2024-04-08 Meeting notes

1 min

Scribe

All

 @Jakub Skoczen is next, followed by @Taras Spashchenko

Reminder:  Please copy/paste the Zoom chat into the notes.  If you miss it, this is saved along with the meeting recording, but having it here has benefits.

5-10 min

Liaison Updates

@Maccabee Levine

@Tod Olson

@Jakub Skoczen

@Craig McNally

@Jenn Colt 

• CC: @Maccabee Levine - The Community Council recently convened to review a memorandum of understanding (MOU) regarding new module contributions. The meeting focused on approving the MOU, which requires submitters to maintain contributions for a two-year period. Notably, there was discussion about a clause allowing for optional renewal for additional two-year terms. This discussion intersected with recent talks at TC regarding the review of existing modules.

• PC: @Tod Olson - No updates

• RMS Group: @Jakub Skoczen - No updates

• Security Team: @Craig McNally - No updates

• Tri-council Application Formalization: @Jenn Colt

  • We have started talking about more specific recommendations in the group and trying to figure out what they should be. This has led to a discussion of the role of approval processes which may be of interest.  Our recordings are in the tri council chairs directory of folio recordings

5 min

Upcoming Meetings

All

• Apr 10, 2024 - Dedicated Discussion - ???

• Apr 15, 2024 - Regular TC meeting

• Apr 17, 2024 - Dedicated Discussion - Topic TBD

• Apr 22, 2024 - Regular TC meeting

• Apr 24, 2024 - Dedicated Discussion - Confirmed POC Q&A. POC Info: Architectural PoC Preview Feedback - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zzW2I1xMhdUpkclQRE2NvCcvx6JlNYUG4aTOiaYraJ4/edit#gid=1733306425

• Apr 29, 2024 - Regular TC meeting

• May 1, 2024 - Dedicated Discussion - Topic TBD

4 min

TCR Board Review

All

• TCR-38: @Florian Gleixner - They had a meeting with Steve and UM to review a process and bullet points. They found the module to be great, with only one addition suggested by Steve for the documentation.

5-10 min

Technical Council Sub Groups Updates

All

@Maccabee Levine discusses the need for communication regarding updates from the release stakeholder management group. They express concern about the lack of discussion on proposed language and timing for architectural changes. @Jakub Skoczen acknowledges the oversight and agrees to add the topic to the agenda for the next meeting. @Maccabee Levine emphasizes the importance of receiving a concrete answer. They agreed to close the topic in the next meeting and asked @Jakub Skoczen to review the proposed text shared in the Slack channel.

5 min

RFCs

All

• Public review update

  • Application Formalization RFC - No updates

  • Go Programming Language for Backend Development RFC - No updates

  • Distributed vs Centralized Configuration RFC - No updates

10-15 min

Developer Advocate Role and the TC

The position description for the new developer advocate position included the following statement:

Your FOLIO related work will be coordinated by the chairs of the three councils (Community, Product and Technical) with special assistance from the Tech Council. You will retain your current organizational manager for all personnel-related matters.

What is the nature of the TC's role in assisting in the coordination of the Developer Advocate's FOLIO-related work?

The council members discuss the logistics of the position, including how to coordinate with the developer advocate, manage documentation updates, and provide support. There is debate over whether the developer advocate should report directly to the technical council or to the council chairs. Members express concerns about the clarity of the role and the support provided to the advocate, highlighting the need for further discussion and clarification.

1. Clarify Reporting Structure: Determine whether Patrick will report directly to the Technical Council or to the Council chairs. Assign responsibility for managing Patrick's day-to-day activities and ensuring alignment with Folio's objectives.

2. Define Role Expectations: Clearly outline Patrick's responsibilities and role within the Folio community, specifying how he will contribute to the Technical Council's initiatives and objectives.

3. Onboarding Plan: Develop an onboarding plan for Patrick to familiarize him with Folio's projects, technology stack, and community dynamics. Assign mentors or buddies who can provide guidance and support during his initial period.

4. Integration Strategy: Decide on an integration strategy for Patrick within the Technical Council's activities. Determine whether he should actively participate in TC meetings from the beginning or gradually ease into his role.

5. Support Mechanisms: Establish support mechanisms within the Technical Council to assist Patrick in overcoming any challenges he may encounter. Encourage open communication and collaboration among TC members to facilitate Patrick's integration and success.

6. Regular Check-ins: Schedule regular check-in meetings between Patrick and his direct supervisor or mentor to evaluate his progress, address any issues or concerns, and provide feedback and guidance as needed.

7. Documentation: Document Patrick's role, responsibilities, and onboarding process to ensure transparency and consistency. Create resources and guides that can help him navigate Folio's projects, community guidelines, and best practices.

8. Feedback Mechanism: Implement a feedback mechanism to gather input from both Patrick and TC members regarding his integration progress, areas of improvement, and any adjustments needed to optimize his performance and contribution to the community.

5 min 

WOLFCon Presentation Updates

@Jeremy Huff

Proposal: 

The Technical Council discusses a proposal for a presentation at Wolff Con. The presentation aims to highlight the top three technical topics for community discussion. The proposal serves as a placeholder, subject to refinement closer to the event. The Council agrees that the proposal can be submitted as is, with the option to update it later. There is consensus that the proposal effectively communicates the intended purpose of the presentation. With no objections raised, the proposal will be submitted for consideration.

Technical Council Shared Drive

@Jeremy Huff

I have found the google drive, and can share the link.

1 min

Decision Log

All

Standing agenda item... is there anything in the decision log requiring attention? 

Time Permitting

Officially Supported Technologies (OST)

All

Standing agenda item to review/discuss any requested or required changes to officially supported technology lists

Time Permitting

Topic Backlog Grooming

All

Review the topics on our Topic Backlog to remove those that are no longer relevant, modify those that require change, and add topics that might be missing.

NA

Zoom Chat

00:07:54 Marc Johnson: What happens if the MOU is not renewed? 00:08:31 Maccabee Levine: Replying to "What happens if the ..." FOLIO explodes. No, the point is just to generate discussion about whether that functionality is still needed/desired, and if so who might take it on. 00:08:44 Maccabee Levine: MOU: https://docs.google.com/document/d/183G5ZhxZS3hfqbjWu3FAukQGSdh9_jBl/edit 00:10:08 Jakub Skoczen: Guys, is anyone handling scribe duties? 00:10:24 Huff, Jeremy T: Replying to "Guys, is anyone hand..." Taras has it 00:11:43 Jakub Skoczen: Replying to "Guys, is anyone hand..." K, thanks and sorry for being late 00:13:19 Marc Johnson: Reacted to "FOLIO explodes. No,…" with 👌 00:20:55 Maccabee Levine: Job description: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1esuP2nNke051LJ9PcmfiuG8z-E4ZlJyxMsNGtJQU-jk/edit 00:22:27 Maccabee Levine: Lead the management and updating of developer documentation, with a focus on gaps identified by new developer questions. 00:36:23 Ingolf Kuss: We should give that person room to participate and ask questions. 00:37:10 Owen Stephens: We don’t need to know what they will be doing to ask them what help they need, and advising whether the TC can help with those things 00:39:04 Maccabee Levine: Reacted to "We don’t need to kno..." with 👍🏻 00:39:28 Maccabee Levine: Reacted to "We should give that ..." with 👍🏻 00:39:51 Marc Johnson: Replying to "We don’t need to kno…" I don’t think I follow. How can they know what help to ask for if they don’t know what they are doing? 00:40:23 Marc Johnson: Let them drive what? 00:40:52 Marc Johnson: Who decides what they do? 00:40:58 Owen Stephens: Replying to "We don’t need to kno..." I don’t expect them to know on day 1, but the position scope seems reasonably clear to me, and they have direction from the council chairs 00:41:05 Marc Johnson: Are they meant to be self directing? 00:43:21 Marc Johnson: My main point was that we make sure it’s well understood who they talk to for direction I’m not especially fussed that it’s a group (as long as the group knows what they want) 00:46:52 Owen Stephens: It is not their job to establish best practices, but to encourage & reinforce already established best practices 00:47:02 Owen Stephens: That’s where I think the TC has a stake tbh 00:47:30 Ingolf Kuss: Reacted to "That’s where I think..." with 👍 00:47:44 Ingolf Kuss: Reacted to "It is not their job ..." with 👍 00:48:39 Marc Johnson: Replying to "It is not their job …" I think that is where I don’t understand the role properly FOLIO has very little established practice in many areas, if they aren’t going to define that then I’m not sure how they can encourage it 00:51:28 Owen Stephens: Replying to "It is not their job ..." Not sure I completely agree - my impression (and I may well be wrong) is there is a whole load of established practice that is not well enough documented OR it isn’t easy to find what it is for developers coming to the project for the first time 00:51:41 Ingolf Kuss: Reacted to "What topics of signi..." with 👍 00:55:03 Marc Johnson: Replying to "It is not their job …" It’s probably a combination of my poor understanding and a different understanding of practices that means I don’t have as much confidence in that

Decision Log Review

All

Review decisions that are in progress.  Can any of them be accepted?  rejected?

Translation Subgroup

All

Since we're having trouble finding volunteers for a subgroup, maybe we can make progress during a dedicated discussion session?

Communicating Breaking Changes

All

Since we're having trouble finding volunteers for a subgroup, maybe we can make progress during a dedicated discussion session?

Officially Supported Technologies - Upkeep

All

Previous Notes:

• A workflow for these pages. When do they transition from one state to another. Do we even need statuses at all ?

Stripes architecture group has some questions about the Poppy release.

Zak: A handshake between developers, dev ops and the TC. Who makes that decision and how do we pass along that knowledge ? E.g. changes in Nodes and in the UI boxes. How to communicate this ? We have a large number of teams, all have to be aware of it.  TC should be alerted that changes are happening. We have a couple of dedicated channels for that. Most dev ops have subscribed to these channels. How can dev ops folk raise issues to the next level of community awareness ? There hasn't been a specific piece of TC to move that along.

Craig: There is a fourth group, "Capacity Planning" or "Release Planning". Slack is the de facto communication channel.  There are no objections to using Slack. An example is the Java 17 RFC. 

Craig: The TC gets it on the agenda and we will discuss it. The TC gets the final say.

Marc Johnson: We shouldn’t use the DevOps Channel. The dev ops folks have made it clear that it should only be used for support requests made to them.

Jakub: Our responsibility is to avoid piling up technical debt.

Marc: Some set of people have to actually make the call. Who lowers the chequered flag ?

Craig: It needs to ultimately come to the TC at least for awareness. There is a missing piece. Capacity Planning needs to provide input here. 

Marc: Stakeholders / Capacity Planning could make that decision. Who makes the decision ? Is it the government or is it some parts of the body ?

Marc: the developers community, the dev ops community and sys ops are involved. For example the Spring Framework discussion or the Java 17 discussion. But it was completely separate to the TC decision. It is a coordination and communication effort.

Marc: Maybe the TC needs to let go that they are the decision makers so that they be a moderating group.

Jakub: I agree with Marc. But we are not a system operating group. Dependency management should be in the responsibility of Release management. There are structures in the project for that.

Jason Root: I agree with Jakub and with Marc also. Policies should drive operational/release/support aspects of Folio.

Jason Root: If the idea of “support” is that frameworks are supported, then of course the project should meet that.

Marc Johnson
Some group needs to inform OleksAii when a relevant policy event occurs.
These documents effectively ARE the manifestation of the policy.

Craig: This is a topic for the next Monday session.

Craig to see if Oleksii Petrenko could join us to discuss the process for updating the officially supported technologies lists.

Dev Documentation Visibility

All

Possible topic/activity for a Wednesday session:

Discuss/brainstorm:

• Ideas for the type of developer-facing documentation we think would be most helpful for new developers

• How we might bring existing documentation up to date and ensure it's consistent 

• etc.