On Wed, Aug 2, 2017 at 3:04 PM R Kent James via Maildev <
maildev@lists.thunderbird.net> wrote:

I'm not sure what kind of resources there are allocated for things. I
definitely think that allocating resources to keeping up with M-C is
necessary. I know there has been talk about a project to move off of
M-C[1]. I think if that is going to be successful, we'll probably need a
couple[2] of people dedicated (at least a significant portion of their
time) to that task. So we need to balance that need against our available
resources. Now, depending on what plan what direction we take for
separating ourselves from M-C, that process may end up with direct
improvements and bug-fixes to the existing codebase (particularly if an
incremental approach is taken).

-- Tom

[1] https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/firefox-dev/2017-July/005656.html
might be relevant (in particular the section labeled "A Monolithic
Platform").
[2] I think 2 people is the minimum need for the project, to be able to
have timely code reviews.

On 8/4/2017 12:39 PM, Enrico Weigelt, metux IT consult via Maildev wrote:

I'd like to comment on the  community manager role here. This issue was
discussed at length on the private Thunderbird Council mailing list.
(One of the goals of this current maildev list is to make discussions
more public in the future, so hopefully we'll do fewer private
discussions in the future.) Let's not try to rehash that discussion
here, but I would like to give some perspective.

From the public announcement of the position, here are the
responsibilities:

1. Report project progress and engage the community through blog posts
   and social media
2. Develop and run programs to increase volunteer engagement and
   satisfaction
3. Support programs and outreach campaigns that move volunteers up the
   contribution curve and ensure they have opportunities to make
   meaningful contributions
4. Gain a better understanding of users’ and donors’ needs through
   outreach and discussion
5. Identify obstacles within the project and work with the Thunderbird
   Council to remove them
6. Devise programs to sustain and increase donor contributors and
   satisfaction.

Items 2 and 3, and possibly 5, are directed toward contributors, which
mostly means developers (though there are other roles, such as technical
writers and bug triagers which might also be useful). So there certainly
is an expectation that this role is partly motivated by increasing
contributors to Thunderbird.

Whether this will work or not was hotly debated. I can't share the
responses of others to the private Thunderbird Council list, but I can
at least share my own. From my point of view, there are four critical
areas in the project that need help, and that might be potential targets
for someone with a different skillset than the typical developer. They are:

1. No engagement with donors (either current or potential), yet they
   are critical to our existence. ("Donor Management")

2. Little public presence of the project, such as would be
   accomplished through an active current website, participation in open
   source conferences and forums, and clear message to the world and media
   about our purpose and direction.  ("PR")

3. Poor real understanding of why people use our program, and what
   the target should be of TB:NG, or critical issues to solve in current
   Thunderbird. That is, marketing in the broader sense, not the sales and
   promotion sense.  Marketing is hard particularly for small organizations
   that cannot apply all of the tools that a large organization applies
   (and sometimes fails with). ("User Management or maybe Product Management").

4. Problems with engaging with potential volunteer contributors on
   multiple levels, including attracting, on-boarding, and retaining.
   ("Contributor Management").

These issues are way beyond what one part-time person as Community
Manager is likely to accomplish. The job posting for Community Manager
attracted a wide variety of applicants, with a variety of skillsets, and
depending on the skillset the emphasis of the position might vary.

Yet I think that we all recognize that item 4) is critical to our
success. We are not going to be able to hire our way into being a
vibrant open source project. Whether a Community Manager could make
progress with 4) is certainly open to debate, and there are many
skeptics. But others have had positive experiences with an effective
person in that role. I admit that I do not know the solution to 4), and
ultimately I agreed to support the role because I did not have a better
alternative, and I was willing to try this idea.

I would encourage other developers to also remain open minded, even if
you have some skepticism. The problem is real, let's try this approach
and see if it makes progress without letting expectations of failure
become a self-fulfilling prophecy dooming the effort before it starts.

That being said, it will be very difficult to find the right person to
help with role 4). The other three roles are much easier to find, as
they are not specific to the narrow needs of volunteer open source
projects. As a Thunderbird Council member who might have some say in
this hire, I would support someone who is unlikely to help with 4) but
could be of assistance in the other three, because I think all four
issues are important.

:rkent

On 8/3/2017 7:49 AM, Ben Bucksch via Maildev wrote:

My position on this is that it is going to be difficult to hire the
right developer for this role. One thing that I have learned as a
business owner is that you need to sometimes adjust your hiring
strategies to take advantage of the right person being available. So I
would support anything from another part-time position, up to two
full-time positions, if the right person or people becomes available.

:rkent

On 8/4/2017 2:36 PM, Tom Prince via Maildev wrote:

As a general policy, what I as treasurer suggested as a framework many
months ago is that we view our current staffing capacity to be 10
relatively long-term half-time slots (that could be, for example, 5
full-time slots), but in the short run since we have accumulated unspent
funds, we should target 12 half-time slots. At the moment we have 5
half-time slots filled. That is all subject to the continuing rate of
donations, so the staff capacity will change as we see actual donations.
But we need a number for planning, and that is my best guess.

:rkent