Re: [Koha-devel] ANN: Koha Community Website announces Plone Theming Contest

[Owen Leonard]

> > MJ, could you clarify ... who is the Koha Kaitiaki?
> 
> I think it's still Rachel at Katipo.  I think I remember some talk in
> a meeting of one of the other long-timers (Owen? Chris? Irma?)
> stepping in, but I don't think it actually happened yet.

I think that before we start talking about a new Kaitiaki it would be good
to come to an agreement about what the position entails. Here's the text on
the web site (http://www.koha.org/about-koha/faq.html#faq19):

Who is this Kaitiaki person?
    Kaitiaki is the Maori word for Guardian. When the Koha user and
    developer community realized some sort of combination Benevolent
    Dictator/Juggler might be a good idea, they chose a name that would
    reflect what they felt his/her role would be.

    The Kaitiaki is currently elected from among the membership of the
    developers' list - this includes the Katipo staff as well as
    representatives of several of the libraries and the far flung
    contributors of code, documentation, and kibitzing.

    This person is also responsible, with the advice and consent of
    the community, for trying to decide target dates for things
    like releases and features scheduling... and trying to help
    bring some order from the chaos ;). He also helps coordinate
    efforts and agendas, particularly through the mechanism of the
    every-few-weeks IRC meetings. Traditionally, the Kaitiaki also
    handles things like release announcements to sites like
    OSS4lib.

Right now, responsibilities for things like release dates and features
scheduling is the responsibility of the Release Managers. IRC meetings have
been release-oriented, so RMs have been in charge of their own meetings. I
could see the Kaitiaki acting as a coordinator among RMs, if that was
necessary, although there has been so little action on 2.x that this
doesn't seem to have been necessary.

I like the idea of the Kaitiaki being responsible for announcements and
things like that, so that Koha can have a spokesperson independent from any
branch or company.

The catch is that the Kaitiaki has to have time and inclination to devote
to the job. The Kaitiaki has to take the initiative of getting the word out
on Koha when the opportunity arises. If the Kaitiaki is to help manage the
RMs and come to agreements on release dates, features, etc, then he or she
needs to be able to understand the technical details of the product as well as 
the
business needs of all the parties involved.

How do others see the role of the Kaitiaki? Let's hammer out a job
description.

 -- Owen

P.S. I wouldn't want the job, it sounds like too much work! ;)

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