

#26

Hi Paolo,

Paolo Vecchi píše v St 25. 05. 2022 v 12:13 +0200:

I've been waiting for Kendy to propose improvements for the past 3
months but I'm yet to receive some.

I see - I was waiting for the Board Working group being set up, as was
proposed by Emiliano, and as seemed to me as the agreed way forward.
I've volunteered for that group, but unfortunately you haven't set it
up yet :frowning:

I guess that if Kendy hasn't proposed improvements in 3 months he's
probably satisfied of the progress so why do you keep pushing him?

For the moment I'm happy enough with the Michael's proposal.

As I've expressed previously - I'd prefer a proposal that is more
mentoring-focused, and less development-focused myself, so from that
point of view, even the Michael's proposal doesn't make me 100% happy,
but I can live with that.

That one is public - so what should be the next steps?

All the best,
Kendy

#27

Hi Paolo,

Paolo Vecchi píše v St 25. 05. 2022 v 13:41 +0200:

Michael Meeks made a completely different proposal to employ a
mentor.

That is not my reading of the proposal.

Also what I like about the proposal is that it addresses my questions I
had wrt. the tasking and management; where your proposal was mostly a
placeholder in those areas.

To me it seems like those two proposals can be merged together to
create something good for TDF, if there is a will for that. And there
is from my side.

All the best,
Kendy

#28

Hello,

Jan Holesovsky píše v St 25. 05. 2022 v 14:18 +0200:

To me it seems like those two proposals can be merged together to
create something good for TDF, if there is a will for that. And
there is from my side.

And to show I mean it, I've converted the document to an editable
version. Please check it here:

https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/f/960049

Would be great if anybody independent can confirm it is 100% same as
the original PDF from here:

https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/sfJeNq7H9GS8YPe

The document I've shared is editable for any TDF member and the change
tracking is turned on there, please feel free to fix stuff in case you
find anything wrong.

All the best,
Kendy

#29

Hi Kendy,

Hi Paolo,

Paolo Vecchi píše v St 25. 05. 2022 v 13:41 +0200:

Michael Meeks made a completely different proposal to employ a
mentor.

That is not my reading of the proposal.

You may have missed a few details:

The proposal is: "Hire a Targeted Developer, with primary focus on mentoring"

Thorsten seems to want to mislead job applicants saying:
"For the outbound message on job boards, we can certainly tweak the wording to be audience-specific."
as adding 'senior' would "would attract people who've mentored, on-boarded and levelled-up junior developers"
The end result is that you want to employ a mentor.

You then replied to Ilmari that rightly made you notice previous issues with employing mentors "you are dismissing the proposal as a whole, or only the name of the role" (mentor)
"Would a "Hire a Targeted Developer" work for you?" (removing mentor)

Then once again
"As I've expressed previously - I'd prefer a proposal that is more mentoring-focused, and less development-focused myself,"

Can you tell me again with a straight face that you can't read Michael Meeks' proposal as being for finding a mentor and not developers?

Also what I like about the proposal is that it addresses my questions I
had wrt. the tasking and management; where your proposal was mostly a
placeholder in those areas.

"was" may be the keyword. Have you read the proposal published 2 weeks ago?

You may notice that the difference is that I believe that the 2 new members of the team should be managed by our mentors and our ED.

Michael Meeks' prefers to have the ESC controlling the mentor/developers but, while I value their technical input, it's a body that is very well represented by commercial contributors employees.

I do not think it's a wise idea to have TDF's employees being directed/controlled by our own suppliers.

To me it seems like those two proposals can be merged together to
create something good for TDF, if there is a will for that. And there
is from my side.

It seems to me that the 2 proposal have nothing to do with each others.

You are free to work on Michael Meeks proposal for a mentor.

All the best,
Kendy

Ciao

Paolo

#30

Hi Kendy,

that's an interesting turn.

I guess you could have helped out Michael Meeks 3 months ago as it seemed to be such a big issue for him, I mean he's your boss so it would be natural for any employee to help out if he can't find a way to do it.

It is also interesting to see that you haven't contributed for 3 months and suddenly Michael Meeks' proposal provided you with inspiration and an urge to act.

Could you please at least rename the file so that people don't get confused?

Ciao

Paolo

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