[Some sort-of thread hijacking] Hi folks,
I see this thread going nowhere and it's a pity because discussing new ways to integrate contributors in Debian is a topic worth discussing. I have been involved in GSoC in the editions 2011 and 2012 and in Code-in 2011. Besides that, I mentored a now DD inside the Debian Women mentoring program. All those mentoring programs were *very* different therefore producing different results. And I'm sure we can use more schemes of recruiting/attracting new contributors. The question I would love to see answered by you both is: What new schemes of mentoring/integrating new contributors do you envisage we could try in Debian? Some notes about GSoC and packaging projects that was IMHO uselessly discussed in this thread. In previous years we didn't accept packaging projects in GSoC for several reasons: - We already have some sort of mentoring program in Debian for people wanting to package: debian-mentors list and the website. - Something that is packaged needs later a maintainer. - Packaging something you don't use sucks. This is linked to the previous point: possibility of keep the maintenance later of something you don't use... - For some DDs in previous years, this seemed to be a way to have students doing stuff from their TODO lists... - Sometimes packaging works need waiting in third parties (e.g. license clarification) and this can not be done in the scope of the GSoC. We must avoid at all cost a project were the student lost their time waiting for somebody else. - Google's program is mostly about code. They are on purpose vague about this and don't enforce it strongly, but the student needs to upload to Google's server their code at the end of the summer. My interpretation of this is the project doesn't need to be 100% coding but it must have some coding part. In this regard we have some projects last year where the student needed to write patches. If you check last year project list, we offered a project that fitted in the "packaging project" category because we were told by the mentor-to-be that the project included coding. We gave the mentor the benefit of the doubt, but when we saw the student's proposal themselves, it actually didn't have enough coding within it and they weren't very good, so we didn't have this project even if it's still listed. Ana -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130311205602.ga19...@pryan.ekaia.org
