On 2024-03-23 14:13, Salvo Tomaselli wrote:
In my opinion, this brings us back to the eternal question of why people contribute to Free Software. From what I've gathered, the answer seems to be very heterogeneous and different people have very different reasons to contribution to FOSS.Maybe is it time to Debian has its own outreachy program? To have DDs mentoring paid interns to learn how to package, how to contribute for softwares/tools used by Debian, and so on.What is the rate at which paid interns stick around when it becomes unpaid? Is there any data about this?
Money (or lack thereof) certainly is one of them, but isn't the be-all and end-all.
I don't have tons of experience with paid internships, but I did participate as a GSoC mentor a few years ago and was somewhat disappointed by the fact the student did not become a regular Debian contributor.
In my opinion, this wasn't primarily caused by the mentoree's finite funding, but by a lack of social structures that could've helped them keep an interest in Debian.
Even though I like the technical work I do in Debian, I probably wouldn't be as active in the project if there wasn't a local DUG in my city. I certainly wouldn't be part of Debian if I hadn't had the chance to go DC15 in Heidelberg and meet tons of nice and inspiring people :P
If we want people to stick around, I think these kind of structures are crucial and should be given as much attention as the "salary" part of paid internships.
This is why I'm very happy to see Sruthi's platform mention not only a "Diversity budget" but also "Diversity activities" and "Local activities". This sounds like a kick-ass trio to improve diversity in Debian :)
-- ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Louis-Philippe Véronneau ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋ pollo@debian.org / veronneau.org ⠈⠳⣄