On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 09:17:56AM +0100, Lucas Nussbaum wrote: > > I really can't figure out what you're saying, here. AFAICS, we had > > significantly *better* results when choosing GSoC projects submitted by > > existing Debian contributors. Where are these failures you're talking > > about?
> My definition of failure is: "(what was achieved) < (what I expected to > be achieved, given the skills of the people assigned and the time they > were supposed to spend on the project)". > That's of course subjective, Yes, subjective to the point of absurdity. If failure is defined in terms of *your* expectations, I don't see how we can even have a meaningful dialogue about it. > but I think that the evaluation done by the mentors is subjective too. How > were the GSOC projects evaluated? I don't know how they were evaluated, but why are you only now asking this question, and of debian-devel instead of the program mentors? This seems like a question that ought to be asked of the relevant parties *before* declaring that Debian's participation in GSoC has been a "failure". An objective metric for success and failure is "accomplished the goals that were stated at the beginning of the project". Another is "produces working code". I think these are the most important objective metrics for success, and it's my understanding that by these standards, Debian's participation in the 2007 GSoC was a success. There may be other objective metrics to consider; yet I don't see any way that the *students* should be judged to have failed if they met the goals that were agreed to up front, whether or not they met *your* expectations of output. The latter might indicate that the mentors failed to set appropriate goals, but that's an entirely separate question. > Were they given goals to fullfill? We probably need to improve the > descriptions of the projects a bit, so people know a bit more what they > are expected to do. Again, questions that should be directed to the GSoC admins and/or mentors. But this is also addressed in the GSoC FAQ: 10. Will a student receive the stipend if the organization does not use her/his code? As long as the goals listed in a student's accepted application are met according to the judgment of her/his mentoring organization, the student will receive the stipend whether or not the project uses the code produced. http://code.google.com/soc/2008/faqs.html#0.1_stipend_code But the evaluations of the students' projects are not public in nature. It's up to Debian's GSoC admins to decide how much detail to share with you; I don't think it would be appropriate to make students have to answer to all 1000+ DDs for their GSoC work, whether or not the students are themselves DDs. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]