[gentoo-dev] [Gentoo Phoenix] recruitment process

[Ben de Groot <yngwin@gentoo.org>]

On 3 April 2010 13:33, Richard Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
> I really think that the Gentoo recruitment process needs improvement. Right
> now it seems like a LOT of effort is required both to become a Gentoo dev
> and to help somebody become a Gentoo dev.  That means we have great people,
> but not many of them.

I agree. So what can we do to improve this process?

I myself am not fond of the quizzes, and from what I've seen most
recruits find them tedious as well. It can be quite demotivating,
maybe because it reminds one too much of highschool or something.
I took a long time myself to finish them, and that wouldn't have
been necessary, as my mentors ensured me I was ready to become a
dev. And I see the same thing happening with some of my own recruits.
They can be ready, but  just find the quizzes a chore.

So I think we need to rethink how to do this. What I have found very
helpful is to have my recruits working on actual ebuilds. The
sunrise project is ideally qualified to mold ebuild editors into
shape. Working on official overlays such as qting-edge and/or doing
proxy maintenance is also very helpful.

Recruiters (with some additional manpower) could make a list of
technical issues that recruits need to be aware of, and then gather
a number of ebuilds that display these problems and let recruits
correct some of these, under guidance of their mentors. This may
possibly be more fun and closer to the actual work that is required
of developers.

Of course this doesn't address the organizational side of things, so
we need to come up with something else for that.

Another problem I see is that our documentation seems to be scattered
all over the place. I propose that we make at least one portal page
for (prospective) developers that will link them to all the resources
they might need. It also means our existing documentation needs to
be brought and kept up to date.

Are there any other ideas on how to improve our recruitment process?

-- 
Ben de Groot
Gentoo Linux Qt project lead developer