Dhruv Gami <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Gora Mohanty wrote:
[...]
> That's one of the reasons i am looking at a global perspective.
> We may not have enough people in one place to sustain
> interest and get things rolling, but if other people also join in,
> this might gain more momentum, and encourage people to
> participate.
[...]
I have no objections if you, or anyone else, wish to push this on
a larger, global scale. Likewise, I hope that people in other
cities in India take this up. In my opinion, a mentorship program
will need face-to-face interaction, at least initially. When it comes
to India, I know of no succesful distributed development process,
and my past experience with trying to monitor students over
email leaves me sceptical that this will work. So, while I am
willing to mentor locally, and provide what help I can to other
people trying to set up similar efforts, I have no wish to spend a
lot of energy on this.
> Moreover, there have been a few other initiatives in the past,
> most of them at a local level, and ive noticed that they dont
> pick up (even within that locality) as much as initiatives with a
> global touch do. As an example, take the Linux in Schools
> project we started a few years back. it went well, we had
> some really good discussions, even tried it in a school and
> were making headway when suddenly people involved got
> busy with other things and the whole thing just stagnated. We
> cannot expect volunteers to devote all their time to projects
> like these, which is why i would like a broader exposure to
> increase the chances of getting more volunteers who keep the
> ball rolling even when some of them get busy.
[...]
I have little knowledge of initiatives that sepcifically targetted
projects by college students. I will look up what I can find online
about the Linux in Schools project. I see what you say about the
danger of such projects remaining localized, but IMHO, the time
to worry about expanding is when you already have a successful project. I
agree completely with you regarding
volunteers, which is why I am advocating that mentors be paid
reasonably.
> Yes, i understand your purpose behind this, and you
> commitment towards advocating FOSS in India. But why do
> you say you do not see the possibility of this being a global
> effort ? Why can't one of us hit upon or start something that is
> appreciated and becomes a global effort ?
> Do you think Linus had it all planned ?
Look, I do not care about "being appreciated", nor about hitting
the global big time. I am just tired of writing long, pie-in-the-sky
proposals that go nowhere, and of spending my time in endless
talk, no matter how well-intentioned. I, for one, am currently
looking only at projects that hit the ground running, however
limited they may be.
>> Sony supporting open-source? You are kidding, right? Or,
>> have you been living in a cave the past couple of months?
> Quite recently there has been interest by Sony in the Open
> source related technologies, especially linux. Visit
> www.openinventionnetwork.com for more information.
> btw, i may be wrong about some things, but i really would
> appreciate a lack of sarcasm in discussions, especially
> meaningful ones like these.
[...]
I apologize for the sarcasm, but if you do not know about various
unethical practices by Sony, culminating in the rootkit fiasco for
which they are being actively prosecuted in several US
jurisdictions, please do a Google search. I absolutely refuse to be
associated with Sony. You might be right about their interest in
open-source. Part of the rootkit was apparently stolen GPL code.
[...]
> I agree with the part about terms of involvement being clearly
> spelt out, but I dont agree with the example you gave. If a
> company is willing to sponsor and fund a project becuase of
> its own ulterior motives of ending up with a usable project, and
> on the way, a few students get some experience out of it, i
> think its a win-win situation for everyone.
[...]
Again, I strongly disagree. Corporate needs do not necessarily
meet FOSS requirements, even for an ethical open-source
company like Redhat. A program driven by corporate
necessities is not what I am particularly interested in. For
example, one of my key interests is Indian-language localization,
which, by and large, makes little commercial sense at the
moment. Work in such an area would fall by the wayside if
the mentorship program was corporate-driven. Besides,
companies interested in doing this are already funding
their own mentorship programs, like Redhat and Novell.
[...]
> Thats not a very fair statement, IMHO. Windows may be a
> bigger market, but that still does not reduce career prospects
> in Open Source. And if there could be a platform developed
> for people to get better jobs, why not ?
[...]
Maybe we are talking about the same thing in different ways.
I see no problems with promoting FOSS as a possible career
path, and even in informally pointing out to students that working
on FOSS projects gives them better exposure to high-quality
code, and access to top-class developers, all of which will stand
them in good stead. Such truisms should also be evident to job
recruiters. So, for example, I would have no objections to a job
board on the mentorship site. However, I feel that helping to get
students a job should *not* be a stated goal of the project.
[...]
> The domains, if classified into major categories, will also help
> students identify what sort of work they want to do.
[...]
Fine. Part of the details that got left out was that mentors also
had the responsibility of outlining a project, modularizing it, and
estimating timelines beforehand.
>
> But i really
> believe that the reason commerical companies are profitable
> is because they have processes in place for marketing, and
> for brand establishment.
I have no problems with adopting formal procedures within the
organization, but again, from reading even your follow-up
message, it seems that profit-making is a necessary condition
for such a project. In my opinion, education, especially in the
FOSS domain, should be a non-profit venture. Of course, this
does not mean that the participants not be paid adequately.
> For any product, service or practice
> to be successful, it needs to be established in the audience's
> mindset. When we talk about colleges accepting an internship
> of this form, it'll be easier to convince them if they've heard
> about it from multiple sources, and not just the student.
[...]
Again, we will have to agree to disagree. You are quite right
about colleges preferring a brand-name, ideally a corporate
one. However, I see no reason to encourage this attitude. While
we do have to work with the college to overcome ingrained
prejudices, it will not be just the student that the college hears it
from, but also respected members in the community.
It is possible that we are misunderstanding each other on this
issue. I do not have problems with corporate involvement,
except when the project itself starts coming under a corporate
banner. To give you a concrete example, I have no problems in
partnering with Redhat or Novell, I just do not want this to be the
Redhat-ILUGD mentorship program. I also do not care if we are
not succesful at attracting corporate funding. There are other
avenues for funding, and, when it comes down to it, we cut our
shirt to fit the cloth.
Finally, I do appreciate your comments, even though we might
not share opinions. While we might have strong opinions in
certain areas, the ultimate proposal is, of course, going to be a
consensus one.
Regards,
Gora
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