Re: Q to Chris: create our own outreach initiative
Hi Chris,
On 17/03/17 at 17:33 +0000, Chris Lamb wrote:
> > One thing I value in Debian is that, when working on Debian, we can mostly
> > forget who is the employer of contributors […] It might kill a lot of fun
> > for me if other contributors were Debian employees.
>
> I understand your concern. I, too, would feel a lot of fun disappear from
> Debian in such a environment. :/
>
> However, I think such fears are overblown; the number of students would never
> be so great to swamp others' work and the scope of the individual projects
> would naturally limit any real change in the balance as would the level of
> renumeration. The mentor/student relationship would also set the tone of
> interactions with the rest of the project. Futhermore, Debian has had years
> of experience incorporating GSOC and Outreachy students without it coming
> close to feeling like a Dunc Tank 2.
You use "students" here. This word wasn't in your platform (well, not
in the context of the outreach initiative). GSOC has a requirement that
mentees are students. Outreachy doesn't.
Outreachy has a requirement that you can only participate once. GSOC
doesn't (TTBOMK).
One requirement that was discussed in the past (but never agreed on) was
that Debian GSOC students should not already be Debian contributors, or
Debian Developers.
The bottom line being, it seems, the question of whether those programs
should be used mainly to recruit new contributors, or mainly to get
things done.
I'm wondering where you stand on these questions. I welcome the fact
that you want to keep an open mind, but at the same time, it would be
useful to know your gut feeling about those before electing you as our
Leader :)
> > I'm also a bit surprised that you qualify Outreachy as a "marketing coup for
> > the GNOME project". Could you elaborate on that? Surely in OPW times, GNOME was
> > prominently mentioned, but they also did a lot of work.
>
> You might actually be raising a good point in my favour without realising
> it :) Outreachy is not even affiliated with the GNOME project anymore. As
> I understand it, there's no GNOME branding affiliated with it anymore
> except for the infrastructure, which Conservancy working to move away
> from… yet the general perception IME is that it's "GNOME Outreachy",
> showing how being the title/original sponsor is extremely powerful and,
> perhaps, worth a slight overlap of efforts.
I see your point, but I'm more of the opinion that if GNOME, and then
Conservancy, are doing something well, it might be better to join forces
and help them make it even better, rather than duplicate efforts. But
well, OK.
Lucas
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