Some may recall that I kept promising the arrival of students from an EU Commission project on a GSoC style pilot in formal education. This was a very long way from successful but there was zero impact on our projects since we asked PMCs to mark GSoC level projects as "mentor". This enabled us to provide a list of suitable projects for the students without PMCs needing to do additional work.
I've now been approached by another EU Commission project proposal team that wants to do something similar, but this time with students doing the work as part of their assessed coursework (i.e. they have a strong motivation for doing the work). Another, big difference this time is that one of the partner organisations has ASF committers (2 of) and there are three open source savvy commercial organisations on the bid (DISCLOSURE: one of them is my little consultancy company). Given the way these proposals get written, there is a very tight deadline on this (2 days). I got a first draft of the proposal this weekend and I am now satisfied that what is being asked of associate partners is acceptable (i.e we won't be responsible for students education). However, there isn't enough time for a proper discuss then vote process. I'm therefore running these in parallel. If anyone has *any* serious concerns about rushing like this please vote -1 and I'll go back to plan B which is simply to highlight my engagement with the ASF as an individual. Note that I will not be voting given the obvious conflict of interest. However, if the funding is approved I will be taking full responsibility for all aspects of administration within the ASF (and other associate partners). Note I have also notified board@ and will cancel the vote if the board raises a concern. In terms of deliverables from the project think of GSoC where the students get credits towards their degree rather than cash (Semester of Code rather than Summer of Code). If successful the project will provide a "manual" for other universities wishing to offer such real world experience to their students. Our PMCs will choose to offer mentors based on the quality of student applications - if there are no students that look interesting we have no further commitments. Here is the text of the letter of intent I propose to sign if the ComDev PMC approves: ---- start copied text --- The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) provides support for the Apache community of open-source software projects. That community provide software products for the public good. The ASF is made up of over 100 top level projects that cover a wide range of technologies. Chances are that if anyone is looking for a rewarding experience in Open Source, you are going to find it here. The Apache projects are defined by collaborative consensus based processes, an open, pragmatic software license and a desire to create high quality software that leads the way in its field. We are recognized as one of the most influential software organisations of our time and are often seen as the "gold standard" of open source software development. We have participated in the Google Summer of Code programme since its inception and continue to mentor around 40 students per year. We have had great success with this programme with some of our earliest students still working with us. The OSKA project has the potential to extend the benefits of the Google Summer of Code programme into formal education whilst still allowing our communities to work alongside students in real world open source projects. As a voluntary organisation we cannot guarantee that students will succeed, but we can provide an environment in which any sufficiently able student will find our projects supportive and educational. We look forward to extending our Google Summer of Code efforts to support the OSKA trial. -- Ross Gardler (@rgardler) Programme Leader (Open Development) OpenDirective http://opendirective.com
