[gentoo-dev] One request for the next SoC: non already-devs students

[flameeyes@gmail.com (Diego 'Flameeyes' Pettenò)]

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I know this is going to stir up quite some discussion, but I do think
it's worth trying requesting it at least.

In the past two years we had quite a few applications from students that
were already full-fledged Gentoo developers. I sincerely would like that
this year we put as a rule that Gentoo developers cannot partecipate in
Summer of Code as students for Gentoo.

I'm not asking to penalise Gentoo developers are students. But I
sincerely think the main goal of Summer of Code is to allow new people
to enter the scene of Free Software, to understand how Free Software
projects work and so on. Gentoo Developers are already pretty well
"inside" this world.

I think it should be a self-made decision to abstain from applying as a
student for what you already partecipate in, but as such concerns don't
seem to be widespread (at least as the last two years shown), I'm asking
for a formal decision to all the developers. If that is requested, I'm
even willing to bring this in front of the council.

Gentoo's ranks are quite reduced nowadays, and a few persons have shown
conerns about our current recruiting methods being able to judge clearly
technical and social skills, as well as the time one is ready to pour
into the project. I think SoC could be used as a pretty good recruiting
method: as you are going to work quite a bit with the student, you can
easily judge availability and technical and social skills. Leaving SoC
applications open to developers means wasting this opportunity.

There are many other organisations partecipating, I think it would be
quite feasible for Gentoo developers wanting to be a student SoC to
choose another one, in which they are not involved already. Yes it's
easier for them to do something for Gentoo as they are already
contributing, but that is not the point of Summer of Code, the point is
to introduce new people into projects, not giving money to people to do
what they already do.

And just to take a stance, even if this request is to be rejected, I'm
not going to mentor a student that is already a Gentoo developer, for
sure.

So to be clear, I'm not trying to look down to anybody, I don't even
want to stop people from being paid for their work. I just wish that we
can focus this opportunity to improve the Gentoo project as a whole.

-- 
Diego "Flameeyes" Pettenò
http://blog.flameeyes.eu/


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