Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 12:23 AM, Kevin Grignon kevingrignon...@gmail.comwrote: Drew and Rob, I'll defer to your experience with the OO recruiting. Your comments make sense. The key point I wanted to make was that I feel that diversity is a good thing, and that product design need not solely the domain of technical people. Yes, the offering is software and that requires significant implementation effort, however, other disciplines can contribute to requirements research, validation and feature design and product evaluation. Perhaps we could look at the effort as opensource product design, as much as opensource development. Just a thought. For my part, I'm interested in re-establishing our user experience design capabilities and in time, I hope we can roll out a strategy to recruit more product design-oriented contributors (user researchers, interaction designers, visual designers and usabilty evaluators.) Hi Kevin, These are all great points. One idea. The following page is our primary get involved page for the project. It is linked to prominently from the www.openoffice.org homepage and gets many, many hits: http://incubator.apache.org/openofficeorg/get-involved.html That page then links to this help wanted page on the wiki, with more details: https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OOOUSERS/Help+Wanted If you have any suggestions on how these pages could be updated, I can help you get the changes applied. Actually, for the wiki page, you can just sign up for an account. Also, after 3.4 releases we could have a blog post about user experience and the desire to establish a nucleus of expertise here at the project. That could help attract interest. -Rob Regards, Kevin On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 1:03 PM, drew jensen drewjensen.in...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, 2012-03-30 at 23:21 -0400, Rob Weir wrote: On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 12:35 PM, drew jensen drewjensen.in...@gmail.comwrote: On Thu, 2012-03-29 at 09:04 -0400, Rob Weir wrote: On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 8:31 AM, Kevin Grignon kevingrignon...@gmail.comwrote: Rob, Sounds like we can appeal to contributors intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Another newbie question: Does OO have any experience recruiting non-technical volunteers. Many disciplines outside coding can have an impact on the offering. Product management, UX, ID, training, visual design, marketing, communications, etc. How might we position ourselves as open product development? A wider net would attract the diverse skills that could really make the effort a success long term. See this page here, which our central how can I help page: http://incubator.apache.org/openofficeorg/get-involved.html So we need and value contributors in a wide range of disciplines, not just technical ones. Hola Rob, Kevin Just an aside, if you will. At this years FOSDEM there was a panel discussion consisting of a number of the community managers. Included IIRC was openSUSE, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu (in this case the speaker was specifically from the LoCo team project, not Ubuntu overall)...and a couple others whose affiliation I can not recall. One topic, which would be germane here, was on recruiting contributors. Across the panel the participants felt that finding and retaining _quality_ non-coding contributors has proven to be more difficult then coders. Unfortunately that was the extent of the topic discussion, they all agreed but not a single one went into Why they thought this was, or what particular obstacles, procedural or cultural, might be involved, or what actions if any they have implemented to address the situation. I think OpenOffice has had the opposite problem. We have a long tradition of having quality non-coding contributors, especially in areas like translation, marketing, documentation, support, etc. But we had an over-reliance on corporate-sponsored engineers from a single company for coding. If I look at the project today, I see volunteers for non-coding items volunteering on the list on a near-daily basis. But not so often for coding volunteers. Hi Rob, Yes, you and I it would seem concur on our observational assessment of the current situation. In any case, my point was not really about coders versus non-coders. There is enough work to go around. My concern was more that we're not doing a great job at getting new contributors involved in the project. Look at our committers list. We have nearly 100 now. How many of them are actually new, e.g., were not involved with the legacy OpenOffice.org project. Sure, there are a few, but not many. Now look at the list archives for how many people of volunteered to help with the documentation, with the
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
Drew and Rob, I'll defer to your experience with the OO recruiting. Your comments make sense. The key point I wanted to make was that I feel that diversity is a good thing, and that product design need not solely the domain of technical people. Yes, the offering is software and that requires significant implementation effort, however, other disciplines can contribute to requirements research, validation and feature design and product evaluation. Perhaps we could look at the effort as opensource product design, as much as opensource development. Just a thought. For my part, I'm interested in re-establishing our user experience design capabilities and in time, I hope we can roll out a strategy to recruit more product design-oriented contributors (user researchers, interaction designers, visual designers and usabilty evaluators.) Regards, Kevin On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 1:03 PM, drew jensen drewjensen.in...@gmail.comwrote: On Fri, 2012-03-30 at 23:21 -0400, Rob Weir wrote: On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 12:35 PM, drew jensen drewjensen.in...@gmail.comwrote: On Thu, 2012-03-29 at 09:04 -0400, Rob Weir wrote: On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 8:31 AM, Kevin Grignon kevingrignon...@gmail.comwrote: Rob, Sounds like we can appeal to contributors intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Another newbie question: Does OO have any experience recruiting non-technical volunteers. Many disciplines outside coding can have an impact on the offering. Product management, UX, ID, training, visual design, marketing, communications, etc. How might we position ourselves as open product development? A wider net would attract the diverse skills that could really make the effort a success long term. See this page here, which our central how can I help page: http://incubator.apache.org/openofficeorg/get-involved.html So we need and value contributors in a wide range of disciplines, not just technical ones. Hola Rob, Kevin Just an aside, if you will. At this years FOSDEM there was a panel discussion consisting of a number of the community managers. Included IIRC was openSUSE, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu (in this case the speaker was specifically from the LoCo team project, not Ubuntu overall)...and a couple others whose affiliation I can not recall. One topic, which would be germane here, was on recruiting contributors. Across the panel the participants felt that finding and retaining _quality_ non-coding contributors has proven to be more difficult then coders. Unfortunately that was the extent of the topic discussion, they all agreed but not a single one went into Why they thought this was, or what particular obstacles, procedural or cultural, might be involved, or what actions if any they have implemented to address the situation. I think OpenOffice has had the opposite problem. We have a long tradition of having quality non-coding contributors, especially in areas like translation, marketing, documentation, support, etc. But we had an over-reliance on corporate-sponsored engineers from a single company for coding. If I look at the project today, I see volunteers for non-coding items volunteering on the list on a near-daily basis. But not so often for coding volunteers. Hi Rob, Yes, you and I it would seem concur on our observational assessment of the current situation. In any case, my point was not really about coders versus non-coders. There is enough work to go around. My concern was more that we're not doing a great job at getting new contributors involved in the project. Look at our committers list. We have nearly 100 now. How many of them are actually new, e.g., were not involved with the legacy OpenOffice.org project. Sure, there are a few, but not many. Now look at the list archives for how many people of volunteered to help with the documentation, with the website, with UI, with testing, etc. How many of them were able to break into actually contributing to the project. Almost none of them, right? Yes, I'd agree. I also think it's fair to say, self forming volunteer organizations fit the pattern in general - and therefore even more so requires active attention always. So the issue, as I see it, is not an issue with attracting volunteers. It isan issue of helping the volunteers get started and helping them meet their goals in project participation. Sure, no argument here on any of that. I'd follow up from the first paragraph, and add that IMO the new actors most needed right now are those fitting the thin area - engineering. I think this means that; from those doing the engineering, particularly those making decisions on the directions the code will be developed going forward a need to be mindful to keep the required processes open and transparent - pick your term here, and I hope
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
Please cancel all emails to me. Tkanks On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 7:03 AM, drew jensen drewjensen.in...@gmail.comwrote: On Fri, 2012-03-30 at 23:21 -0400, Rob Weir wrote: On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 12:35 PM, drew jensen drewjensen.in...@gmail.comwrote: On Thu, 2012-03-29 at 09:04 -0400, Rob Weir wrote: On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 8:31 AM, Kevin Grignon kevingrignon...@gmail.comwrote: Rob, Sounds like we can appeal to contributors intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Another newbie question: Does OO have any experience recruiting non-technical volunteers. Many disciplines outside coding can have an impact on the offering. Product management, UX, ID, training, visual design, marketing, communications, etc. How might we position ourselves as open product development? A wider net would attract the diverse skills that could really make the effort a success long term. See this page here, which our central how can I help page: http://incubator.apache.org/openofficeorg/get-involved.html So we need and value contributors in a wide range of disciplines, not just technical ones. Hola Rob, Kevin Just an aside, if you will. At this years FOSDEM there was a panel discussion consisting of a number of the community managers. Included IIRC was openSUSE, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu (in this case the speaker was specifically from the LoCo team project, not Ubuntu overall)...and a couple others whose affiliation I can not recall. One topic, which would be germane here, was on recruiting contributors. Across the panel the participants felt that finding and retaining _quality_ non-coding contributors has proven to be more difficult then coders. Unfortunately that was the extent of the topic discussion, they all agreed but not a single one went into Why they thought this was, or what particular obstacles, procedural or cultural, might be involved, or what actions if any they have implemented to address the situation. I think OpenOffice has had the opposite problem. We have a long tradition of having quality non-coding contributors, especially in areas like translation, marketing, documentation, support, etc. But we had an over-reliance on corporate-sponsored engineers from a single company for coding. If I look at the project today, I see volunteers for non-coding items volunteering on the list on a near-daily basis. But not so often for coding volunteers. Hi Rob, Yes, you and I it would seem concur on our observational assessment of the current situation. In any case, my point was not really about coders versus non-coders. There is enough work to go around. My concern was more that we're not doing a great job at getting new contributors involved in the project. Look at our committers list. We have nearly 100 now. How many of them are actually new, e.g., were not involved with the legacy OpenOffice.org project. Sure, there are a few, but not many. Now look at the list archives for how many people of volunteered to help with the documentation, with the website, with UI, with testing, etc. How many of them were able to break into actually contributing to the project. Almost none of them, right? Yes, I'd agree. I also think it's fair to say, self forming volunteer organizations fit the pattern in general - and therefore even more so requires active attention always. So the issue, as I see it, is not an issue with attracting volunteers. It isan issue of helping the volunteers get started and helping them meet their goals in project participation. Sure, no argument here on any of that. I'd follow up from the first paragraph, and add that IMO the new actors most needed right now are those fitting the thin area - engineering. I think this means that; from those doing the engineering, particularly those making decisions on the directions the code will be developed going forward a need to be mindful to keep the required processes open and transparent - pick your term here, and I hope all understand what I mean here.. this is in no way an indictment but rather statemtnt of what I see as a general principle - so that those whom would be interested in such work will know it is here. I think this is the first step in attracting engineering resources. From there then yes, the group needs to be proactive with organizing hackfeasts, or activities of such like, the non-engineering contributors can only at best help with this not drive it forward. Anyhow - A long, rambling response, befitting a late Friday night, and all surrounded of course by IMO ;) //drew -Rob Anyhow, just thought I'd pass it along. BTW I watched this on a live video stream but the panel discussion may be available in an on-line archive, I don't know one way of the other. //drew
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 12:35 PM, drew jensen drewjensen.in...@gmail.comwrote: On Thu, 2012-03-29 at 09:04 -0400, Rob Weir wrote: On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 8:31 AM, Kevin Grignon kevingrignon...@gmail.comwrote: Rob, Sounds like we can appeal to contributors intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Another newbie question: Does OO have any experience recruiting non-technical volunteers. Many disciplines outside coding can have an impact on the offering. Product management, UX, ID, training, visual design, marketing, communications, etc. How might we position ourselves as open product development? A wider net would attract the diverse skills that could really make the effort a success long term. See this page here, which our central how can I help page: http://incubator.apache.org/openofficeorg/get-involved.html So we need and value contributors in a wide range of disciplines, not just technical ones. Hola Rob, Kevin Just an aside, if you will. At this years FOSDEM there was a panel discussion consisting of a number of the community managers. Included IIRC was openSUSE, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu (in this case the speaker was specifically from the LoCo team project, not Ubuntu overall)...and a couple others whose affiliation I can not recall. One topic, which would be germane here, was on recruiting contributors. Across the panel the participants felt that finding and retaining _quality_ non-coding contributors has proven to be more difficult then coders. Unfortunately that was the extent of the topic discussion, they all agreed but not a single one went into Why they thought this was, or what particular obstacles, procedural or cultural, might be involved, or what actions if any they have implemented to address the situation. I think OpenOffice has had the opposite problem. We have a long tradition of having quality non-coding contributors, especially in areas like translation, marketing, documentation, support, etc. But we had an over-reliance on corporate-sponsored engineers from a single company for coding. If I look at the project today, I see volunteers for non-coding items volunteering on the list on a near-daily basis. But not so often for coding volunteers. In any case, my point was not really about coders versus non-coders. There is enough work to go around. My concern was more that we're not doing a great job at getting new contributors involved in the project. Look at our committers list. We have nearly 100 now. How many of them are actually new, e.g., were not involved with the legacy OpenOffice.org project. Sure, there are a few, but not many. Now look at the list archives for how many people of volunteered to help with the documentation, with the website, with UI, with testing, etc. How many of them were able to break into actually contributing to the project. Almost none of them, right? So the issue, as I see it, is not an issue with attracting volunteers. It isan issue of helping the volunteers get started and helping them meet their goals in project participation. -Rob Anyhow, just thought I'd pass it along. BTW I watched this on a live video stream but the panel discussion may be available in an on-line archive, I don't know one way of the other. //drew snip
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
On Fri, 2012-03-30 at 23:21 -0400, Rob Weir wrote: On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 12:35 PM, drew jensen drewjensen.in...@gmail.comwrote: On Thu, 2012-03-29 at 09:04 -0400, Rob Weir wrote: On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 8:31 AM, Kevin Grignon kevingrignon...@gmail.comwrote: Rob, Sounds like we can appeal to contributors intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Another newbie question: Does OO have any experience recruiting non-technical volunteers. Many disciplines outside coding can have an impact on the offering. Product management, UX, ID, training, visual design, marketing, communications, etc. How might we position ourselves as open product development? A wider net would attract the diverse skills that could really make the effort a success long term. See this page here, which our central how can I help page: http://incubator.apache.org/openofficeorg/get-involved.html So we need and value contributors in a wide range of disciplines, not just technical ones. Hola Rob, Kevin Just an aside, if you will. At this years FOSDEM there was a panel discussion consisting of a number of the community managers. Included IIRC was openSUSE, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu (in this case the speaker was specifically from the LoCo team project, not Ubuntu overall)...and a couple others whose affiliation I can not recall. One topic, which would be germane here, was on recruiting contributors. Across the panel the participants felt that finding and retaining _quality_ non-coding contributors has proven to be more difficult then coders. Unfortunately that was the extent of the topic discussion, they all agreed but not a single one went into Why they thought this was, or what particular obstacles, procedural or cultural, might be involved, or what actions if any they have implemented to address the situation. I think OpenOffice has had the opposite problem. We have a long tradition of having quality non-coding contributors, especially in areas like translation, marketing, documentation, support, etc. But we had an over-reliance on corporate-sponsored engineers from a single company for coding. If I look at the project today, I see volunteers for non-coding items volunteering on the list on a near-daily basis. But not so often for coding volunteers. Hi Rob, Yes, you and I it would seem concur on our observational assessment of the current situation. In any case, my point was not really about coders versus non-coders. There is enough work to go around. My concern was more that we're not doing a great job at getting new contributors involved in the project. Look at our committers list. We have nearly 100 now. How many of them are actually new, e.g., were not involved with the legacy OpenOffice.org project. Sure, there are a few, but not many. Now look at the list archives for how many people of volunteered to help with the documentation, with the website, with UI, with testing, etc. How many of them were able to break into actually contributing to the project. Almost none of them, right? Yes, I'd agree. I also think it's fair to say, self forming volunteer organizations fit the pattern in general - and therefore even more so requires active attention always. So the issue, as I see it, is not an issue with attracting volunteers. It isan issue of helping the volunteers get started and helping them meet their goals in project participation. Sure, no argument here on any of that. I'd follow up from the first paragraph, and add that IMO the new actors most needed right now are those fitting the thin area - engineering. I think this means that; from those doing the engineering, particularly those making decisions on the directions the code will be developed going forward a need to be mindful to keep the required processes open and transparent - pick your term here, and I hope all understand what I mean here.. this is in no way an indictment but rather statemtnt of what I see as a general principle - so that those whom would be interested in such work will know it is here. I think this is the first step in attracting engineering resources. From there then yes, the group needs to be proactive with organizing hackfeasts, or activities of such like, the non-engineering contributors can only at best help with this not drive it forward. Anyhow - A long, rambling response, befitting a late Friday night, and all surrounded of course by IMO ;) //drew -Rob Anyhow, just thought I'd pass it along. BTW I watched this on a live video stream but the panel discussion may be available in an on-line archive, I don't know one way of the other. //drew snip
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
Rob, Sounds like we can appeal to contributors intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Another newbie question: Does OO have any experience recruiting non-technical volunteers. Many disciplines outside coding can have an impact on the offering. Product management, UX, ID, training, visual design, marketing, communications, etc. How might we position ourselves as open product development? A wider net would attract the diverse skills that could really make the effort a success long term. Regards, Kevin On Mar 29, 2012, at 7:39 PM, Rob Weir robw...@apache.org wrote: On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 12:37 AM, Pedro Giffuni p...@apache.org wrote: Hi Ram; We are strictly non-profit here so I am not sure how far we could go with such certifications. I think it's a delicate matter and sooner or later someone would likely complain about students being exploited or your company making money in exchange of ASF certificates. But consider, don't we do exactly this when Apache participates in Google Summer of Code? We get students working on Apache projects, and in return Apache gives the student a written evaluation. And in return for a successful evaluation the student gets money from Google. How is it any different if another company (not Google) encourages students to contribute to the project and in return we provide some reference for how well the student did? How payments are handled beyond that is none of our business. We certainly can have a Wiki page for students to register their projects and ideas and if their projects are really good we would almost certainly invite them to become Apache committers but that as far as we can go (I think). Being voted in as as committer is one way to demonstrate accomplishment in the project. Another way would be to show code contributions directly. Everything in version control is open to the public to inspect, so anyone with the right skills can find this out. Another way is to use a site like Ohloh, which puts these statistics in a easier-to-read form. -Rob cheers, Pedro. --- Mer 28/3/12, q...@imsoftwaresystems.com ha scritto: Hi Rob, Well, the large talent pool is available here in India with millions of students graduating in Engineering,MCA(Master of computer applications). They all look for a project for their final semester. We can somehow try to attract them but they also try to see what is the benefit for them. Most of these guys they learn C/Java as part of their syllabus.But we need to retrain them as they generally just try to pass and not to be master of it. So we need to train them and make them useful. I have not seen the code base yet but based on the search results what i have understood is that it is implemented in Java, OOBasic, Cpp, Python, XSL, ooRexx From Freshers point of view they prefer the new languages like Java(ofcourse it is a old one but still new when compared to C/C++) or advanced stuff like Android. But still we can train people in C++ but it is easy to attract people for Java. If we know the exact requirement of people then we can try to gather the people and train them and make them good to contribute to the project. We have a software training institute and staff are from top MNC's.Lot of students approach us for Live Projects to gain some real experience. So we may try to accept the people and train them. We charge the students for training as we have to pay the trainers. Ultimately what students expect is an experience letter from Apache so that they can utilise it for future employment. In addition to issuing the certificate we should have their contribution mentioned in our website otherwise other job seekers will fake the cetificates. I think if the company(Apache) is ready to issue a certificate mentioning their contribution towards the project and list their contribution in AOO website then it should definetly work. Thanks Regards, Ram, Im Software Systems
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
On 29 March 2012 05:51, Kevin Grignon kevingrignon...@gmail.com wrote: Given the risk in a formal certification program, Why would there be risk - well any more risk than doing anything else? Not for profit is easy. Do it through ASDAN, (for example) a registered charity in the UK and regulated by the national government. we could look to support contributors intrinsic motivation by reducing barriers to entry and supporting a positive on-boarding experience. Sure, use eg http://www.codecademy.com/http://www.codecademy.com/#!/exercises/0 for the content and course support and then get ASDAN to certify skills from complete beginner level through to professional. There are some constraints in terms of independent verification that the work is that of the person claiming the certificate but all of this is just normal business for a professional Awarding Organisation. -- Ian Ofqual Accredited IT Qualifications (The Schools ITQ) www.theINGOTs.org +44 (0)1827 305940 The Learning Machine Limited, Reg Office, 36 Ashby Road, Tamworth, Staffordshire, B79 8AQ. Reg No: 05560797, Registered in England and Wales.
Re: Fwd: Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
Thanks Pedro for explaining the non-profit angle. The ASF does not offer any such certificates currently - it's hard to see how they work with our primary mission (of the ASF overall), which is providing software for the public good. There are plenty of other third parties who do this kind of thing, both in terms of training, and in terms of education and the real world. Presuming those third parties respect our brand and trademarks, that model works out better for everyone, since they can focus on the training and ensuring the certifications are meaningful and fairly awarded. One model that Apache (and many projects) do participate in is Google's Summer of Code, so that might be a place to look for project ideas or just ask for help, either from the GSoC folks or from the various Apache projects (including this podling, right?) participating: http://community.apache.org/gsoc.html - Shane On 2012-03-29 1:21 AM, q...@imsoftwaresystems.com wrote: Hi Pedro Giffuni, You are absolutely right, i could not think the other side it(exploiting making money inexchange of certificates). The certificates are issyed by Apache and issued only when there is a contribution. The second point is that most of the students generally do not have any ideas on projects. When a person is seriously working on the project, i am not sure how much time he/she can spend guiding/mentoring the students/freshers. With out any benefit to the student/fresher i am not sure how many people will be willing to contribute because they should be able to show the contribution as experience in their resumes. Thanks Regards, Ram, Im Software Systems. On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 21:37:56 -0700 (PDT), Pedro Giffunip...@apache.org wrote: Hi Ram; We are strictly non-profit here so I am not sure how far we could go with such certifications. I think it's a delicate matter and sooner or later someone would likely complain about students being exploited or your company making money in exchange of ASF certificates. We certainly can have a Wiki page for students to register their projects and ideas and if their projects are really good we would almost certainly invite them to become Apache committers but that as far as we can go (I think). cheers, Pedro. --- Mer 28/3/12, q...@imsoftwaresystems.com ha scritto: Hi Rob, Well, the large talent pool is available here in India with millions of students graduating in Engineering,MCA(Master of computer applications). They all look for a project for their final semester. We can somehow try to attract them but they also try to see what is the benefit for them. Most of these guys they learn C/Java as part of their syllabus.But we need to retrain them as they generally just try to pass and not to be master of it. So we need to train them and make them useful. I have not seen the code base yet but based on the search results what i have understood is that it is implemented in Java, OOBasic, Cpp, Python, XSL, ooRexx From Freshers point of view they prefer the new languages like Java(ofcourse it is a old one but still new when compared to C/C++) or advanced stuff like Android. But still we can train people in C++ but it is easy to attract people for Java. If we know the exact requirement of people then we can try to gather the people and train them and make them good to contribute to the project. We have a software training institute and staff are from top MNC's.Lot of students approach us for Live Projects to gain some real experience. So we may try to accept the people and train them. We charge the students for training as we have to pay the trainers. Ultimately what students expect is an experience letter from Apache so that they can utilise it for future employment. In addition to issuing the certificate we should have their contribution mentioned in our website otherwise other job seekers will fake the cetificates. I think if the company(Apache) is ready to issue a certificate mentioning their contribution towards the project and list their contribution in AOO website then it should definetly work. Thanks Regards, Ram, Im Software Systems
Re: Fwd: Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
On 29 March 2012 14:08, Shane Curcuru a...@shanecurcuru.org wrote: Thanks Pedro for explaining the non-profit angle. The ASF does not offer any such certificates currently - it's hard to see how they work with our primary mission (of the ASF overall), which is providing software for the public good. There are plenty of other third parties who do this kind of thing, both in terms of training, Training and certification should really be separated otherwise there is a potential conflict of interests. and in terms of education and the real world. Presuming those third parties respect our brand and trademarks, that model works out better for everyone, since they can focus on the training and ensuring the certifications are meaningful and fairly awarded. One issue that is real is judging demand. Probably if there are 1000 potential people to certificate most professional awarding organisations are unlikely to consider it viable. That is why probably end-user certification in skills associated with using AOO is more likely than professional certification of coders, unless the coders themselves did it through mentoring and peer review. Another option would be to partner with a computer science faculty or faculties in a university to make the industry link with academia. That goes on quite a lot with proprietary software vendors but I know of few FOSS examples. One model that Apache (and many projects) do participate in is Google's Summer of Code, so that might be a place to look for project ideas or just ask for help, either from the GSoC folks or from the various Apache projects (including this podling, right?) participating: http://community.apache.org/**gsoc.htmlhttp://community.apache.org/gsoc.html - Shane -- Ian Ofqual Accredited IT Qualifications (The Schools ITQ) www.theINGOTs.org +44 (0)1827 305940 The Learning Machine Limited, Reg Office, 36 Ashby Road, Tamworth, Staffordshire, B79 8AQ. Reg No: 05560797, Registered in England and Wales.
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
On Thu, 2012-03-29 at 09:04 -0400, Rob Weir wrote: On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 8:31 AM, Kevin Grignon kevingrignon...@gmail.comwrote: Rob, Sounds like we can appeal to contributors intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Another newbie question: Does OO have any experience recruiting non-technical volunteers. Many disciplines outside coding can have an impact on the offering. Product management, UX, ID, training, visual design, marketing, communications, etc. How might we position ourselves as open product development? A wider net would attract the diverse skills that could really make the effort a success long term. See this page here, which our central how can I help page: http://incubator.apache.org/openofficeorg/get-involved.html So we need and value contributors in a wide range of disciplines, not just technical ones. Hola Rob, Kevin Just an aside, if you will. At this years FOSDEM there was a panel discussion consisting of a number of the community managers. Included IIRC was openSUSE, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu (in this case the speaker was specifically from the LoCo team project, not Ubuntu overall)...and a couple others whose affiliation I can not recall. One topic, which would be germane here, was on recruiting contributors. Across the panel the participants felt that finding and retaining _quality_ non-coding contributors has proven to be more difficult then coders. Unfortunately that was the extent of the topic discussion, they all agreed but not a single one went into Why they thought this was, or what particular obstacles, procedural or cultural, might be involved, or what actions if any they have implemented to address the situation. Anyhow, just thought I'd pass it along. BTW I watched this on a live video stream but the panel discussion may be available in an on-line archive, I don't know one way of the other. //drew snip
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
On 28 March 2012 02:38, Kevin Grignon kevingrignon...@gmail.com wrote: Many great thoughts here. In addition to supporting the open source movement, perhaps we could market participation as a way to learn and develop skills. Maybe a certificate for AOO development professional? Work out the key skills needed to contribute to development and write a set of indicative assessment criteria. Get a mentor to verify the candidate's evidence that they can meet the criteria. If there was interest in it we have the facilities to support it including secure on-line testing facilities and a Drupal system for managing coursework evidence which we would do as a free contribution to the project. We'd just need help defining the criteria from the most experienced developers. As a newbie, it appears that much our message is around what we need - which is essential to understand, however we may want to focus on why someone may want to join and help them realize their goals. For example, if someone is looking to demonstrate their skills and develop portfolio work products, then AOO offers a sandbox of opportunity. And a potential certification of skills. Some thoughts. Regards, Kevin On Mar 27, 2012, at 10:47 PM, Rob Weir robw...@apache.org wrote: On Mon, Mar 26, 2012 at 9:39 PM, Louis Suárez-Potts lui...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, On 2012-03-19, at 08:41 , Rob Weir wrote: Any ideas and the best ways how we can improve in this area after AOO 3.4 releases? Lots, and these would complement the rather good ideas already proposed. What we did at OOo actually worked--to attract developers and contributors of all sorts. What worked against us I do not think I need spell out, but the cussedness of the code was not really the determining factor. What really would help, besides giving would-bes a clean entry, is to have mentors, more or less do-able tasks that are identified as such. (We tried getting to this many times, and I strongly urged my erstwhile colleagues in this area for, uhm, years. Finally happened, and we got our to-dos but still not clearly identified according to level of difficulty. I can conceive of several here whose work would assist in the identification of tasks newbies could approach--and even post-newbies-and perhaps even in mentoring.) Also, what helps tremendously is what we are doing already: presenting a community that is open, friendly, and generally has a good attitude about what it is doing and where it is going. There are millions using OOo as their primary ODF implementation, and those mostly include those who have come to it via the national or sub-national government agency. I think it's about time that they are looking to AOO for the next step. I think the idea of a new contributor mentor is essential. This is true for coders, but also website, translation, documentation, test, UI, etc. What we have today is very much a swim or sink and drink from the fire hose approach. If someone is highly motivated, highly skilled and persistent, and is able to withstand the apparent chaos of the ooo-dev list, and penetrates the noise and asks questions, and repeats their questions until answered, then they might have a 50/50 chance of contributing. But let's be honest with ourselves -- there are a range of projects someone can contribute to. For would-be volunteers it is a buyer's market. If we make it too hard to get involved and contribute, technically, procedurally, socially, then we lose. But getting new volunteers on board requires effort. If someone is spending 100% of their time on their own features, then they have no time to help new volunteers become productive. One approach might be to define essential skills or essential knowledge that a new volunteer needs to master in order to become productive, and then a list of project members who are willing to help mentor new volunteers to acquire those skills. For example, for the website, the essential skills might be: 1) Assume HTML/CSS, we're not here to teach that 2) Help them get started with Markdown Text 3) Help them use the CMS to generate patches 4) Help them build website locally via the scripts 5) Understanding the larger site design, including recurring page elements, footers, etc. 6) In parallel with above, understanding Apache, roles, decision making, lazy consensus, CTR versus RTC, what Infra does versus what the project is responsible for, etc. 7) Help them establish a record of contributions to become a committer Anyone who has done the above can do 95% of what is needed to become a master of our website. It would be wonderful if we had something like that, a check list even a curriculum, for other common functions, as well as volunteers able to take on new project volunteers willing to help. This is all an investment in the future success of the
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
Hi, I am sorry i am new to this dev mailing list. What is the real requirement. In what areas we need people for the next 1 year. What is the exact skill set needed. Let me see if i can help you in anyway. Thanks Regards, Ram, Im Software Systems On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 08:47:30 +0100, Ian Lynch ianrly...@gmail.com wrote: On 28 March 2012 02:38, Kevin Grignon kevingrignon...@gmail.com wrote: Many great thoughts here. In addition to supporting the open source movement, perhaps we could market participation as a way to learn and develop skills. Maybe a certificate for AOO development professional? Work out the key skills needed to contribute to development and write a set of indicative assessment criteria. Get a mentor to verify the candidate's evidence that they can meet the criteria. If there was interest in it we have the facilities to support it including secure on-line testing facilities and a Drupal system for managing coursework evidence which we would do as a free contribution to the project. We'd just need help defining the criteria from the most experienced developers. As a newbie, it appears that much our message is around what we need - which is essential to understand, however we may want to focus on why someone may want to join and help them realize their goals. For example, if someone is looking to demonstrate their skills and develop portfolio work products, then AOO offers a sandbox of opportunity. And a potential certification of skills. Some thoughts. Regards, Kevin On Mar 27, 2012, at 10:47 PM, Rob Weir robw...@apache.org wrote: On Mon, Mar 26, 2012 at 9:39 PM, Louis Suárez-Potts lui...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, On 2012-03-19, at 08:41 , Rob Weir wrote: Any ideas and the best ways how we can improve in this area after AOO 3.4 releases? Lots, and these would complement the rather good ideas already proposed. What we did at OOo actually worked--to attract developers and contributors of all sorts. What worked against us I do not think I need spell out, but the cussedness of the code was not really the determining factor. What really would help, besides giving would-bes a clean entry, is to have mentors, more or less do-able tasks that are identified as such. (We tried getting to this many times, and I strongly urged my erstwhile colleagues in this area for, uhm, years. Finally happened, and we got our to-dos but still not clearly identified according to level of difficulty. I can conceive of several here whose work would assist in the identification of tasks newbies could approach--and even post-newbies-and perhaps even in mentoring.) Also, what helps tremendously is what we are doing already: presenting a community that is open, friendly, and generally has a good attitude about what it is doing and where it is going. There are millions using OOo as their primary ODF implementation, and those mostly include those who have come to it via the national or sub-national government agency. I think it's about time that they are looking to AOO for the next step. I think the idea of a new contributor mentor is essential. This is true for coders, but also website, translation, documentation, test, UI, etc. What we have today is very much a swim or sink and drink from the fire hose approach. If someone is highly motivated, highly skilled and persistent, and is able to withstand the apparent chaos of the ooo-dev list, and penetrates the noise and asks questions, and repeats their questions until answered, then they might have a 50/50 chance of contributing. But let's be honest with ourselves -- there are a range of projects someone can contribute to. For would-be volunteers it is a buyer's market. If we make it too hard to get involved and contribute, technically, procedurally, socially, then we lose. But getting new volunteers on board requires effort. If someone is spending 100% of their time on their own features, then they have no time to help new volunteers become productive. One approach might be to define essential skills or essential knowledge that a new volunteer needs to master in order to become productive, and then a list of project members who are willing to help mentor new volunteers to acquire those skills. For example, for the website, the essential skills might be: 1) Assume HTML/CSS, we're not here to teach that 2) Help them get started with Markdown Text 3) Help them use the CMS to generate patches 4) Help them build website locally via the scripts 5) Understanding the larger site design, including recurring page elements, footers, etc. 6) In parallel with above, understanding Apache, roles, decision making, lazy consensus, CTR versus RTC, what Infra does versus what the project is responsible for, etc. 7) Help them establish a record of contributions to become a committer
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 9:38 PM, Kevin Grignon kevingrignon...@gmail.comwrote: Many great thoughts here. In addition to supporting the open source movement, perhaps we could market participation as a way to learn and develop skills. As a newbie, it appears that much our message is around what we need - which is essential to understand, however we may want to focus on why someone may want to join and help them realize their goals. For example, if someone is looking to demonstrate their skills and develop portfolio work products, then AOO offers a sandbox of opportunity. That is certainly one possible motivation. Someone at the start of their career, or considering a new career, starts with less in their resume. So open source participation can be almost like an unpaid internship -- gain some experience, skills, references, etc. There was a study a few years ago that looked at open source participation, specifically looking at Apache projects. The authors found: First, we find that developers’ motivations are not independent but rather are related in complex ways. Being paid to contribute to Apache projects is positively related to developers’ status motivations but negatively related to their use-value motivations. Perhaps surprisingly, we find no evidence of diminished intrinsic motivation in the presence of extrinsic motivations; rather, status motivations enhance intrinsic motivations. Second, we find that different motivations have an impact on participation in different ways. Developers’ paid participation and status motivations lead to above-average contribution levels, but use-value motivations lead to below-average contribution levels, and intrinsic motivations do not significantly impact average contribution levels. Third, we find that developers’ contribution levels positively impact their performance rankings. Finally, our results suggest that past-performance rankings enhance developers’ subsequent status motivations. http://mansci.journal.informs.org/content/52/7/984.abstract (And no, I have zero idea what that means. But it sure sounds impressive.) In any case, new volunteers have various motivations, and so do more experienced members who volunteer to mentor new participants. So all sorts of combinations are interests are possible. But I suspect the same two questions occur over and over again: 1) What are some things I can work on now that match my skill level and time commitment? 2) I want to do X, How do I get started, technically or procedurally? In other words, we have volunteers looking for an area to help with, and we have others who want to accomplish something specific, but need help figuring out how to do it. -Rob Some thoughts. Regards, Kevin On Mar 27, 2012, at 10:47 PM, Rob Weir robw...@apache.org wrote: On Mon, Mar 26, 2012 at 9:39 PM, Louis Suárez-Potts lui...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, On 2012-03-19, at 08:41 , Rob Weir wrote: Any ideas and the best ways how we can improve in this area after AOO 3.4 releases? Lots, and these would complement the rather good ideas already proposed. What we did at OOo actually worked--to attract developers and contributors of all sorts. What worked against us I do not think I need spell out, but the cussedness of the code was not really the determining factor. What really would help, besides giving would-bes a clean entry, is to have mentors, more or less do-able tasks that are identified as such. (We tried getting to this many times, and I strongly urged my erstwhile colleagues in this area for, uhm, years. Finally happened, and we got our to-dos but still not clearly identified according to level of difficulty. I can conceive of several here whose work would assist in the identification of tasks newbies could approach--and even post-newbies-and perhaps even in mentoring.) Also, what helps tremendously is what we are doing already: presenting a community that is open, friendly, and generally has a good attitude about what it is doing and where it is going. There are millions using OOo as their primary ODF implementation, and those mostly include those who have come to it via the national or sub-national government agency. I think it's about time that they are looking to AOO for the next step. I think the idea of a new contributor mentor is essential. This is true for coders, but also website, translation, documentation, test, UI, etc. What we have today is very much a swim or sink and drink from the fire hose approach. If someone is highly motivated, highly skilled and persistent, and is able to withstand the apparent chaos of the ooo-dev list, and penetrates the noise and asks questions, and repeats their questions until answered, then they might have a 50/50 chance of contributing. But let's be honest with ourselves -- there are a range of projects someone can contribute to. For would-be volunteers it is a
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 12:05 PM, q...@imsoftwaresystems.com wrote: Hi, I am sorry i am new to this dev mailing list. What is the real requirement. In what areas we need people for the next 1 year. What is the exact skill set needed. Let me see if i can help you in anyway. Hi Ram, As you can probably tell, from reading the ooo-dev list posts, we're just finishing up the OpenOffice 3.4 release. So it probably appears chaotic right now, but this is just a sign of the high activity level as we complete the remaining tasks for this release. We have not had a community discussion about the next 1 year, so what follows expresses my personal view only. Areas where we especially need help: - C/C++ programmers to work on the core OpenOffice code on feature development and bug fixing. - There is some interest in developing some test automation based on a Java testing framework that IBM said they would contribute. So someone with skills in QA and Java could help with this. - There is plenty of work to do with manual testing, especially with test case definition. It might make sense to start with defining the test cases and execute them manually at first, but overtime migrate to test automation. - We have had some discussion about making a more intelligent install program, so it can bring down a small core program and then download additional modules, like spell checkers, language packs, etc., when needed, over the internet. I would also return the question and ask, what kind of things do you want to do? The project works best, I think, when people are working on things that they find interesting. Regards, -Rob Thanks Regards, Ram, Im Software Systems On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 08:47:30 +0100, Ian Lynch ianrly...@gmail.com wrote: On 28 March 2012 02:38, Kevin Grignon kevingrignon...@gmail.com wrote: Many great thoughts here. In addition to supporting the open source movement, perhaps we could market participation as a way to learn and develop skills. Maybe a certificate for AOO development professional? Work out the key skills needed to contribute to development and write a set of indicative assessment criteria. Get a mentor to verify the candidate's evidence that they can meet the criteria. If there was interest in it we have the facilities to support it including secure on-line testing facilities and a Drupal system for managing coursework evidence which we would do as a free contribution to the project. We'd just need help defining the criteria from the most experienced developers. As a newbie, it appears that much our message is around what we need - which is essential to understand, however we may want to focus on why someone may want to join and help them realize their goals. For example, if someone is looking to demonstrate their skills and develop portfolio work products, then AOO offers a sandbox of opportunity. And a potential certification of skills. Some thoughts. Regards, Kevin On Mar 27, 2012, at 10:47 PM, Rob Weir robw...@apache.org wrote: On Mon, Mar 26, 2012 at 9:39 PM, Louis Suárez-Potts lui...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, On 2012-03-19, at 08:41 , Rob Weir wrote: Any ideas and the best ways how we can improve in this area after AOO 3.4 releases? Lots, and these would complement the rather good ideas already proposed. What we did at OOo actually worked--to attract developers and contributors of all sorts. What worked against us I do not think I need spell out, but the cussedness of the code was not really the determining factor. What really would help, besides giving would-bes a clean entry, is to have mentors, more or less do-able tasks that are identified as such. (We tried getting to this many times, and I strongly urged my erstwhile colleagues in this area for, uhm, years. Finally happened, and we got our to-dos but still not clearly identified according to level of difficulty. I can conceive of several here whose work would assist in the identification of tasks newbies could approach--and even post-newbies-and perhaps even in mentoring.) Also, what helps tremendously is what we are doing already: presenting a community that is open, friendly, and generally has a good attitude about what it is doing and where it is going. There are millions using OOo as their primary ODF implementation, and those mostly include those who have come to it via the national or sub-national government agency. I think it's about time that they are looking to AOO for the next step. I think the idea of a new contributor mentor is essential. This is true for coders, but also website, translation, documentation, test, UI, etc. What we have today is very much a swim or sink and drink from the fire hose approach. If someone is highly motivated, highly skilled and persistent,
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
Hi Rob, Well, the large talent pool is available here in India with millions of students graduating in Engineering,MCA(Master of computer applications). They all look for a project for their final semester. We can somehow try to attract them but they also try to see what is the benefit for them. Most of these guys they learn C/Java as part of their syllabus.But we need to retrain them as they generally just try to pass and not to be master of it. So we need to train them and make them useful. I have not seen the code base yet but based on the search results what i have understood is that it is implemented in Java, OOBasic, Cpp, Python, XSL, ooRexx From Freshers point of view they prefer the new languages like Java(ofcourse it is a old one but still new when compared to C/C++) or advanced stuff like Android. But still we can train people in C++ but it is easy to attract people for Java. If we know the exact requirement of people then we can try to gather the people and train them and make them good to contribute to the project. We have a software training institute and staff are from top MNC's.Lot of students approach us for Live Projects to gain some real experience. So we may try to accept the people and train them. We charge the students for training as we have to pay the trainers. Ultimately what students expect is an experience letter from Apache so that they can utilise it for future employment. In addition to issuing the certificate we should have their contribution mentioned in our website otherwise other job seekers will fake the cetificates. I think if the company(Apache) is ready to issue a certificate mentioning their contribution towards the project and list their contribution in AOO website then it should definetly work. Thanks Regards, Ram, Im Software Systems On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 15:11:59 -0400, Rob Weir robw...@apache.org wrote: On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 12:05 PM, q...@imsoftwaresystems.com wrote: Hi, I am sorry i am new to this dev mailing list. What is the real requirement. In what areas we need people for the next 1 year. What is the exact skill set needed. Let me see if i can computerof help you in anyway. i Hi Ram, As you can probably tell, from reading the ooo-dev list posts, we're just finishing up the OpenOffice 3.4 release. So it probably appears chaotic right now, but this is just a sign of the high activity level as we complete the remaining tasks for this release. We have not had a community discussion about the next 1 year, so what follows expresses my personal view only. Areas where we especially need help: - C/C++ programmers to work on the core OpenOffice code on feature development and bug fixing. - There is some interest in developing some test automation based on a Java testing framework that IBM said they would contribute. So someone with skills in QA and Java could help with this. - There is plenty of work to do with manual testing, especially with test case definition. It might make sense to start with defining the test cases and execute them manually at first, but overtime migrate to test automation. - We have had some discussion about making a more intelligent install program, so it can bring down a small core program and then download additional modules, like spell checkers, language packs, etc., when needed, over the internet. I would also return the question and ask, what kind of things do you want to do? The project works best, I think, when people are working on things that they find interesting. Regards, -Rob Thanks Regards, Ram, Im Software Systems On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 08:47:30 +0100, Ian Lynch ianrly...@gmail.com wrote: On 28 March 2012 02:38, Kevin Grignon kevingrignon...@gmail.com wrote: Many great thoughts here. In addition to supporting the open source movement, perhaps we could market participation as a way to learn and develop skills. Maybe a certificate for AOO development professional? Work out the key skills needed to contribute to development and write a set of indicative assessment criteria. Get a mentor to verify the candidate's evidence that they can meet the criteria. If there was interest in it we have the facilities to support it including secure on-line testing facilities and a Drupal system for managing coursework evidence which we would do as a free contribution to the project. We'd just need help defining the criteria from the most experienced developers. As a newbie, it appears that much our message is around what we need - which is essential to understand, however we may want to focus on why someone may want to join and help them realize their goals. For example, if someone is looking to demonstrate their skills and develop portfolio work products, then AOO offers a sandbox of opportunity. And a potential certification of skills. Some thoughts. Regards, Kevin On
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
Hi Ram; We are strictly non-profit here so I am not sure how far we could go with such certifications. I think it's a delicate matter and sooner or later someone would likely complain about students being exploited or your company making money in exchange of ASF certificates. We certainly can have a Wiki page for students to register their projects and ideas and if their projects are really good we would almost certainly invite them to become Apache committers but that as far as we can go (I think). cheers, Pedro. --- Mer 28/3/12, q...@imsoftwaresystems.com ha scritto: Hi Rob, Well, the large talent pool is available here in India with millions of students graduating in Engineering,MCA(Master of computer applications). They all look for a project for their final semester. We can somehow try to attract them but they also try to see what is the benefit for them. Most of these guys they learn C/Java as part of their syllabus.But we need to retrain them as they generally just try to pass and not to be master of it. So we need to train them and make them useful. I have not seen the code base yet but based on the search results what i have understood is that it is implemented in Java, OOBasic, Cpp, Python, XSL, ooRexx From Freshers point of view they prefer the new languages like Java(ofcourse it is a old one but still new when compared to C/C++) or advanced stuff like Android. But still we can train people in C++ but it is easy to attract people for Java. If we know the exact requirement of people then we can try to gather the people and train them and make them good to contribute to the project. We have a software training institute and staff are from top MNC's.Lot of students approach us for Live Projects to gain some real experience. So we may try to accept the people and train them. We charge the students for training as we have to pay the trainers. Ultimately what students expect is an experience letter from Apache so that they can utilise it for future employment. In addition to issuing the certificate we should have their contribution mentioned in our website otherwise other job seekers will fake the cetificates. I think if the company(Apache) is ready to issue a certificate mentioning their contribution towards the project and list their contribution in AOO website then it should definetly work. Thanks Regards, Ram, Im Software Systems
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
Given the risk in a formal certification program, we could look to support contributors intrinsic motivation by reducing barriers to entry and supporting a positive on-boarding experience. On Mar 29, 2012, at 12:37 PM, Pedro Giffuni p...@apache.org wrote: Hi Ram; We are strictly non-profit here so I am not sure how far we could go with such certifications. I think it's a delicate matter and sooner or later someone would likely complain about students being exploited or your company making money in exchange of ASF certificates. We certainly can have a Wiki page for students to register their projects and ideas and if their projects are really good we would almost certainly invite them to become Apache committers but that as far as we can go (I think). cheers, Pedro. --- Mer 28/3/12, q...@imsoftwaresystems.com ha scritto: Hi Rob, Well, the large talent pool is available here in India with millions of students graduating in Engineering,MCA(Master of computer applications). They all look for a project for their final semester. We can somehow try to attract them but they also try to see what is the benefit for them. Most of these guys they learn C/Java as part of their syllabus.But we need to retrain them as they generally just try to pass and not to be master of it. So we need to train them and make them useful. I have not seen the code base yet but based on the search results what i have understood is that it is implemented in Java, OOBasic, Cpp, Python, XSL, ooRexx From Freshers point of view they prefer the new languages like Java(ofcourse it is a old one but still new when compared to C/C++) or advanced stuff like Android. But still we can train people in C++ but it is easy to attract people for Java. If we know the exact requirement of people then we can try to gather the people and train them and make them good to contribute to the project. We have a software training institute and staff are from top MNC's.Lot of students approach us for Live Projects to gain some real experience. So we may try to accept the people and train them. We charge the students for training as we have to pay the trainers. Ultimately what students expect is an experience letter from Apache so that they can utilise it for future employment. In addition to issuing the certificate we should have their contribution mentioned in our website otherwise other job seekers will fake the cetificates. I think if the company(Apache) is ready to issue a certificate mentioning their contribution towards the project and list their contribution in AOO website then it should definetly work. Thanks Regards, Ram, Im Software Systems
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
Great points in this thread Question: Does OO community have a history if working with academic or professional groups to recruit volunteers? Developers, designers and beyond. What is the protocol to recruit? Thoughts? Kevin On Mar 29, 2012, at 12:23 PM, q...@imsoftwaresystems.com wrote: Hi Rob, Well, the large talent pool is available here in India with millions of students graduating in Engineering,MCA(Master of computer applications). They all look for a project for their final semester. We can somehow try to attract them but they also try to see what is the benefit for them. Most of these guys they learn C/Java as part of their syllabus.But we need to retrain them as they generally just try to pass and not to be master of it. So we need to train them and make them useful. I have not seen the code base yet but based on the search results what i have understood is that it is implemented in Java, OOBasic, Cpp, Python, XSL, ooRexx From Freshers point of view they prefer the new languages like Java(ofcourse it is a old one but still new when compared to C/C++) or advanced stuff like Android. But still we can train people in C++ but it is easy to attract people for Java. If we know the exact requirement of people then we can try to gather the people and train them and make them good to contribute to the project. We have a software training institute and staff are from top MNC's.Lot of students approach us for Live Projects to gain some real experience. So we may try to accept the people and train them. We charge the students for training as we have to pay the trainers. Ultimately what students expect is an experience letter from Apache so that they can utilise it for future employment. In addition to issuing the certificate we should have their contribution mentioned in our website otherwise other job seekers will fake the cetificates. I think if the company(Apache) is ready to issue a certificate mentioning their contribution towards the project and list their contribution in AOO website then it should definetly work. Thanks Regards, Ram, Im Software Systems On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 15:11:59 -0400, Rob Weir robw...@apache.org wrote: On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 12:05 PM, q...@imsoftwaresystems.com wrote: Hi, I am sorry i am new to this dev mailing list. What is the real requirement. In what areas we need people for the next 1 year. What is the exact skill set needed. Let me see if i can computerof help you in anyway. i Hi Ram, As you can probably tell, from reading the ooo-dev list posts, we're just finishing up the OpenOffice 3.4 release. So it probably appears chaotic right now, but this is just a sign of the high activity level as we complete the remaining tasks for this release. We have not had a community discussion about the next 1 year, so what follows expresses my personal view only. Areas where we especially need help: - C/C++ programmers to work on the core OpenOffice code on feature development and bug fixing. - There is some interest in developing some test automation based on a Java testing framework that IBM said they would contribute. So someone with skills in QA and Java could help with this. - There is plenty of work to do with manual testing, especially with test case definition. It might make sense to start with defining the test cases and execute them manually at first, but overtime migrate to test automation. - We have had some discussion about making a more intelligent install program, so it can bring down a small core program and then download additional modules, like spell checkers, language packs, etc., when needed, over the internet. I would also return the question and ask, what kind of things do you want to do? The project works best, I think, when people are working on things that they find interesting. Regards, -Rob Thanks Regards, Ram, Im Software Systems On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 08:47:30 +0100, Ian Lynch ianrly...@gmail.com wrote: On 28 March 2012 02:38, Kevin Grignon kevingrignon...@gmail.com wrote: Many great thoughts here. In addition to supporting the open source movement, perhaps we could market participation as a way to learn and develop skills. Maybe a certificate for AOO development professional? Work out the key skills needed to contribute to development and write a set of indicative assessment criteria. Get a mentor to verify the candidate's evidence that they can meet the criteria. If there was interest in it we have the facilities to support it including secure on-line testing facilities and a Drupal system for managing coursework evidence which we would do as a free contribution to the project. We'd just need help defining the criteria from the most experienced developers. As a newbie, it appears that much our message is around what we need - which is essential to understand, however
Fwd: Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
Hi Pedro Giffuni, You are absolutely right, i could not think the other side it(exploiting making money inexchange of certificates). The certificates are issyed by Apache and issued only when there is a contribution. The second point is that most of the students generally do not have any ideas on projects. When a person is seriously working on the project, i am not sure how much time he/she can spend guiding/mentoring the students/freshers. With out any benefit to the student/fresher i am not sure how many people will be willing to contribute because they should be able to show the contribution as experience in their resumes. Thanks Regards, Ram, Im Software Systems. On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 21:37:56 -0700 (PDT), Pedro Giffuni p...@apache.org wrote: Hi Ram; We are strictly non-profit here so I am not sure how far we could go with such certifications. I think it's a delicate matter and sooner or later someone would likely complain about students being exploited or your company making money in exchange of ASF certificates. We certainly can have a Wiki page for students to register their projects and ideas and if their projects are really good we would almost certainly invite them to become Apache committers but that as far as we can go (I think). cheers, Pedro. --- Mer 28/3/12, q...@imsoftwaresystems.com ha scritto: Hi Rob, Well, the large talent pool is available here in India with millions of students graduating in Engineering,MCA(Master of computer applications). They all look for a project for their final semester. We can somehow try to attract them but they also try to see what is the benefit for them. Most of these guys they learn C/Java as part of their syllabus.But we need to retrain them as they generally just try to pass and not to be master of it. So we need to train them and make them useful. I have not seen the code base yet but based on the search results what i have understood is that it is implemented in Java, OOBasic, Cpp, Python, XSL, ooRexx From Freshers point of view they prefer the new languages like Java(ofcourse it is a old one but still new when compared to C/C++) or advanced stuff like Android. But still we can train people in C++ but it is easy to attract people for Java. If we know the exact requirement of people then we can try to gather the people and train them and make them good to contribute to the project. We have a software training institute and staff are from top MNC's.Lot of students approach us for Live Projects to gain some real experience. So we may try to accept the people and train them. We charge the students for training as we have to pay the trainers. Ultimately what students expect is an experience letter from Apache so that they can utilise it for future employment. In addition to issuing the certificate we should have their contribution mentioned in our website otherwise other job seekers will fake the cetificates. I think if the company(Apache) is ready to issue a certificate mentioning their contribution towards the project and list their contribution in AOO website then it should definetly work. Thanks Regards, Ram, Im Software Systems
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
Hi; --- Gio 29/3/12, q...@imsoftwaresystems.com ha scritto: ... Hi Pedro Giffuni, You are absolutely right, i could not think the other side it(exploiting making money inexchange of certificates). The certificates are issyed by Apache and issued only when there is a contribution. The second point is that most of the students generally do not have any ideas on projects. When a person is seriously working on the project, i am not sure how much time he/she can spend guiding/mentoring the students/freshers. With out any benefit to the student/fresher i am not sure how many people will be willing to contribute because they should be able to show the contribution as experience in their resumes. Yes.. I know you intend well but ... you know how people are sometimes ... surely sooner or later someone will have envy and will find a way to make it look morally unacceptable. I am not closing any door just wanted to make clear that this issues are normally delicate. cheers, Pedro.
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
On Thu, 2012-03-29 at 12:54 +0800, Kevin Grignon wrote: Great points in this thread Question: Does OO community have a history if working with academic or professional groups to recruit volunteers? Developers, designers and beyond. Hola Kevin, hmm - perhaps review the information at: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Education_Project It only covers a subset of your question, but an important one for this discussion IMO. //drew What is the protocol to recruit? Thoughts? Kevin On Mar 29, 2012, at 12:23 PM, q...@imsoftwaresystems.com wrote: Hi Rob, Well, the large talent pool is available here in India with millions of students graduating in Engineering,MCA(Master of computer applications). They all look for a project for their final semester. We can somehow try to attract them but they also try to see what is the benefit for them. Most of these guys they learn C/Java as part of their syllabus.But we need to retrain them as they generally just try to pass and not to be master of it. So we need to train them and make them useful. I have not seen the code base yet but based on the search results what i have understood is that it is implemented in Java, OOBasic, Cpp, Python, XSL, ooRexx From Freshers point of view they prefer the new languages like Java(ofcourse it is a old one but still new when compared to C/C++) or advanced stuff like Android. But still we can train people in C++ but it is easy to attract people for Java. If we know the exact requirement of people then we can try to gather the people and train them and make them good to contribute to the project. We have a software training institute and staff are from top MNC's.Lot of students approach us for Live Projects to gain some real experience. So we may try to accept the people and train them. We charge the students for training as we have to pay the trainers. Ultimately what students expect is an experience letter from Apache so that they can utilise it for future employment. In addition to issuing the certificate we should have their contribution mentioned in our website otherwise other job seekers will fake the cetificates. I think if the company(Apache) is ready to issue a certificate mentioning their contribution towards the project and list their contribution in AOO website then it should definetly work. Thanks Regards, Ram, Im Software Systems On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 15:11:59 -0400, Rob Weir robw...@apache.org wrote: On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 12:05 PM, q...@imsoftwaresystems.com wrote: Hi, I am sorry i am new to this dev mailing list. What is the real requirement. In what areas we need people for the next 1 year. What is the exact skill set needed. Let me see if i can computerof help you in anyway. i Hi Ram, As you can probably tell, from reading the ooo-dev list posts, we're just finishing up the OpenOffice 3.4 release. So it probably appears chaotic right now, but this is just a sign of the high activity level as we complete the remaining tasks for this release. We have not had a community discussion about the next 1 year, so what follows expresses my personal view only. Areas where we especially need help: - C/C++ programmers to work on the core OpenOffice code on feature development and bug fixing. - There is some interest in developing some test automation based on a Java testing framework that IBM said they would contribute. So someone with skills in QA and Java could help with this. - There is plenty of work to do with manual testing, especially with test case definition. It might make sense to start with defining the test cases and execute them manually at first, but overtime migrate to test automation. - We have had some discussion about making a more intelligent install program, so it can bring down a small core program and then download additional modules, like spell checkers, language packs, etc., when needed, over the internet. I would also return the question and ask, what kind of things do you want to do? The project works best, I think, when people are working on things that they find interesting. Regards, -Rob Thanks Regards, Ram, Im Software Systems On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 08:47:30 +0100, Ian Lynch ianrly...@gmail.com wrote: On 28 March 2012 02:38, Kevin Grignon kevingrignon...@gmail.com wrote: Many great thoughts here. In addition to supporting the open source movement, perhaps we could market participation as a way to learn and develop skills. Maybe a certificate for AOO development professional? Work out the key skills needed to contribute to development and write a set of indicative assessment criteria. Get a mentor to verify the candidate's evidence that they can meet the criteria. If there was interest
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
Many great thoughts here. In addition to supporting the open source movement, perhaps we could market participation as a way to learn and develop skills. As a newbie, it appears that much our message is around what we need - which is essential to understand, however we may want to focus on why someone may want to join and help them realize their goals. For example, if someone is looking to demonstrate their skills and develop portfolio work products, then AOO offers a sandbox of opportunity. Some thoughts. Regards, Kevin On Mar 27, 2012, at 10:47 PM, Rob Weir robw...@apache.org wrote: On Mon, Mar 26, 2012 at 9:39 PM, Louis Suárez-Potts lui...@gmail.comwrote: Hi, On 2012-03-19, at 08:41 , Rob Weir wrote: Any ideas and the best ways how we can improve in this area after AOO 3.4 releases? Lots, and these would complement the rather good ideas already proposed. What we did at OOo actually worked--to attract developers and contributors of all sorts. What worked against us I do not think I need spell out, but the cussedness of the code was not really the determining factor. What really would help, besides giving would-bes a clean entry, is to have mentors, more or less do-able tasks that are identified as such. (We tried getting to this many times, and I strongly urged my erstwhile colleagues in this area for, uhm, years. Finally happened, and we got our to-dos but still not clearly identified according to level of difficulty. I can conceive of several here whose work would assist in the identification of tasks newbies could approach--and even post-newbies-and perhaps even in mentoring.) Also, what helps tremendously is what we are doing already: presenting a community that is open, friendly, and generally has a good attitude about what it is doing and where it is going. There are millions using OOo as their primary ODF implementation, and those mostly include those who have come to it via the national or sub-national government agency. I think it's about time that they are looking to AOO for the next step. I think the idea of a new contributor mentor is essential. This is true for coders, but also website, translation, documentation, test, UI, etc. What we have today is very much a swim or sink and drink from the fire hose approach. If someone is highly motivated, highly skilled and persistent, and is able to withstand the apparent chaos of the ooo-dev list, and penetrates the noise and asks questions, and repeats their questions until answered, then they might have a 50/50 chance of contributing. But let's be honest with ourselves -- there are a range of projects someone can contribute to. For would-be volunteers it is a buyer's market. If we make it too hard to get involved and contribute, technically, procedurally, socially, then we lose. But getting new volunteers on board requires effort. If someone is spending 100% of their time on their own features, then they have no time to help new volunteers become productive. One approach might be to define essential skills or essential knowledge that a new volunteer needs to master in order to become productive, and then a list of project members who are willing to help mentor new volunteers to acquire those skills. For example, for the website, the essential skills might be: 1) Assume HTML/CSS, we're not here to teach that 2) Help them get started with Markdown Text 3) Help them use the CMS to generate patches 4) Help them build website locally via the scripts 5) Understanding the larger site design, including recurring page elements, footers, etc. 6) In parallel with above, understanding Apache, roles, decision making, lazy consensus, CTR versus RTC, what Infra does versus what the project is responsible for, etc. 7) Help them establish a record of contributions to become a committer Anyone who has done the above can do 95% of what is needed to become a master of our website. It would be wonderful if we had something like that, a check list even a curriculum, for other common functions, as well as volunteers able to take on new project volunteers willing to help. This is all an investment in the future success of the project. We grow by attracting new volunteers. But the investment is time spent on mentoring. This would all be over-kill for the average Apache PMC of 8-12 people. But with 10 million lines of code, a PMC nearing 100 members, and the largest project at Apache, we need an approach to training new volunteers that works to scale. I think something like the above helps get us closer. -Rob And I can think of at least two, and probably more, national bodies so interested. Do these give us developers straight away? I don't know. The problem with OOo was, as [not] said ultimately political, not codical (comical?). Engaging these longtime users, as well as new ones, with the possibilities represented by this community,
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
Hi, On 2012-03-19, at 08:41 , Rob Weir wrote: Any ideas and the best ways how we can improve in this area after AOO 3.4 releases? Lots, and these would complement the rather good ideas already proposed. What we did at OOo actually worked--to attract developers and contributors of all sorts. What worked against us I do not think I need spell out, but the cussedness of the code was not really the determining factor. What really would help, besides giving would-bes a clean entry, is to have mentors, more or less do-able tasks that are identified as such. (We tried getting to this many times, and I strongly urged my erstwhile colleagues in this area for, uhm, years. Finally happened, and we got our to-dos but still not clearly identified according to level of difficulty. I can conceive of several here whose work would assist in the identification of tasks newbies could approach--and even post-newbies-and perhaps even in mentoring.) Also, what helps tremendously is what we are doing already: presenting a community that is open, friendly, and generally has a good attitude about what it is doing and where it is going. There are millions using OOo as their primary ODF implementation, and those mostly include those who have come to it via the national or sub-national government agency. I think it's about time that they are looking to AOO for the next step. And I can think of at least two, and probably more, national bodies so interested. Do these give us developers straight away? I don't know. The problem with OOo was, as [not] said ultimately political, not codical (comical?). Engaging these longtime users, as well as new ones, with the possibilities represented by this community, which is open and unencumbered--ought to be easier. My own approach is to focus on ODF and on the benefits offered not only by the AOO implementation but by its community. -louis
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
On 03/22/2012 08:06 PM, Ross Gardler wrote: I'm not sure if Jim meant this or not, but being started doesn't mean finding things to do. The first stage is figuring out how to set up a dev environment. Could this be sensibly added to (our linked from) the get involved page? Ah, sorry for the misunderstanding. Developers new to the project should be pointed at https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/ooo/trunk/main/README or something similar. Herbert
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
On 3/22/12 7:18 PM, Pedro Giffuni wrote: On 03/22/12 11:09, Herbert Duerr wrote: As a quick note, I'd *love* to dive in and start doing some coding on AOOo; it's just that I've no idea where in the heck to start... :) Additionally to what Pedro said I'd like to point to our Bugzilla at https://issues.apache.org/ooo/ which is a fountain of inspiration. E.g. http://s.apache.org/EdO shows all the ideas with more than five votes. The potential to use the same tool for tracking bugs, enhancement and feature ideas indicates the the name Bugzilla is too narrow and thus the old project to be called Issuezilla. Herbert Hmm... Jim is an expert in serf, I suppose ;), so the webdav issues in Bugzilla would be indeed be a good starting point for him ;-). excellent, that would be a perfect start to review the new UCP code and provide feedback or better improvements. This would be a good opportunity to understand the concept behind our Universal Content Broker (UCB) and the Universal Content Providers (UCP). The WebDAV UCP (including http) which is based on serf now and can be used as a start to create a new CMIS UCP. I volunteer to support Jim where I can and I am sure Oliver and Andre will do it as well. Having a native CMIS implementation would be better than one based on Chemistry. But that is a detail only. The are enough things to cover starting to define a usable Url schema (e.g. cmis://servername/whatever-entry/directory/documentname[?param=value...] ... The advantage of a CMIS UCP is obvious and it would allow us the interaction with many other software systems supporting this standard. Feel free to contact me Juergen I will add one of my personal favorites to that category: we should support CardDav addressbooks using the Mulberry vCard library, and webdav was a requirement for this: https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OOOUSERS/IP_Clearance_Address+Book cheers, Pedro.
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
Hi, On 23.03.2012 08:31, Jürgen Schmidt wrote: On 3/22/12 7:18 PM, Pedro Giffuni wrote: On 03/22/12 11:09, Herbert Duerr wrote: As a quick note, I'd *love* to dive in and start doing some coding on AOOo; it's just that I've no idea where in the heck to start... :) Additionally to what Pedro said I'd like to point to our Bugzilla at https://issues.apache.org/ooo/ which is a fountain of inspiration. E.g. http://s.apache.org/EdO shows all the ideas with more than five votes. The potential to use the same tool for tracking bugs, enhancement and feature ideas indicates the the name Bugzilla is too narrow and thus the old project to be called Issuezilla. Herbert Hmm... Jim is an expert in serf, I suppose ;), so the webdav issues in Bugzilla would be indeed be a good starting point for him ;-). excellent, that would be a perfect start to review the new UCP code and provide feedback or better improvements. This would be a good opportunity to understand the concept behind our Universal Content Broker (UCB) and the Universal Content Providers (UCP). The WebDAV UCP (including http) which is based on serf now and can be used as a start to create a new CMIS UCP. I volunteer to support Jim where I can and I am sure Oliver and Andre will do it as well. Having a native CMIS implementation would be better than one based on Chemistry. But that is a detail only. The are enough things to cover starting to define a usable Url schema (e.g. cmis://servername/whatever-entry/directory/documentname[?param=value...] ... The advantage of a CMIS UCP is obvious and it would allow us the interaction with many other software systems supporting this standard. Cool, an expert in serf. Yes please, have a review of our serf integration in /main/ucb/source/ucp/webdav/ All comments/remarks/patches/critics/... are welcome. Best regards, Oliver.
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
On 20.03.2012 11:09, Armin Le Grand wrote: Hi Rob, [..] Extendign after Reginas eMail: - refactoring - featues - bugfixing - tutoring The tradeoffs are hard, but splitting time in - refactoring - featues - bugfixing is the key, the ratio is hard to determine, maybe everyone has to find a balance for himself. [..] Sincerely, Armin -- ALG
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
As a quick note, I'd *love* to dive in and start doing some coding on AOOo; it's just that I've no idea where in the heck to start... :)
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
Hi Jim; On 03/22/12 10:03, Jim Jagielski wrote: As a quick note, I'd *love* to dive in and start doing some coding on AOOo; it's just that I've no idea where in the heck to start... :) It depends on your particular interests. The codebase is rather big and there's a lot to do. There are big tasks that have been around for a while, like replacing some Category-B software with better alternatives, and there are new features being planned. I am also sure that running Simian: http://www.harukizaemon.com/simian/index.html would suggest some easy hacks for starters. We just have to put all the ideas together in a single Wiki page. Pedro.
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
As a quick note, I'd *love* to dive in and start doing some coding on AOOo; it's just that I've no idea where in the heck to start... :) Additionally to what Pedro said I'd like to point to our Bugzilla at https://issues.apache.org/ooo/ which is a fountain of inspiration. E.g. http://s.apache.org/EdO shows all the ideas with more than five votes. The potential to use the same tool for tracking bugs, enhancement and feature ideas indicates the the name Bugzilla is too narrow and thus the old project to be called Issuezilla. Herbert
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
On 03/22/12 11:09, Herbert Duerr wrote: As a quick note, I'd *love* to dive in and start doing some coding on AOOo; it's just that I've no idea where in the heck to start... :) Additionally to what Pedro said I'd like to point to our Bugzilla at https://issues.apache.org/ooo/ which is a fountain of inspiration. E.g. http://s.apache.org/EdO shows all the ideas with more than five votes. The potential to use the same tool for tracking bugs, enhancement and feature ideas indicates the the name Bugzilla is too narrow and thus the old project to be called Issuezilla. Herbert Hmm... Jim is an expert in serf, I suppose ;), so the webdav issues in Bugzilla would be indeed be a good starting point for him ;-). I will add one of my personal favorites to that category: we should support CardDav addressbooks using the Mulberry vCard library, and webdav was a requirement for this: https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OOOUSERS/IP_Clearance_Address+Book cheers, Pedro.
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
I'm not sure if Jim meant this or not, but being started doesn't mean finding things to do. The first stage is figuring out how to set up a dev environment. Could this be sensibly added to (our linked from) the get involved page? Sent from my mobile device, please forgive errors and brevity. On Mar 22, 2012 5:09 PM, Herbert Duerr h...@apache.org wrote: As a quick note, I'd *love* to dive in and start doing some coding on AOOo; it's just that I've no idea where in the heck to start... :) Additionally to what Pedro said I'd like to point to our Bugzilla at https://issues.apache.org/ooo/ which is a fountain of inspiration. E.g. http://s.apache.org/EdO shows all the ideas with more than five votes. The potential to use the same tool for tracking bugs, enhancement and feature ideas indicates the the name Bugzilla is too narrow and thus the old project to be called Issuezilla. Herbert
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
Hi Regina, Thanks for these excellent insights. Best regards Simon Op 20-3-2012 13:29, Regina Henschel schreef: (...) It is impossible to understand the code without guides and without mentoring. Conclusion, wish or how you might call it: (1) Document parts of the code very detailed in all steps, including help and accessibility. For example: How to make a new dialog? How does an Excel import filter works? I could start only after Eike Rathke has documented the process of adding new functions to Calc in http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Calc/Implementation/Spreadsheet_Functions (2) Document an overview of AOO. For example: What parts are all touched, when a user drags a corner of a shape till the shape is changed? Or what parts are touched, when a writer document is opened. And the other way round, what is handled in vcl or cosv or all the other modules? (3) Document AOO specific things. For example what are these OSL_*, which are used, when and why. What special types exists, why do they exist, when should they be used? (4) Increase mentoring. Such mentor should identify a nice to have feature and offer to guide the volunteer. Armin has mentored the linecap feature that way and it has worked well. Although some essential parts are done by Armin, I did a lot by myself and got some new insides in the code. Getting a build is a critical part for newcomers, especially on Windows. (5) Work very hard to provide a buildable trunk on Friday. It is very frustrating when you plan to do some coding on weekend and the build fails. (6) Without the document about building OOo on Windows by Mathias Bauer and the succeeding Wiki page http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Building_OOo_with_Cygwin_on_Windows I was not able to build OOo. So keep this information up to date; it is essential for newcomers. Kind regards Regina -- Vriendelijke groet, Best regards, Simon Brouwer
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
Hi Rob, On 19.03.2012 13:41, Rob Weir wrote: There have been some side discussions on this topic. I'd like to collect these ideas into one thread. My observations: 1) The OpenOffice code base has a reputation of being complex, hard to understand, even haunted. It is difficult for new developers to get involved with it. Unfortunately true to a degree: There are new code parts which are attractive, most stuff based on UNO API and others, but there is also the old core code and application code. The UNO API was the start to modularize the office, and newer stuff often uses it. The quotient between this two classes of code is hard to guess, I personally think old code is still more. Most of the old code is in active use and not simply to be replaced, just think about more than a decade of fixes and extensions made there by developers also not knowing all of it (which is simply not possible) and thus leading to more and more entropy even with some good designed old interfaces. 2) We get regular offers of help from new volunteers for other project functions, such documentation, QA, website,etc., but we are not doing a great job getting them to be successful contributors in the project. Right, hurdles when talking about code are (unfortunately) high, lowering them would be the prerequisite to attract more and to get to a point where the project scales to more developers and doing changes in a single area will not risk the whole office functionality. 3) Nothing is free. Making the code easier to understand, or mentoring new contributors to the project, these things time and effort. Correct, code refactoring would be necessary in many old code areas. It is doable and necessary, I'm doing it for DrawingLayer for six jears now and still a long way to go. It's like a gordian knot and even to find places to cut parts out for replacement without shredding the whole office is not easy. But doing so is possible and leads to better and new functionality (see AntiAliasing, better precision, speed, etc...). It needs to be done in far more areas than DrawingLayer, though. And it unfortunately needs a huge amount of knowledge of the code. So there is a natural trade-off between short term progress on features and long term growing of the contributor base. With AOO 3.4 we have biases the effort toward forward progress on the release. Post AOO 3.4 we might want to adjust to a more balanced approach. Any ideas and the best ways how we can improve in this area after AOO 3.4 releases? The tradeoffs are hard, but splitting time in - refactoring - featues - bugfixing is the key, the ratio is hard to determine, maybe everyone has to find a balance for himself. Others have detected that problem, and by also not having an endless resource count and not too many people with the needed deep knowledge of that old code the decision was to at least lower the entry hurdles by doing the doable: translating comments and removing unused code. Both not leading to direct benefits for the user, but targeted on attracting developers. I personally would not put work in translating comments, but I do put a lot of work in dead code identification and removal. We need to go beyond that by refactoring, that is the key for slowly moving the big old codebase to deeper water, and I'll continue to do so for DrawingLayer. I hope to get back to aw080 (already available as branch under /branches/alg/aw080) where many deep changes to the DrawingLayer cores are already started, but not yet finished. -Rob Sincerely, Armin -- ALG
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
Hi Rob, I do not code in my daily job, but do it only as hobby. My personal observations might be true for other volunteer coders too. Rob Weir schrieb: There have been some side discussions on this topic. I'd like to collect these ideas into one thread. My observations: 1) The OpenOffice code base has a reputation of being complex, hard to understand, even haunted. It is difficult for new developers to get involved with it. 2) We get regular offers of help from new volunteers for other project functions, such documentation, QA, website,etc., but we are not doing a great job getting them to be successful contributors in the project. 3) Nothing is free. Making the code easier to understand, or mentoring new contributors to the project, these things time and effort. So there is a natural trade-off between short term progress on features and long term growing of the contributor base. With AOO 3.4 we have biases the effort toward forward progress on the release. Post AOO 3.4 we might want to adjust to a more balanced approach. Any ideas and the best ways how we can improve in this area after AOO 3.4 releases? It is impossible to understand the code without guides and without mentoring. Conclusion, wish or how you might call it: (1) Document parts of the code very detailed in all steps, including help and accessibility. For example: How to make a new dialog? How does an Excel import filter works? I could start only after Eike Rathke has documented the process of adding new functions to Calc in http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Calc/Implementation/Spreadsheet_Functions (2) Document an overview of AOO. For example: What parts are all touched, when a user drags a corner of a shape till the shape is changed? Or what parts are touched, when a writer document is opened. And the other way round, what is handled in vcl or cosv or all the other modules? (3) Document AOO specific things. For example what are these OSL_*, which are used, when and why. What special types exists, why do they exist, when should they be used? (4) Increase mentoring. Such mentor should identify a nice to have feature and offer to guide the volunteer. Armin has mentored the linecap feature that way and it has worked well. Although some essential parts are done by Armin, I did a lot by myself and got some new insides in the code. Getting a build is a critical part for newcomers, especially on Windows. (5) Work very hard to provide a buildable trunk on Friday. It is very frustrating when you plan to do some coding on weekend and the build fails. (6) Without the document about building OOo on Windows by Mathias Bauer and the succeeding Wiki page http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Building_OOo_with_Cygwin_on_Windows I was not able to build OOo. So keep this information up to date; it is essential for newcomers. Kind regards Regina
After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
There have been some side discussions on this topic. I'd like to collect these ideas into one thread. My observations: 1) The OpenOffice code base has a reputation of being complex, hard to understand, even haunted. It is difficult for new developers to get involved with it. 2) We get regular offers of help from new volunteers for other project functions, such documentation, QA, website,etc., but we are not doing a great job getting them to be successful contributors in the project. 3) Nothing is free. Making the code easier to understand, or mentoring new contributors to the project, these things time and effort. So there is a natural trade-off between short term progress on features and long term growing of the contributor base. With AOO 3.4 we have biases the effort toward forward progress on the release. Post AOO 3.4 we might want to adjust to a more balanced approach. Any ideas and the best ways how we can improve in this area after AOO 3.4 releases? -Rob
Re: After AOO 3.4, attracting new contributors
Rob, I agree, making this project open and accessible for all who want to contribute is an important consideration. With regards to the short term priorities and delivering AOO 3.4 to maintain traction, I completely agree. With regards to a post AOO 3.4 approach, I would advocate a balanced approach that seeks a harmonious blend between the product direction and sustainability, technical feasibility and end user desirability. I feel the best way to realize such balance in the final product, is to mirror a similar balance in our approach and process. Perhaps we could seek to organize in specific sub-communities that seek to not only complete tasks, but communities, where the our volunteers learn about a discipline (product management, user experience design, development, testing, documentation, etc.) learn how to manage the effort, learn how integrate their contribution, learn how to drive change and have an impact. As I am new to this effort, my initial thoughts may be obvious to the more seasoned contributor. For my part, I can say that I am very interested in contributing to our user experience and product design approach. I will observe my new UX contributor experience and capture any thoughts that might help contribute to attracting and retaining other design-oriented volunteers moving forward. I'm looking forward to continuing this conversation. Best regards, Kevin On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 8:41 PM, Rob Weir robw...@apache.org wrote: There have been some side discussions on this topic. I'd like to collect these ideas into one thread. My observations: 1) The OpenOffice code base has a reputation of being complex, hard to understand, even haunted. It is difficult for new developers to get involved with it. 2) We get regular offers of help from new volunteers for other project functions, such documentation, QA, website,etc., but we are not doing a great job getting them to be successful contributors in the project. 3) Nothing is free. Making the code easier to understand, or mentoring new contributors to the project, these things time and effort. So there is a natural trade-off between short term progress on features and long term growing of the contributor base. With AOO 3.4 we have biases the effort toward forward progress on the release. Post AOO 3.4 we might want to adjust to a more balanced approach. Any ideas and the best ways how we can improve in this area after AOO 3.4 releases? -Rob
