Hullo! Sounds like an interesting idea. I had a couple of questions about it though - and as the discussion progressed on IRC with Raj, we thought it would be better to put it up on the list. Here goes:
-- Begin Transcript -- vIkSiT who're the mentors going to be, incidentally? OldMonk uh, whoever volunteers? vIkSiT ah. well, small bounties - should be possible I guess vIkSiT OldMonk, I thought there would be a pool of mentors vIkSiT people above suspicion in their involvement in FLOSS for non-nefarious purposes ;) OldMonk well, sort of... there's a list, and you put it up at a college, and see who's interested in working for whom OldMonk working with whom too. vIkSiT right. and are the projects established ones, or are students free to choose? OldMonk not necessarily, though we need some way to monitor quality and quaitity of inputs from the mentor vIkSiT as in - indlinux/karunakar or KDE/taj vs i-want-my-own-to-do-stuff project/i'd like to mentor? OldMonk students and mentors get together and choose vIkSiT I see vIkSiT and these (internships?) will be a part of curricula? OldMonk final decision has to be student's -- no point forcing someone to do a project in which she doesn't see value OldMonk no internships discussed yet vIkSiT sure - but how would you get edu-institutions to see straight? OldMonk i suggest you bring these questions up on the list, so we can document and clean up the idea. -- End transcript -- Right. And further... > who are willing to > act as mentors to send an email to this list > describing what FOSS > area they are willing to mentor students in, the > number of hours/ > week that they are willing to volunteer What kind of mentorship is being looked at here? Draw out differences between mentors vs tutors. Do the mentors help in dev work, or ideas? Once a project is done, who shares the credits in these 2 areas? Does a mentor only give advice in his own area of specialization, or .. ? > work for such a program would also involve things > like going around > to local colleges, and talking to teachers in order > to get them to > accept such FOSS projects. Wait. Mentors should be put into a pool, endorsed by whatever partner organizations - that gives them a pedestal to stand on and be able to convince (often narrowminded) teachers and professors about the benefits and scope of such a program. > to involve similar > projects by companies like Redhat, Novell, > etc.? Companies would step in to develop their own agendas. I think company sponsorship for the program itself can be looked at - something like RedHat's Lord of the Code (?) challenge, where a number of projects through this program might be evaluated with the same criteria as theirs (or even go through the first selection stage). > How about > mentoring students in remote areas via an > online forum? IMO, It wouldnt work. Mentoring would need atleast some time together between the 2 individuals such that they can understand who and what they're dealing with. Online forums may of course be used for help question s and interactions, so that participants know how the respective teams are faring. > (b) Problems likely to crop up at the end of > colleges: How are > students assigned credit, how are examiners > familiarized with > the FOSS development process, what resources > can students > expect to draw upon and what extra work will > they be expected > to do on their own. My original question - does this become some part of a project which people do at college? Otherwise, the whole effort may just as well fizzle out since people would be looking to cram for exams rather than contribute code to an open source project. Resources wise - colleges can be extrememly constricting. As some people were discussing on IRC, computer access is rather limited, and so is web access. These would be major areas to be looked at. Otherwise - books, and a cd-burner are all that would be required initially. > (c) Mentor expectations: Should they be paid? If > so, would that be a > nominal sum, or market rates? If unpaid, how > are mentors held > to their commitments? Paying mentors - good idea, which can work both for and against this venture. As for rates, there has to be consensus between the mentors themselves. I would also suggest a small bounty/internship for the students themselves, which would give an incentive to them to participate. >Should there be > provision for a phase-in > period within which either side could decide > to drop the > collaboration for whatever reason? No. If this is either a)Paid, b)part of a university project, its upto the mentor and the student to see it through, even if there isn't a definite conclusion of any sort - a partially working application is far better (and leaves scope for improvement) than something which doesnt exist at all. HTH, Cheers! Viksit -- Viksit Gaur Deptt. of Computer Science, Yale University http://viksit.com __________________________________ Yahoo! for Good - Make a difference this year. http://brand.yahoo.com/cybergivingweek2005/ _______________________________________________ ilugd mailinglist -- [email protected] http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
