Open edX Partners As Maintainers

Owned by Xavier Antoviaque
Oct 03, 2024
2 min read

Require partner organizations to commit maintainers and core contributor time

Topic

Indicate which topic your proposal falls under:

Enhance Core Contributor Onboarding
Improve Collaboration, Communication & Reporting
Improve Fulfilling Commitments and Planning Processes
Improve Review Processes

Overview

A recurring issue pointed out in the survey is the low hours (or complete absence) of many core contributors, most often because core contributors don't get enough time allocated by their organization to contribute effectively. And some partner organizations don't provide any maintenance or core contributor work at all.

Solution

To ensure the core contributors have enough time dedicated by our respective organizations to maintain and improve the project, we all need to chip in a little. And it needs to be consistent and fair.

We should establish a definition of a fair contribution, which would include the following:

  • A way to adapt to the size of the partner, so that smaller providers are asked for a proportional effort, and not ruled out because of size

  • A description of the work which can be measured: it can be maintaining X repositories of a certain size, providing X hours per month, reviewing X PRs, etc.

  • The type of work or commitment can change, but we list all the types of work we want to contribute, and ensure they are roughly the same level of effort, proportionate to organization size.

The next step would be to discuss with all the partners to establish that baseline.

Impact

The impact would be measured by comparing the volume of work contributed the year before the adoption of this definition, compared to after. Annual renewal & reviews are in the works for the core contributor commitments, they could provide the data for the comparison.

Timeline & Assignment

  • Ask for comments about this change from the Open edX partners & Axim, as well as suggestions for the definition of the common commitment (ie what would the organizations want to contribute), and suggestions about current or new benefits for partner organizations (ie what would the organizations get out of the partnership): 4h, Xavier & ??? (you?)

  • Write a proposal based on the suggestions made, and discuss it with the group: 4h, Xavier & ??? (you?)

  • Enact & announce: 2h, Xavier & ??? (you?)

Be sure to reach out if you would like to participate!