[CC'd to labs to get comment from there too] 2009/3/14 Bernd Fondermann <[email protected]>
> Ross Gardler wrote: > >> From the labs board report: >>> >> >> --- Start quote --- >> >> == GSoC09 == >> >> The Vysper Lab is reaching out for GSoC09 students with one proposal [2]. >> >> [1] >> >> http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/labs-labs/200902.mbox/%[email protected]%3e >> [2] http://wiki.apache.org/general/SummerOfCode2009#vysper-project >> >> --- End Quote --- >> >> The goal of GSoC is to engage students with open source software >> development >> communities. >> >> The goal of Apache Labs is to "to provide the necessary resource to >> promote >> and maintain the innovative power within the Apache community without the >> burden of community building. " (https://labs.apache.org) >> >> I'm concerned that a lab is not the right place to introduce students to >> the >> way we do things over here, that is, labs explicitly do not do community >> development. If Vysper asked to be a part of GSoC outside of the ASF >> umbrella it would not (IMHO) be accepted. >> >> Thoughts? >> > > Labs is as much about community as every other project here at Apache. > Maybe this does not manifest yet, if you look at how lablings work today, > but that's how it's bound to be. [Note that I start negative and end positive, so don't reply whilst reading, you may be wasting your time ;-)] I don't agree. Labs was specifically created so that people don't need to worry about building community and managing the project in the formal way that ASF projects are managed. As I quote above, the second sentence of the labs home page includes the words "without the burden of community building". All of the overhead of running a community focussed open source project is removed within labs. If a labs project starts to attract a community it must leave and enter the Incubator. Please notice that already one student contacted labs about this proposal > and I don't know why this shouldn't work like in any other project. Sure, > you have more SoC experience than I do, so I happily like to learn about > what I am missing here to avoid known problems. It's not about a student having interest, it's about the project being able to show them the way of community led open source development. The goal of GSoC is not to get free labor for projects, it is to expose students to community development methodologies. In a project with a single committer and no potential for people who are not already ASF committers to become a committer I'm not sure this can be done. However, it can give students experience of public discussion, JIRA, SVN etc. ... > + We discussed this already briefly starting at labs last year starting > here [1] Hmmm... and we allowed a last minute labs entry into GSoC last year. That means we should allow it this year. However, despite this precedent, I am very concerned about this. I don't believe a lab is the right place for a GSoC student for the reasons given. However, that doesn't mean a specific lab can't be a good place for a student. Droids (the one that had a GSoC proposal last year), for example, was clearly developing community at the time. As an admin I would argue that the mentor would have to be very clear abouut how they intend to engage the GSoC stdent with a real community, not just a one on one that is found in most labs. The mentor must remember that the admins do not know all the projects in detail, so more detail in the mentor evaluation is good. > > + I think this discussion belongs to labs@ sooner or later. I copied this mail to labs. But the decision about how to handle this will be made on code-awards, not labs. If people want to track the progress of a lab application they need to join code awards. Ross -- Ross Gardler OSS Watch - supporting open source in education and research http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk
