Hello everyone, I'm in transit and I'm officially out until Monday, but
wanted to respect Gris's request for feedback by the end of today.
(FYI: My email is being authored offline, and I have no emails newer
than ~06-12 18:00 EDT. I'm sending to dev@, and have set Reply-To to
dev@, because it's important we discuss this as much as possible in public.)
CC'ing Greg Stein and David Nalley for Infra questions.
# Summary
* I support the initiative overall.
* I support the Outreachy budget item (Option 1) as seed money, but
* I think external funding for interns should be the goal (Option 2).
* Pick the right *tech focused*, externally useful project. I propose
PonyMail.
* This budget line-item should be extended to cover any paid Infra
staff's mentoring effort (see below for details, estimate 5h/week)
because Infra won't have budgeted for this additional load we'd be
asking of them.
* My other ASF responsibilities mean I probably cannot be Outreachy's
main champion for FY2020, sorry, but happy to help as much as I can.
* Sorry for the length of this email. I tried hard to make it shorter :(
# On Outreachy
As I understand it, Outreachy's focus is getting individuals in
under-represented groups who are economically unable to sustain
themselves both the funding and the support they need so they can
successfully volunteer their time in open source development, with a
core focus on *coding*.
One of Outreachy's most notable achievements, which took many years to
achieve, was working out how to help get inexperienced devs successful
in contributing to the Linux kernel. They're really successful in this!
They built a lot of supports around that process that thankfully the ASF
shouldn't need - in fact, they require applicants to prove their
suitability through a kind of gauntlet - but this is the type of "big
profile" engagement that we should be aiming for when we propose to them.
Remember: just because we want to work with Outreachy doesn't mean
they'll agree to work with us, if it doesn't look like a good fit. We
get interviewed, too. :)
# So what project or projects make sense?
I also like Niall's suggestion of 2x interns in FY2020, one in each of
the two cohorts.
We need a crisp, technical-first opportunity. Since D&I hasn't started
to liaise with ASF Project PMCs yet (beyond those represented these
lists), I agree the first FY20 cohort (August 2019) would be a trial
run, using a central ASF-wide project. D&I has a clearer mandate here,
and it'll be easier to liaise with central groups. That leaves us
sufficient time to get 1 or more non-central projects engaged for the
Late January 2020 cohort.
We have a lot of "cobbler's children have no shoes" projects at the ASF,
and I'd love more bodies on them (especially anything that makes PMC's
lives easier when interfacing with Infra, the Board, or [email protected]),
but Outreachy is about putting the needs of the *intern* first, *not*
our needs. They'd probably reject work on Whimsy on these grounds, in my
opinion.
We need to consider that this individual likely won't be an ASF
contributor or committer yet, either, so a project that has strong value
outside the ASF as well would be best.
Also, while there is room for documentation projects, website redesigns,
training materials and so on, I'd argue that these aren't the best
opportunities for an Outreachy intern. All too often it's precisely this
"work no one else wants to do" that falls to under-represented
individuals. It'll look especially bad if our first attempt at a
diversity initiative comes off as throwing undesirable work "over the
wall" to a minority intern. (It'd be even worse if it also looked like
we were asking them to do diversity-focused work...no one's proposed
this, just saying.)
Things that touch the most people possible, AND have external-to-Apache
users would be the best opportunities. I think PonyMail might be the
best central project here. Can anyone think of others?
# On Mentoring
Reminder: if we're picking a project primarily supported and run by
Infra staff like PonyMail, many of these are ASF-paid people. Their
hours are already allocated and tracked by Infra management for the huge
number of things we ask of them. (Read as: they're already overworked
and underpaid.)
Assuming at least the first intern would be working on e.g. PonyMail,
let's budget for an additional 5h/week for Infra staff to cover the
expected mentoring duties. This shows respect to Infra for their time
and effort, even if this just ends up looking on the books like
Department A paying Department B.
This whole proposal is still contingent on Infra agreeing to work
together on this. No one wants to be "volun-told." That, too, would look
really bad (on D&I, not the ASF at large).
So, Greg/David (on CC): How does this sound to you? If positive (even if
PonyMail isn't exactly the right project), is this 5h/week a number you
can help Gris calculate to include in the line item? Remember, we don't
have to spend the money if it doesn't work out.
# On the ASF funding question
No matter how clearly we state that Outreachy grants allow someone to
contribute voluntarily when they do not otherwise have the economic
means to do so, there will be a vocal group who will see this as "money
for code," and who won't easily be convinced of the subtlety here - even
if we're legally in the right. I agree that would be a bad precedent to
set, and might even endanger our non-profit status.
(I also don't know if there is precedent of the ASF giving money to
another US-registered non-profit as a social or charitable initiative -
anyone know?)
This is why I prefer Option 2 for the intern funding piece (Infra staff
mentoring time notwithstanding). If we go with Option 1 - which I also
support - I expect we'll need to be very, very explicit that this is
seed money for a trial run only, and that, if successful, future year
D&I/Outreachy intern funding would only come via coordination with
Fundraising. It would also give us a year to experiment and come up with
the right process to make it easy for our 300+ projects to engage with a
sponsor, Outreachy, D&I, and Fundraising for success.
One footnote: if the central efforts with Infra work out well, I could
see future years continuing to fund Outreachy interns at the
Foundation-level. I would hope that D&I would work with the Board and
other Committees to ensure the right initiatives are chosen.
-Joan
On 2019-06-12 2:16 p.m., Griselda Cuevas wrote:
I like Niall's idea of trying out with 2 interns. The website states that
the cost is $5,500 per intern and $500 for travel.
Outreachy's website [1] has a good description of the format, program etc.
I don't have details in what the interns will do, my guess is that they
will work on similar tasks than the GSoC folks? Maybe folks who have done
the program can share more info?
A champion would be the project owner, who ensures we execute on the budget
request and program.
[1] Outreachy.org
On Wed, Jun 12, 2019, 2:57 PM Niall Pemberton <[email protected]>
wrote:
On Wed, 12 Jun 2019 at 10:51, Bertrand Delacretaz <[email protected]>
wrote:
Hi,
On Wed, Jun 12, 2019 at 11:21 AM Griselda Cuevas <[email protected]> wrote:
...Please vote on wether you support Outreachy as a project this year
and what option you'd prefer we follow re:budget request...
Considering the lack of time, best might be to ask for the $30k budget
with the understanding that we're not sure yet if we'll use it.
There are two rounds of internship each year. The next “Pre Application”
period is late August 2019. Will we be ready with a co-ordinator, projects
willing to take part & mentors by then? If not the next period starts in
Late January 2020. The minimum commitment required is funding for one
intern @ $6,500 and it could well work out that Outreachy will be able to
connect interns with Sponsors for funding. There’s still the question of
how we will setup long term with Sponsors so that the ASF isn’t paying for
interns. I would suggest that this year is seen as a trial run and just ask
for $13,000 for 2 interns (one in each period) with the understanding that
this is just seed money to allow us to participate and may not be spent if
Outreachy can hook up Sponsors. We’ll learn lessons this year and if a
solution can be found for funnelling sponsors direct to Outreachy then
hopefully it will be self funding pretty quickly.
Niall
This would give us time to better define the project and needs.
-Bertrand
