Now that I have time to write in more detail:I would certainly like us to participate in the OPW, I only worry that, unlike zack, I'm not confident that there is general agreement on using Debian money in this way (though people might complain less about this kind of thing if we started more active fundraising first).
I don't think that needs to prevent us from taking part this year, we just need to be somewhat careful about how we do it. It would be extremely unfortunate if we did something in the wrong way then there was a negative backlash within the project against future participation in OPW or other similar schemes.
On 2013-04-01 07:21, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
My opinion (as a DPL candidate): - OPW is a very nice initiative.- It would be great if we could find a sustainable way to participate ona regular basis. that probably means not using Debian money. The application deadline is May 1st according to https://live.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen Maybe we could we seek sponsors until then?And if we can't find any sponsor, I would be OK if Debian participatedin this round of OPW using Debian budget (provided we can afford it,which seems to be the case according to zack). That participation would serve as an experiment of the whole process, and it would not mean thatwe would participate in the next edition if we still can't find sponsors. I think that we should also have a requirement that applicants should not be already substantially involved in Debian (e.g. not DD or DM).
I think that Lucas's suggestions here (which are consistent with previous discussions on -vote) are sensible ways to mitigate the risk of a backlash later on.
In particular on the last point, I think the number of people who complain will be very much reduced if we can honestly say that it is distinct from "paying Debian contributors".
And if we do use "normal Debian money" for this, I think it's much easier to justify if we present it as an experiment to prepare us for participating in future years (or deciding not to), including an intention to try later to find a source of money so we can have several interns on the scheme in the future.
As part of that we should ensure that we decide in advance how we will determine whether the experiment was successful -- preferably not just by the quality of the one intern's project, or that will put rather unfair pressure on them!
-- Moray