Re: updating the project ideas list
But is Debian an umbrella organization? :P
A big part of answering the question "should this be a Debian project?"
is practically relevant when it comes times to dispersing resources.
Without getting into a debate about how much we should ask GSoC for, I
will say: When it comes to decision time, do we want to use Debian
resources on something that is only tangentially related to Debian, or
does not demonstrably add to the project? I think it's really hard to
justify doing that, and my intuition is to not.
Cheers,
mdb.
On 03/10/2018 08:51 AM, Dashamir Hoxha wrote:
> Having a look at GSoC guides, I came across this:
>
> https://google.github.io/gsocguides/mentor/org-application.html#a-note-on-umbrella-orgs
>
> Google’s program administrators actually look quite fondly on the
> umbrella organizations that participate each year. It serves a dual
> purpose: it allows Google to accept more organizations in the “space” of
> just one, and also gives an opportunity to accept a marginally-topical
> org by putting it under the umbrella of a related org.
>
> This answers some of the concerns expressed earlier in the list, whether
> the projects should be closely related to Debian or have no relation to
> it. The way I understand it is that there is nothing wrong supporting a
> project from outside the organization. Including such projects does not
> make the application of an organization weaker, but it actually makes it
> stronger. I am glad that people at Google are so reasonable and have
> such a great common sense.
>
> Following is the email (parts of it) that expressed these concerns:
>
> For what it's worth, I was present at a talk last year in which several
> audience members (other than myself) asked several times, in different
> ways, what the talk had to do with Debian, and the answer was that it
> wasn't actually used anywhere in the project at all, other than that it
> was a Debian Outreachy/GSoC project. This was very awkward for the
> former interns, and for several members of the audience, and I daresay
> left a rather bad impression.
>
> I don't want to see future interns experience a similar very awkward
> moment; I think it could actually work very counter to some of the goals
> of Outreachy/GSoC.
>
> I've thought about this since, and while I haven't come up with a good
> hard-and-fast rule to define how related a project is to Debian, I don't
> think it makes Debian look good to host a project in which Debian is at
> no point involved in the project, other than in name, with the logo on
> the slides, and maybe some overlapping of community members.
>
> Even just using Debian as the development environment is at least
> something connected to Debian.
>
> My assumption and/or preference would be that projects clearly related
> to Debian or very directly beneficial to Debian be given first
> consideration. Maybe that's a reasonable expectation, maybe not.
>
> Obviously, it also comes down to who will do the work, and I have made
> no proposals this cycle or see myself being significantly involved this
> cycle.
>
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