should the FPA hire a code reviewer?

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should the FPA hire a code reviewer?

yes - if it's someone already involved in the project
1
14%
yes - even if it's a new person, but prefer someone already involved
6
86%
yes - should be someone new and independent
0
No votes
no
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 7
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adrianinsaval
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should the FPA hire a code reviewer?

Post by adrianinsaval »

given the PR queue with some of the PRs being very big, it seems our maintainers don't have enough time to tackle all of them, some of the features are very much desired (obvious example toponaming stuff). The FPA now has access to some funds, should we consider using it to hire someone to go through the PR queue, review and where it makes sense fix what's needed and then merge (or reject if needed)? This can be a temporary position until the queue is more manageable or for a fixed time, we can then also focus on better enforcing the contribution process as it is hard to do with PRs created before the process was created or that didn't respect it but were never made to comply and proceeded anyways.
What do others think? Is any of the current maintainers available to be hired for something like this? Should someone new be hired? Can the FPA do this?
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wandererfan
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Re: should the FPA hire a code reviewer?

Post by wandererfan »

adrianinsaval wrote: Fri Jan 27, 2023 2:37 pm What do others think? Is any of the current maintainers available to be hired for something like this? Should someone new be hired? Can the FPA do this?
This would be awesome.

Last two questions first. The FPA is not yet able to hire employees. There are legal & admin steps that need to happen first. The FPA absolutely can enter into agreements with independent contractors for specific pieces of work.

Just guessing based on my own circumstances, but the current maintainers don't have the spare cycles to take this on. If one was to take this on, they would have to cut back on their other work.

If somebody from outside the community was to take this on, we would have to include a learning stage in the statement of work.

The other issue I see is actually finding somebody who is willing to take on a relatively small assignment. We've run into this already with the FPA Development Fund. There is money available, but very few applicants.
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chennes
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Re: should the FPA hire a code reviewer?

Post by chennes »

It's a very interesting idea: I just watched a video shared with me by @kkremitzki about how Frexian was set up to pay developers to do the Long-Term Support (LTS) back ports for Debian. You can see the video here: https://youtu.be/QVMGdS13IvY

The upshot is that Frexian collects money from sponsors, who sponsor a set number of developer hours, and then they distribute it among the pool of developers working on doing LTS stuff. Devs have to write reports about what they are working on and keep things transparent, and they get paid hourly for some set (relatively low) number of hours per month. It started with just a single paid developer, and has grown to a group of 14 (as of the video, in 2019).

Maybe that kind of model could work here, once the FPA has things set up so we can pay developers like that. I think in some ways it's a matter of helping to guide existing developers to do the sort of work that is most beneficial to the community. Writing code is fun, we do that for free all the time. Reviewing PRs? Not quite as fun. We do it because it needs doing, but if we could get someone paid to spend some time on it, that sounds like a win/win.
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adrianinsaval
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Re: should the FPA hire a code reviewer?

Post by adrianinsaval »

Good to see there is the willingness, seems like the main problem is the legal side of it
wandererfan wrote: Fri Jan 27, 2023 3:17 pm The other issue I see is actually finding somebody who is willing to take on a relatively small assignment.
I don't think it will be easy, but I believe it's quite possible, I mean it's probably even harder to find people that would do this for free, but yet we have several.
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