Hi Kevin,
Sorry if this went through before, since there were issues with my
list subscription.
AFAIK it didn't - this is the first copy that I received.
Here is my feedback as a mentor. I'll be talking about the three
projects that we handled in Cayenne this year, as I have no idea how
it worked out for the other 25.
The focus should be on the students and ensuring that they have an
enriching experience. The goal should be to introduce them to OS
development and best practices. Sometimes this is lost as projects
try to get more "free work", so to speak. Just to clarify, there's
nothing wrong with having students work on something that can be
useful to a project, but the emphasis should be on the student, not
the project.
I disagree. You are right about the goals, but you are wrong about
the focus. Two reasons:
1. *Abstract* altruistic motives (on the mentors part) don't work. It
has to a be a *specific* altruistic (or not) motive for anyone to
participate in that.
2. From my own student years and a few internship-type projects that
I've done back then (more than a few years ago to be sure) - the most
discouraging part is a hypocrisy of being told that you are working
on a "real thing", only to realize later that you were doing
something that nobody ever intended to use. This is the most certain
way to kill enthusiasm.
o How can the ASF improve the student experience?
Make sure the patches are reviewed and committed promptly.
o How should the ASF use student projects?
Depends on the project. Ideally it should be clear at the proposal
stage where the code would fit in.
So while it is unreasonable to expect most of the students to stick
around past the end of the program, my personal feeling is that we
should only accept the proposals that we know how we can use, and
actually ask the students to put "integration of the code in the
product core" item on the proposal (see my comments above on the
reasons why). Or was it already on a proposal? :-)
o Should students be given more development resources than non-
committers?
-1
I am glad we followed the advice from 2005 SoC mentors and didn't go
that way. Still we diverted a bit by setting up the sandbox SVN
outside Apache. The result was that 1 project never communicated
anything to the community (I still have no idea what it does and how
far it went in its development, as it was all done between the mentor
and the student).
Andrus
On Oct 12, 2006, at 11:45 AM, Kevin Menard wrote:
Sorry if this went through before, since there were issues with my
list subscription. If not, please feel free to share your
thoughts, as the Google SoC summit is in two days. I'll be flying
most of tomorrow, but should be able to gather everything together
tomorrow night.
Best regards,
Kevin
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Google Summer of Code Summit
Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2006 13:50:25 -0400
From: Kevin Menard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: community@apache.org
Hi all,
As I'm sure most of you are aware, the ASF partook in the Google
Summer of Code (SoC) program again this year. We were granted 28
student projects, across a variety of ASF projects. Since the
program has just recently finished for the year, we should
hopefully start seeing some of that work integrated into the
project codebases.
Anyway, Google has been gracious enough to host an SoC summit,
offering to pay travel for two representatives from each
organization. Ross Gardler and I will be attending on behalf of
the ASF. The format of the summit is going to be largely user-
driven and likely will cover an assortment of topics related to the
SoC program itself. What I'd like to do is solicit feedback from
the ASF community in general so I can bring that to the table.
SoC is an interesting program. The focus should be on the students
and ensuring that they have an enriching experience. The goal
should be to introduce them to OS development and best practices.
Sometimes this is lost as projects try to get more "free work", so
to speak. Just to clarify, there's nothing wrong with having
students work on something that can be useful to a project, but the
emphasis should be on the student, not the project. In general, I
think the ASF understands this and that the mentors did an
excellent job. Surely, as a group, we could stand to do a little
better though. So, having said that, I'm going to kick this off
with a few questions and please feel free to add your own:
o Is SoC a worthwhile program?
o Should the ASF continue to participate in the SoC program?
o How can the ASF improve the student experience?
o How should the ASF use student projects?
o Should students be given more development resources than non-
committers?
Anyway, you should get the general point. I'm seeking either
positive or negative criticism, so long as its constructive.
Thanks a lot,
Kevin
--
Kevin Menard
Servprise International, Inc.
"Remote reboot without pulling the plug" -- http://www.servprise.com
--
Kevin Menard
Servprise International, Inc.
"Remote reboot without pulling the plug" -- http://www.servprise.com
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