[gentoo-dev] Why aren't GSoC projects affecting ::gentoo discussed on regular mls?

[Michał Górny]

(GSoC project mentors in CC)

Hi,

I would like to ask our this year's GSoC mentors a single question: why
weren't the GSoC proposals given proper discussion on our regular
mailing lists *before* they were accepted?

I can understand that most developers in Gentoo don't really care about
GSoC.  However, both projects we have this year [1] involve major
changes to ::gentoo that -- by policy -- require prior RFC.  In case
of the BLAS/LAPACK project there was a RFC *after* the project was
accepted, that was never fully answered.  In case of the MPI project,
I'm not aware of any public RFC or announcement.

I believe such decisions put all of us in a very bad position.  There is
a major work going on, almost secretly.  In the end, we will either be
forced to accept the result even if it doesn't meet our expectations, or
reject it and turn GSoC into some kind of grotesque situation.

The former is of course unacceptable from my point of view.  It would
mean that one or two developers are able to abuse paid programs such
as GSoC to unilaterally push their preferences into Gentoo.  We would be
forced to accept them unconditionally just because 'it's a done deal'.

The latter means the students has wasted their summer doing work that's
not going anywhere.  This is certainly demotivating and a bad PR for
Gentoo.  I suppose it also reduces our chance of getting into GSoC
again, if Google finds out that GSoC is spent on code going to trash.

So, again, why do single developers unilaterally decide on which
projects third party money is spent, and never bother discussing whether
those projects are really applicable beforehand?

[1] https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/organizations/6416323580526592/

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny