Re: Question to all: Outreach
Hi!
@JonathanCarter: thank you very much for encouraging us to continue this
discussion here :)
On 18.03.20 10:35, Martin Michlmayr wrote:
> * John Paul Adrian Glaubitz <glaubitz@physik.fu-berlin.de> [2020-03-18 10:26]:
>>> As a former Outreachy intern myself (2015) I can tell you that it the
>>> stipend has helped me to invest time to find my way around Debian, time
>>> during which otherwise I would have had to earn a living elsewhere and
>>> would never have gotten involved further with Debian.
>
>> With all due respect, but I find this a bit pretentious. The vast
>> majority of people who are getting involved with open source are
>> initially not being paid for that.
> That reminds me of a remark I made recently when talking about
> Outreachy in the context of Debian. First, I should say that I agree
> with Ulrike that some people won't be able to spend time learning
> about FOSS if they are not paid through a stipend. Just think of
> people in Asia or Africa who don't have the luxury of "spare time" we
> in the west often have.
Agreed.
@Adrian: I think you should read up on the Flosspols study [1] and
especially about the time women and men can put into free software, and
the age at which they get involved.
This is not a competition about how much one has had to suffer to arrive
at the point at which they are now. [2]
Now, about receiving sponsorship "early on" as you said: when I received
this internship I was already over 35 years old. I spent the 15 years
before that acquiring other skills, working in web development and doing
a lot of unpaid work.
I don't find this is something to be proud of, on the contrary. It shows
how much NGOs, grassroot movements and the free software community rely
on unpaid work and might be the main reason that it is easier to
participate in FLOSS for contributors who have financial backing
(generally people from the Global North) and free time.
I'm glad that younger generations can receive sponsorship early, via
GSoC for example.
> Anyway, without going into the pros or cons of Outreachy, my remark
> was something like:
>
> So we pay people to work on Debian for a few months? And then? Then
> they get the opportunity to work on Debian for free!
Yay.
> Compare that to someone working on Outreachy for the Linux kernel
> where a full-time, paid job from Intel, IBM, etc will likely await
> them afterwards.
>
> So Outreachy might help some people get involved in Debian, but do we
> have a compelling "career path" for them to stay involved afterwards?
> Obviously Ulrike did stay around, but what about others?
The fact that we don't know this might hint at the need of having a
feedback process for Outreach in Debian.
This process could cover:
- Did their mentor introduce them to Debian processes, mailinglists,
other Debian Developers, teams, tools?
- Do they feel they are now independent with regards to Debian work?
- Do they want to continue contributing to Debian? If no, what would
they need, what are they missing?
- What can the Debian Outreach do better in the next rounds?
and much more.. Happy to help working out such a process with the
current Outreach coordinators in Debian.
Having such a feedback process could ensure that the money Debian spends
on Outreachy is well used.
Last but not least, I'd like to reply to @Hector:
I've been re-thinking about your observation "I find 2 out of 3 team
coordinators are not Debian contributors/developers". They've been doing
this work for several years to my knowledge, so how come we do not
consider them to be Debian contributors? Just because they lack an
official title? An empathic way to deal with this could be to thank them
for their work, and to encourage them to enter the NM process, to become
DDs, uploading or non-uploading, and to continue enriching our community.
> (we = not necessarily the Debian project, but the wider Debian ecosystem)
That, too :)
Cheers!
Ulrike
[1]
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264799720_FLOSSPOLS_Deliverable_D_16_Gender_Integrated_Report_of_Findings
[2] Might be worth looking at the relationship of protestant work ethics
and the meritocracy in FLOSS to understand why this kind of argument
keeps popping up every now and then.
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