1 |
I know this is going to stir up quite some discussion, but I do think |
2 |
it's worth trying requesting it at least. |
3 |
|
4 |
In the past two years we had quite a few applications from students that |
5 |
were already full-fledged Gentoo developers. I sincerely would like that |
6 |
this year we put as a rule that Gentoo developers cannot partecipate in |
7 |
Summer of Code as students for Gentoo. |
8 |
|
9 |
I'm not asking to penalise Gentoo developers are students. But I |
10 |
sincerely think the main goal of Summer of Code is to allow new people |
11 |
to enter the scene of Free Software, to understand how Free Software |
12 |
projects work and so on. Gentoo Developers are already pretty well |
13 |
"inside" this world. |
14 |
|
15 |
I think it should be a self-made decision to abstain from applying as a |
16 |
student for what you already partecipate in, but as such concerns don't |
17 |
seem to be widespread (at least as the last two years shown), I'm asking |
18 |
for a formal decision to all the developers. If that is requested, I'm |
19 |
even willing to bring this in front of the council. |
20 |
|
21 |
Gentoo's ranks are quite reduced nowadays, and a few persons have shown |
22 |
conerns about our current recruiting methods being able to judge clearly |
23 |
technical and social skills, as well as the time one is ready to pour |
24 |
into the project. I think SoC could be used as a pretty good recruiting |
25 |
method: as you are going to work quite a bit with the student, you can |
26 |
easily judge availability and technical and social skills. Leaving SoC |
27 |
applications open to developers means wasting this opportunity. |
28 |
|
29 |
There are many other organisations partecipating, I think it would be |
30 |
quite feasible for Gentoo developers wanting to be a student SoC to |
31 |
choose another one, in which they are not involved already. Yes it's |
32 |
easier for them to do something for Gentoo as they are already |
33 |
contributing, but that is not the point of Summer of Code, the point is |
34 |
to introduce new people into projects, not giving money to people to do |
35 |
what they already do. |
36 |
|
37 |
And just to take a stance, even if this request is to be rejected, I'm |
38 |
not going to mentor a student that is already a Gentoo developer, for |
39 |
sure. |
40 |
|
41 |
So to be clear, I'm not trying to look down to anybody, I don't even |
42 |
want to stop people from being paid for their work. I just wish that we |
43 |
can focus this opportunity to improve the Gentoo project as a whole. |
44 |
|
45 |
-- |
46 |
Diego "Flameeyes" Pettenò |
47 |
http://blog.flameeyes.eu/ |