Core Contributor Nomination: Brian Smith

Working Groups Core Contributors
1

I’d like to nominate @brian.smith as a new core contributor with both coding rights to frontend-related repositories as well as admin rights to the openedx org, as described and justified below.

Introducing Brian

Brian was hired by tCRIL as a frontend engineer and has been with us since September 2022. We’re very happy with his work! In addition to his consistent participation in the Paragon and Frontend working groups, evidence of his skills can already be found in two key areas of the codebase:

Library authoring and components:

  • Merged 8 PRs to frontend-app-library-authoring, in an effort to clear tech debt and make the MFE more customizable
  • Merged a PR to frontend-component-header to make the Studio header more flexible

Translations:

  • Added a JS translations job to openedx-translations
  • Refactored openedx-atlas to use bash, so that it could be used by frontend repositories that don’t contain any python code

Brian is also currently working on making the Libraries v2 components easily installable in a production-like environment via Tutor plugins.

Access sought

Coding rights to frontend repositories

One of the hurdles contributors to the project face is the time it takes for code to be reviewed and then merged. In order to help reduce that time, tCRIL encourages its hand-picked engineering team to comb through PRs and push them forward. Brian would be a key addition to this effort, but to do so effectively he needs the community to grant him coding rights to the relevant repositories given his area expertise. These would be:

  • frontend-platform
  • frontend-template-application
  • frontend-build
  • frontend-app-* (all MFEs)
  • frontend-component-* (all MFE components)
  • frontend-lib-* (all MFE libraries)
  • frontend-enterprise-* (all frontend Enterprise repositories)
  • studio-frontend
  • edx-platform (limited to frontend code)
  • frontend-wg

(Edit: Added after initial posting after a suggestion below.)

  • paragon
  • eslint-config
  • stylelint-config-edx
  • browserslist-config
  • edx-bootstrap
  • edx-ui-toolkit
  • cypress-e2e-tests
  • brand-openedx

On logistics: we intend to group frontend-related repositories on Github to make managing access to them easier. For instance, frontend-mfes-all will include all MFEs, components, and libraries, whereas frontend-all would add edx-platform, studio-frontend, and others.

Coding rights to translations repositories

To continue his work on frontend translations, Brian is also nominated for coding rights on the following repositories:

  • openedx-translations
  • openedx-atlas

Org-level admin

In order for Brian to be able to help the tCRIL team with our on-call rotation, he’s going to need org-wide admin rights for openedx on Github. This will give him access to configure settings on the organization and all of its repositories, all of which are required to complete related maintenance tasks.

Technically, this would also allow him to push to any repository - not just frontend ones - at any time. The right to do so, however, would not be granted by this nomination process.

Commitment

Like all tCRIL engineers, Brian will be devoting on average 80% of his time to work directly related to his core contributor role.

Comment period

For this nomination to pass, Brian needs 5 positive votes and no un-addressed objections by February 2, 2023: two weeks from this posting.

7 Likes
2

I’m probably biased as Brian’s manager, but in my time working with him he’s been thoughtful about his approaches to code, full of ideas about ways to improve, and enthusiastic about the frontend community. He works closely with Adolfo and the rest of the tCRIL team, so I know he has the support he needs.

:+1: from me!

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3

I’m in support of this nomination for Brian! As mentioned, Brian has made positive contributions to both the Paragon and Frontend Working Groups. By getting additional resources with merge rights, we can continue to address and improve upon the review bottleneck.

A follow-up question… Should the following repos also be included, given it seems this list intends to be encompassing of all frontend-related repos? paragon, eslint-config, stylelint-config-edx, browserslist-config, edx-bootstrap, edx-ui-toolkit, cypress-e2e-tests, etc.?

Regardless, Brian’s got my vote! :+1:

4

I think those make sense as well, but was on the fence about paragon: given it’s going on the Maintainer’s Pilot, I figured that could eventually be a separate nomination for specific consideration of the maintainer.

On second thought, though, the fact a repository has a maintainer as defined by the pilot shouldn’t really affect the core contributor’s role in it. In other words, I’ll add them to the list. Thanks!

5

Ah, fair point. I suppose this statement is in line with what’s written in the Maintainers OEP, too, i.e.:

Selection and approval of Core Contributors with commit rights to their repositories, by participating in the comment period for Core Contributor nominees nominated to commit code to their repo(s), as part of the Core Contributor Program

I suppose it could be treated as a separate nomination thread altogether, or it could also be including Paragon in the original nomination but draw the attention of the Maintainer for the repository to the nomination thread (as with this thread).

Either way, as the technical Maintainer for Paragon, Brian’s still got my approval :wink:

Oh, here’s another potential repo to add to the mix as well: GitHub - openedx/brand-openedx.

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6

Brian has done amazing work across various front end repos and I’ve really appreciated his balance of communication and curiosity with taking action to get things moving.

:+1: from me!

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7

I haven’t had the opportunity of working with Brian (yet), but seeing your comments I definitely support his nomination :+1:

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8

@arbrandes could you be sure to update the top level post with the additional repos you’re adding to the request?

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9

Yup, I’ve been taking care to do it while also making it clear they were added afterwards.

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10

Brian Smith is a hard worker with a short but varied history of contribution. I absolutely 100% support his nomination as a Core Contributor. :+1:

I would also like to add the repositories openedx-translations and openedx-atlas to the list of repos Brian should be a core contributor of.

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11

+1 I’ve added them to the top post.

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12

I have not yet worked with Brian but I am aware of the good work happening through him in the MFEs space.
I think he has demonstrated the 3Cs so far and I vote yes to this nomination.

2 Likes
13

Hi everyone, I’m not CC and I haven’t worked with Brian directly but I support this nomination because I am aware of the contributions in the different repos and discussions around Frontend in open edx, I think he has good ideas to improve the code and experience of the platform.

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14

Given his list of achievements in such a short time and former comments I also support his nomination.

15

I also supports this nomination.

16

The comment period has elapsed, with 10 yesses, and 0 noes. Welcome to the Core Contributor program, @brian.smith!!

Thank you for taking the time to give your impressions, everybody!

5 Likes