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Re: Archive Maintenance - make it a job?



<aqy6633@acf5.nyu.edu> (Alex Yukhimets) writes:

> > I propose that we start raising funds to pay for a part-time (4 hours
> > per day) employee who's entire job is to manage the archive and do
> > other miscellaneous maintenance tasks.  I think you could probably get
> > a qualified individual to do such stuff for ~$10k per year.  I don't
> > think we would have much trouble raising the funds, we already have a
> > corporate structure set up -- and it would really ease the aggravating
> > delays on our "critical path".
> > 
> > Is that a hare-brained idea, or not?
> 
> Jim,
> 
> I like the idea, only numbers are a little "off", IMHO.
> My first impression was that 4 hours a day is a bit too much for archive
> maintainance, but then it is probably a good estimate, epecially if you 
> rephrase it as 20hrs/week :) Another thing is that I think it would be not
> that easy (if not impossible) to find *qualified* individual for $10/hour.  
> Also, how would you know the person is qualified - phone interview?
> Might result in a big mistake :) Also, you should also take into account
> the employer overhead for paying salary (even for part-time worker, even
> if consider this payment a "non-employee compensation"), in some bad cases
> it can be up to 50%. How are you gonna "raise" this kind of money?
> And of course, we should hear the Guy's opinion on this.

My thinking is that somebody might go for the rather low compensation
amount because they are basically volunteering - but the funding will
enable them to put in the hours.

The funding also adds a bit of accountability to the 'boss' (Ian)
which a volunteer does not have.

If we did that, I think Guy should get the first crack at the $10k.
He probably counts as "qualified".  :-)

Of course, he'd have to be able to put in the hours and would have to
act like a good little employee.  :-)

I think we're ready for this.  Red Hat has a zillion employees, which
is why they get their releases out fast.  If we can afford 1/2 of an
employee (I think we can) to speed up the critical grunt work, the
whole project will benefit enormously.

I'd be opposed to using Debian's clout to funding a lot of people who
would otherwise be volunteers.  But we do have a chronic problem with
this particular "critical path" job, and we do have funds.  It might
help.

Cheers,

 - Jim

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