Thanks for clarifying David. The word scholarship should not be used because we aren't buying someone's education, we are trying to get work done on a contract basis.
Contacting other groups and getting more involvement from women is great. You can start by posting it on the index page of wesnoth.org where, currently excluded, potential contributers will see it. Lets shout it out to both open source and proprietary groups! Lets seek out contributers who may have never considered open source before. Instead of offering money in an exclusive way to only a small group (of mostly men) that we already know as good open source developers, lets offer this chance to as many people as we can in an inclusive way. By only approaching programmers who we know have a solid open source credentials and limiting information to only those willing to break through the wall, we will exclude women: http://www.codeanthem.com/blog/2010/03/should-you-judge-a-developer-by-their-open-source-contributions/ A Solution: Lets create clearly defined goals and transparent testable milestones that can be agreed to when someone is hired. If you don't know what you need, then a contractor won't know how to meet your expectations. One way to be inclusive is to expand the requirements. It's not about lowering our standards, it's about admitting that we need more than just c programmers. We don't just want female developers, we want female contributors. Another area which Wesnoth could benefit from on a contract basis is quality assurance and testing. Lastly, Developers write great code, but designers make great interfaces. We could also hire a designer for an improved lobby. Questions to be answered: Ask yourself what the real advantage to limiting the applicants is. Will this really improve the outcome? Will we consider people who cannot afford to work full time, or can we be accepting of those who don't have enough money to give up their second job? If we have no one to oversee these contractors, rather than expecting them to do it on their own, can someone be paid for their time spent bringing the contractors up to speed? ~Greg On 05/05/2010 10:34 PM, David White wrote: > There are several things I want to mention about this to clarify how I > think any "scholarship" should be run. > > I put "scholarship" in quotes because I think it's a little misleading. > What we'd essentially -like- to do in Wesnoth is actually pay our most > valuable developers to work on Wesnoth full time. Unfortunately, we > don't have enough funding to pay our best developers competitive > salaries, but we'd like to do something that is part way there. > > What we'd like to do is identify good developers for whom a monetary > grant would allow them to focus all their time and energy on Wesnoth for > a time period. These developers are not "students", and their primary > function isn't "learning". They don't require mentors or mentoring. > Their primary function is to contribute to Wesnoth, and the grant helps > them to do that. > > Since we want people who can focus on Wesnoth full time based on a > grant, it is likely that the developers most attracted to it will happen > to be students enrolled at an educational institution, but these grants > are in no way exclusive to people who happen to be students. Anyone who > can commit to full time development of Wesnoth for a period based on a > grant would be eligible. > > Further, I don't want to "advertise" this widely. I would like to fairly > discreetly approach some developers who we think are doing a good job > and ask them if this programme would be something they are interested. > > I don't think there is a need for "goals" to be set. If someone is doing > a good job with Wesnoth development voluntarily, I think we can trust > them enough to simply give them a grant and see what great things they > can produce when focusing on Wesnoth full time. > > I want this to be a very light weight program that allows us to inject > extra effort and focus on Wesnoth. > > One thing Noy is interested in doing and which I support is approaching > some organizations focused on women in Open Source software, and > expressing an interest in women both considering Wesnoth as a project to > join, and considering the possibility of a grant. > > I hope this clears up any confusion around this entire thing. > > David > > Noy wrote: > >> Hello all. >> >> With GSOC on its way its time to discuss our other scholarship >> efforts. Last year we had our Wesnoth Summer of Art Scholarship, which >> was judged as being very successful. Our two candidates, Kitty and >> TheSpaceInvader, produced a number of great art pieces which >> benefitted the game. I think the administrators also got a better >> handle of what works and what doesn't, which will assist us in future >> scholarships. >> >> We're somewhat in a different position this year. First off we're now >> an incorporated not for profit organization, which aids in the >> implementation of this project by providing an institutional backbone. >> Second, we have a significant financial windfall to provide >> scholarships. This is largely due to profit sharing with Kyle Poole's >> Iphone/Ipad efforts. >> >> There are a few things we need to discuss. Financially we're probably >> able to support between four to six 5000 dollar scholarships, >> depending on a few variables like future sales and the location of the >> candidates (Non-US candidates cost more due to witholding tax.) The >> number of scholarships isn't so much an issue, but how we allocate >> them can be. In discussions with Dave and some of the other developers >> we'd like to broaden the range of the scholarships. As with last year >> we should have a significant number of art scholarships. In addition, >> Dave has also suggested we offer a WML specific scholarship to promote >> new UMC game content. I think this is an excellent idea, which should >> add more game content and exploit some of the technical improvements >> that have been made on the programming side. >> >> Now I'd like to consider a third type of scholarship, which I know >> maybe slightly controversial but I think could be quite beneficial for >> the program. I'd like one of the scholarships to be offered to female >> developers. I believe one of the most attractive aspects of wesnoth's >> development community is its inclusiveness. The program is translated >> to a number of languages and we offer development opportunities to a >> wide range of skills sets and different levels. That was partly the >> intent behind the art scholarship last year; we attempted to draw in >> greater contributions from individuals not typically involved in open >> source development (artists.) A examination of open source community >> shows that women are highly underrepresented in the field, which is >> unfortunate. I believe that we're well placed to work on this area. We >> already have some excellent contributions from women developers, such >> as kitty, and I'd like to build on that. >> >> I think its also important to note that I think we should retain >> strong standards on quality and organization for this scholarship. I >> don't think we should lax our standards, but instead offer a strong >> incentive towards women developers to come and contribute to our >> game. As Wesnoth is already a fairly inclusive and positive >> environment and this would be an easy way to show that to the world. >> I think its also important that we state that we're looking for >> someone who would be interested in long term participation with the >> program, not something that will end after they are paid. This program >> would also benefit the open source community in general by promoting >> women developers in general. >> >> Some nuts and bolts issues. To attract candidates I propose >> approaching some of the women programming organizations and blogs and >> informing them of what we're trying to achieve. I'm sure most would be >> willing to post about it. There is one issue with my proposal which >> needs a bit of work; we're bereft of mentors due to GSOC. I'm hoping >> that someone who isn't part of GSOC might be able to help. >> Alternatively we might make this less of a mentorship scholarship >> (like GSOC) and simply a straight scholarship with minimal >> supervision. I have a suspicion that this will attract quite a bit of >> attention and we'll get a good slew of high quality candidates. The >> Mentorship group will judge these candidates and make a decision. >> Obviously we'd encourage these individuals to participate on IRC and >> I'm sure our community will help them where possible. I know this >> maybe a controversial subject but I think if we do this right it will >> be a major benefit for our program. >> >> So there you have it. Obviously comments are welcome. >> >> Noy >> >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wesnoth-dev mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/wesnoth-dev >> >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > Wesnoth-dev mailing list > [email protected] > https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/wesnoth-dev > > _______________________________________________ Wesnoth-dev mailing list [email protected] https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/wesnoth-dev
