Closed Bug 725744 Opened 13 years ago Closed 13 years ago

Mozilla Harvatska (Croatia) needs dedicated server for Community Management

Categories

(mozilla.org Graveyard :: Server Operations, task)

Product:
mozilla.org Graveyard
Component:
Server Operations
Type:
task
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED FIXED

People

(Reporter: Debloper, Assigned: arzhel)

Details

(Whiteboard: Request approved)

Mozilla Croatia is a growing community with lots of enthusiastic Mozillians. To manage the community well, they have decided to setup an intranet for the tools to use & set up the community-site. They have sysadmins to maintain the server. Will be great if we can prioritize it for faster deployment. Nikola, the MozHR lead, will provide more details as necessary.
Moved to MozReps for approval
Assignee: server-ops → nobody
Component: Server Operations → Community IT Requests
Product: mozilla.org → Mozilla Reps
QA Contact: cshields → community-it
Version: other → unspecified
It would be great if we can proceed with this request as we need it as soon as possible. We closed first part of the year, first six months, with Community Meeting and concluded that we really need intranet software as soon as possible. We have more than 20 projects planned for next 3 months and 30 people working on it, so it will be impossible to track and coordinate everything this way we did it until now. It really means "revolution" for us. But, we are stuck cause we dont have that server, and it doesn't make sense to start with projects before we get intranet, and then move everything there after we get it. :) I hope all of this makes sense to you and you get it what I want to say. :)
Hi Nikola, What are your requirements for the server? If you specify which software are you going to use we could help you with requirements.
We plan to use Atlassian software. http://www.atlassian.com/software I have licences for JIRA, Greenhopper, Bonfire, Confluence, Team Calendars.
So what are the requirements for this software?
Not sure how to respond on that question. Maybe this can be useful as answer? http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRA044/JIRA+Requirements
Some of my ITs checked documentation: http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Server+Hardware+Requirements+Guide and said: recent 2.0+ GHz quad core CPU, 2 GB ram also, we have lots of data, bills, invoices, pictures and other stuff so it would be cool to have enough space for all of that, especially if you consider that one of point with this intranet is to put, have and do everything in one place. Their final summary: "quad 2GHz+, 2GB+ RAM, 500GB disk, if possible" I hope this info i gave you is answer to what you asked me :) Eagerly waiting for response!
(In reply to Nikola from comment #6) > Not sure how to respond on that question. I think what Nukeador is asking is what you intend to use the software for. While it is obvious for some parts (e.g. Jira -> bug tracking), maybe the question should be do you really need all the parts and why can't exisiting community software (e.g. bugzilla) do the job? To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of Atlassian stuff and their is probably very little support for that within the Mozilla community.
I see/hear that this request became controversial. :P :) I'm using this bug and this opportunity to give answers on questions, doubts and comments. I won't be cheap on words. If you don't have time, interest or will to read it all, I separated answers and my comments by topics, so you should all be able to find what bugs you about this. (I know, "keep it short", but I want that your decision is informed, as much as it can be.) _____________ Intranet by its definition is kind of "closed network", that is true. But, as I said before, it's wrong to look on it as something that damages our transparency or anything like that. In fact, it will only speed us up in updating and sharing all info that have no need to be "private". (it will speed us up in other things, too, but I'll get there.) _____________ I noticed that there were comments about free and open source alternatives for that, but also that you may be concerned with that license. So, to explain that part: License is NOT on my name, I got it as community, I'm just "representative" of that community who asked for it + contact person. Even in case I step out from Mozilla (and, I won't, I enjoy contributing to Mozilla too much, I'm getting more and more work on my back every day, even wider from just ReMo program or local Community, that wouldn't make sense if I have any doubts at all about my future contributions), there is always a possibility to change contact person. And, regarding license - the only problem is to get it. Once you have it, you can extend it as much time as you want. They are only making you to extend the license just so they don't accumulate too much communities/organizations that have no real interest and intention using it ("taking the trash out"). As we have real intentions, we have no problem with that. _____________ About other systems that (can) cover some of our needs: Yeah, there is Bugzilla, we can track some things there. There is Doodle, we can agree on meeting times and places there. There are Google Groups, we can talk and discuss there. There are etherpads, we can collectively work there. There is Dropbox, we can share documents there. There is Google Calendar, we can schedule appointments there. .... list goes on and on. And, this is one of biggest problem - people can't find themselves in all those separate systems. The heck! I'm "Mozillian" for some time already, and I just recently started catching up on how bugzilla works and where to find (some of) things there that I need/am interested in. :) Also, they found it very demotivating, to use many different dislocated, unintegrated systems. It's a big mess, it's hard to work that way. Especially for those "non-IT" people. They started dropping out from some projects or haven't done what they were supposed to because they couldn't understand how all of these systems work. + I'm resetting lost passwords for community members on all these services almost on a daily basis. :) (don't want to start about managing and moderating everything, and especially dealing with permissions and roles assigments...) I know that those systems are free and open source, but what's the point of using them if they are just slowing you down and don't really use/help you to do what you need? _____________ About free and open source alternatives to Atlassian software: I didn't choose it because of its look... My first shots with intranet/collaborative systems (we should really start to call it that way, "intranet" sounds too serious and closed) were, in fact, with free and open source intranet software. I started with OpenAtrium. It can cover some of our needs, but mostly only basic ones. I tried installing addons and plugins and then I found out what the phrase "living hell" really means. Pretty quickly community members concluded that although it looks "nice" (but childish :) ), that it doesn't have all functionalities we need and is very basic. I tried Precurio. That is special story - "living hell 2.0". Was dismissed. We checked out and tried TikiWiki - this was one step away from what we needed and wanted, in comparison with what we had at that moment. So, I was pissed because of that issue and it really bugged me that those kinds of problems are slowing us down and work against our efficiency. And then - I found Atlassian. We tried atlassian demos - it was pure perfection - "living heaven". :) I invited those "non-IT" community members to try it out, too - they were astonished with what it can do and how easy we can work and manage everything, and i mean literally everything. And, I was astonished with extremely short learning curve - both admins/moderators and users. They are talking about it for weeks and can't wait to get it and to switch there. :)) It has everything - Human resources manager for keeping all important info and data of community active members. Project manager, with task manager within it, easy task assigning and progress tracking. Detailed tracker for project but community in general, too. Revisions, workflows, project reports, dashboards, project planning, statistics, vizualizers and built in sketching tools, knowledge bases, templates and standard procedures, it's connectable with mails, accounts, mobiles. Voting systems, adjustible environments for specific types of projects, groups and assign system, validators, chat, project specific and global calendars, with possibility to track deadlines and progress, gantts, easy file sharing, practically drag and drop... Everything we used in dozens of different places where people got lost, with this we can do it in one place, simple, intuitive, connected. + many thigs are done automatically, thus reducing time that we need to spend on organizing, creating, cleaning, looking, ... Just one simple, banal example: Some people are working on several projects at once. Every project coordinator wants to schedule and organize meeting in the same week. Using JIRA and Confluence (they are merged, if both are installed) every of those project coordinators can see if our standard spaces that we often use are already booked, not just by some other coordinator but also by someone outside mozilla (example: Association "POGON" has free conference room that we can use, but they have other users too, and their calendar is "pullable" to ours, and that happens automatically, updates regulary). Also, coordinator can see if his/her "workers"/contributors are already on some other meeting for another project at the same evening so he/she don't have to loose time on opening multiple doodles just that he/she realizes that they can't meet at the day and time he wanted and proposed. On the other side, user can easily track all his "obligations", meetings, work that needs to be done, and don't have to check out on multiple polls if he/she is already busy at proposed time, chance to promise himself/herself for something is minimal that way, too. ------- By using this software we become more open inside community - everyone can check all projects, contribute with new, fresh ideas, although that person maybe isn't on the list of associates for that project. Information flow will be much better, different people from different projects can use each others ideas, templates, materials and other stuff more easily because they can finally know and see what others are doing (concrete things and "products" of their work), and not just read their time-to-time reports about where projects currently stand. _____________ About secrecy and closeness: You obviously seriously misunderstood that part - it won't be completely closed. au contraire! - there are projects on which people from outside mozilla can contribute and participate. But, there are also things that shouldn't go public. First example: Personal data like emails, phone numbers, date of birth, etc. I have no intention to provide that info to anyone, only official mails are published. Second example: Bills, invoices, etc. Third example: Project crucial/sensitive information - concrete example: where will checkpoints be placed when we will be organizing Mozilla Treasure Hunt. Sorry for my language, but it's dumb to make that "intel" accessible to everyone. :) Also, it will help us be more opened to outside, too. Documentation will be much faster and easier to review and prepare for publishing. Information flow will be much faster and better so info will be out there much faster and in greater quantity (and quality too). As we will have everything for every project in one place, there will be no lost presentations, photos, reports or anything like that so our "public" release will contain much more info than it does now. I can proceed with list of advantages but I think you probably get the point. Transparency will also be better, as documents, bills and everything else will be much more accessible to everyone so number of questions about trust and honesty we have in each other couldn't appear. Everyone can react if they see something suspicious. _____________ Brian: "..maybe the question should be do you really need all the parts.." --> OK, we don't need every single functionality, and, we could survive without some of them as we did until now, but we weren't using it because we haven't that possibilites at all. Which doesn't imply that they are not needed. "and why can't exisiting community software (e.g. bugzilla) do the job?" --> explained above somewhere. :) "their is probably very little support for that within the Mozilla community." --> As Mozilla uses it too, it's probably not so uncommon. But, I wouldn't be worried about support from Mozilla. Even if our hardcore ITs stuck somewhere, atlassian provides completely free support to us. I tried it and I was really suprised with kindness, speed of solving problems.. They even offered me that they can install it for me, for free. _____________ I think I answered on all questions that appeared over last few days. So, my final thoughts: I know that you want info and that for host/server you are providing for some community you need justified reason, I am just suprised you haven't came with those concrete questions to me sooner, as I'm the one who is supposed (and must be able) to give you all those answers. But also, I somehow have a feeling that we kind of ended up in totally different discussion. I have no plan to push and directly influence on Council to make decision which I think is right. Nevertheless, I think that you shouldn't neglect community wants, wishes and decisions, at least not totally. This is not something that I decided on my own to implement, we have consensus about this in whole community. We tried it and we liked it, a lot. This is something where we would feel good and comfortable, what would help us to organize ourselves much better and where we can do everything we need and want in a simple, intuitive, easy and quick way. We finally found something with what we are really satisfied. Take that in consideration, too. If you have any other questions, just ask, I'm more than willing to reply and explain. Eagerly waiting for initial shocks and reactions on length of this comment, also further questions if there are any, and finally, decision. Matosović Nikola
Just my thoughts at this precise moment : I also don't like using proprietary softwares but here it looks like they have looked for OSS alternatives and none of them are matching their needs. If someone knows other possible OSS tools to do what they need, they can probably test it before going forward with Atlassian, as for me the tools shouldn't block the community. Maybe also file bugs on Open Source tools to have one day the features you need (and why not contribute to it? :) ) The risk is also to see more and more communities switching to proprietary softwares which would show a need in OSS alternatives.
I have reply on this, too: We would ask for that dedicated server regardless of our Atlassian licenses as we wanted to develop our own intranet software, which would be free, open, and anyone could use it. We would present it to other communities and offer it to them. Next line you will not like, but don't judge too early: We didn't have a plan to include members from other communities in that project while developing it, not in beginning. To explain: Of course, we wouldn't develop it in secret, everyone would be able to track progress, suggest, etc. But we wouldn't be ready for completely collective work on that during development of 1.0 or at least beta version because we want as ideal tool as we can get/imagine/create. This maybe is selfish, but don't judge us. Yet. As I was saying, we would first think of our needs and make it as perfect as we could. For us. Idea was to make it - modular. (This should dismiss possible prejudices and judgements from above. :) ) That way, anyone could adjust, customize that software to their needs. Also, we would prepare extensive in depth documentation and ship it with intranet. Moreover, as I don't have enough work for ITs and programmers, they would provide support and help to all interested communities, even with programming new modules, functionalities, addons, ... This idea is not dismissed yet. In fact, we are still seriously considering making it, but we need 6-9 months for it. Until then, we would for sure use Atlassian software and also, IT department hopes to get good ideas from it (empiric experience FTW!), that we could transfer in that new intranet we would produce. I tried to present that idea on remo general mailing list, not sure where it stuck in discussion, but I believe it was about why do we need "intranet" at all, dunno. Although, there were some people interested and some of them even contacted me over email and chat. So, if nothing else, there is at least pretty solid chance to use something open and free one day. (there is no risk of data loss as you can migrate more or less everything from atlassian without bigger problems). But, until then, we must work, we seriously need proper system which can cover all our needs, which can speed us up, especially if you are considering number of projects we want to run and do in next 3 (or 4) months.
(In reply to Brian King (Briks) [:kinger] from comment #8) > To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of Atlassian stuff and their is probably > very little support for that within the Mozilla community. They love Mozilla and granted the not-open-for-public-access Mozilla Confluence instance a license. We use a couple packages from these guys, including JIRA. The software stack shouldn't matter as much as the purpose of the site and how it advances Mozilla's goals. If the open web is about user choice, Mozilla Communities shouldn't be constrained by their software choices. Sounds like there's a demonstrated need for Community IT Hosting. Are there objections to moving forward?
This is probably not the right place to make this comment but someone mentioned in a related post that Open Atrium didn't meet their needs at all. I failed to follow up and ask if *you* would mind posting a list of what what missing for your community or point me at any feature requests" submitted on the Open Atrium site. Open atrium is based on Drupal so you can add other modules or write custom code to provide additional functionality and the MCS community of Drupal Developers will be happy to help of course and we could all possibly benefit from the work that is done. // Paul Booker
Thanks for all your comments, they help the council a lot to understand your situation. I'm pinging the rest of the council again to speed up this.
Any luck?
I confirm that this has been approved by the Mozilla Reps council. Please proceed.
Whiteboard: Request approved
Any luck? :) (this time ITs :) :P )
Assignee: nobody → server-ops
Component: Community IT Requests → Server Operations
Product: Mozilla Reps → mozilla.org
QA Contact: community-it → phong
Version: unspecified → other
Assignee: server-ops → arzhel
The server has been ordered, it's the 16G here: http://www.kimsufi.ie/ (still OVH) I now need you to create an OVH account here: https://www.ovh.ie/cgi-bin/ie/nic/newNic.cgi (you should be able to change the country from your control panel after creating the account) and give me the "NIC-Handle" (username) so I can make you the owner of the server.
This? :) User ID: mn33080-ovh
Server ready and in Nikola's hands. Please reopen the bug if something is wrong.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 13 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
Product: mozilla.org → mozilla.org Graveyard
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