CAcert System Admins discussion list

[Daniel Black <daniel AT cacert.org>]

Thanks Ian for being so reliable in responding.

On Tuesday 10 March 2009 01:26:26 Ian G (Audit) wrote:
>..... the Board generally spent from September of
> 2007 until late last year focussed almost entirely on the systems
> administration issue.  Anything that didn't fit into that, wasn't a
> priority.
>
> (I am guessing that the SystemTasks list fitted into that;  as outside
> the Board's priorities, it was considered not important enough to get
> attention, indeed potentially controversial that the list did not
> clearly trace its items to the Board's priorities.)

While I'm generally ok with there being lists of things to do that don't 
warrant board attention, I think something that links off CAcert's front page 
http://www.cacert.org/, in fine print ;(a little too fine) 'Do you want to 
help 
CAcert?' should at least coincide with Board priorities.

> The systems administration work is now well advanced, to the extent that
> we are now talking about auditing it, see recent emails.
>
good to see.

> Secondly, again from audit perspective, there was a long list of other
> areas which need to be addressed.  Just briefly:
>
>     mods to the software to finish off the Assurance work:
>        knocking old assurers off,
>        changing the website to reflect the new contract,
>        Adding the new points regime.
>     mailouts to the assurers and members
>     getting the Assurance Policy work out to the Assurers
>
> And so forth and so on.

(cut)
> As an aside, there has been a lot of discussion about software
> development over the last several weeks.  As this is a big black hole
> before the board, and this year was always felt to be the year to solve
> it, it is now taking front & center stage.

i see - especially with your comments above which all seem system 
development/ 
system admin/support/deployment related.

> > If its a urgent requirement should the be fortnightly or monthly board
> > reports on progress? At least this will stress how important it is.
>
> I think I would rather see a tracing of the requirements back to the
> above board and audit priorities.

whats the best way to link to these requirements?

> Otherwise, it is liable to be
> deferred for now.  It's also a bit controversial to talk about this sort
> of stuff because while we are talking about that, critical things like
> lack of the test1 service, the dropping of old assurers and the mailouts
> of the assurer and contract letters aren't getting done.

ok so prioritizing has to be done.

Short of any objection within a few days. I'll setup the following categories 
on the SystemTasks wiki. I'll give people a week or two to reorganise these 
according to priority. Within a week or two I'll cleanup the UnPrioritized 
tasks.

Major headings:

Audit Tasks

CAcert Community Members Tasks

CAcert staff tasks

UnPrioritized (temporarly): - use this until stuff is moved into one of the 
above or below.

Create a separate page for LessCriticalSystemTasks

with the remaining tasks under the headings:

Features for CAcert community members

Development to Promote Certificates

Features for CAcert staff

Development to Benefit CAcert systems



cheers

Daniel