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Why Isn’t OpenBSD in Google Summer of Code 2017?

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Re: Why Isn’t OpenBSD in Google Summer of Code 2017?

#31

Post by Beltiras »

Gracana wrote: post #29
Beltiras wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a community to thrive it must respect their elders and teach their young. How do you survive in the face of inevitable death if you won't take in more young? Someone has to think past 2038.

Maybe so, but it seems like GSoC is not the path to this goal.

Or they might have too short a horizon on measuring the goal. Someone might start contributing later. It's a numbers game. The stable contributor might be something of a unicorn but you have to try to find one.

Re: Why Isn’t OpenBSD in Google Summer of Code 2017?

#32

Post by reachtarunhere »

stsp wrote: post #18
d33 wrote: post #9

I guess that's a sign of a really unhealthy community if they have no process of getting hackers into their system so that they can get productive within 15 weeks. I really don't buy the "too much bureaucracy" argument. Google is really transparent in terms of GSoC and I would say they're really well managed. I read that as a sign of OpenBSD's weakness, not Google's.

For this particular open source project GSoC brings no advantage to the table (yes, it may be great for other projects). OpenBSD does not need GSoC to attract contributors. The project gets a good amount of new contributors on a regular basis, and they get onboarded quickly without causing much distraction, if any. The mentor/student relationship is atypical for open source projects which are used to operating as a c…

As a former student I would like to emphasize that it is not about the money. I would have worked on the same project in the summer even if I was not getting paid. There can be various reasons why students won't return or become permanent contributors. For example in my case being a double major in very distant disciplines I do not have the time to contribute when school is on. Then summer I will be working on my thesis at another university which again would leave me little time to make any significant contributions. I am still trying my best to help new people by reviewing requests and making small changes that don't take too much of my time. I plan (hopefully) to get back to contributing on weekends once I am done with school.

For a few friends I have found internships being another reason why they did not go back to their orgs. 5k$ seems like a big amount but it really isn't (even in India!)

Finally, one last reason I can think of is terrible mentors. I have been really lucky to have amazing mentors but I have heard a few horror stories from others.

Re: Why Isn’t OpenBSD in Google Summer of Code 2017?

#33

Post by mrweasel »

Beltiras wrote: post #19

Even if the current contributions are slim, wouldn't the long term benefit of perhaps gaining a permanent contributor outweigh the current effort to educate more people?

I think it depends on how slim, the mentors have to take out time from their own projects, so you'd have to detract that from the gain. You'd also have to factor in maintenance on new code produced by GSoC students that don't stick around.

Honestly I don't get why people are upset, the explanation from Bob seems completely reasonable. If the OpenBSD developers don't believe that they see sufficient result from their work, then nobody is forcing them to participate.

Re: Why Isn’t OpenBSD in Google Summer of Code 2017?

#34

Post by Beltiras »

mrweasel wrote: post #33
Beltiras wrote: post #19

Even if the current contributions are slim, wouldn't the long term benefit of perhaps gaining a permanent contributor outweigh the current effort to educate more people?

I think it depends on how slim, the mentors have to take out time from their own projects, so you'd have to detract that from the gain. You'd also have to factor in maintenance on new code produced by GSoC students that don't stick around. Honestly I don't get why people are upset, the explanation from Bob seems completely reasonable. If the OpenBSD developers don't believe that they see sufficient result from their…

It sounds sad and short sighted to me. Maybe they are turning away volunteers because interest is so high. That would be a rare Open Source project.

Re: Why Isn’t OpenBSD in Google Summer of Code 2017?

#35

Post by busterarm »

stsp wrote: post #18
d33 wrote: post #9

I guess that's a sign of a really unhealthy community if they have no process of getting hackers into their system so that they can get productive within 15 weeks. I really don't buy the "too much bureaucracy" argument. Google is really transparent in terms of GSoC and I would say they're really well managed. I read that as a sign of OpenBSD's weakness, not Google's.

For this particular open source project GSoC brings no advantage to the table (yes, it may be great for other projects). OpenBSD does not need GSoC to attract contributors. The project gets a good amount of new contributors on a regular basis, and they get onboarded quickly without causing much distraction, if any. The mentor/student relationship is atypical for open source projects which are used to operating as a c…

For a working dev who occasionally uses OpenBSD, is passionate about the project & its goals and wants to contribute, how would you suggest I start?

I tried keeping up with the mailing lists for a while, but I found it difficult.

Re: Why Isn’t OpenBSD in Google Summer of Code 2017?

#36

Post by i80and »

Gracana wrote: post #30
samueloph wrote: post #11

On the other hand, i was discussing a gsoc project on Debian since last year (was very excited about it), and guess what, Debian was not accepted as a gsoc organization for this year, nice... edit-> i'm a student and gsoc's stipend would help me a lot.

I don't know what the timeline for GSoC is so maybe it's too late, but Haiku (BeOS-inspired/compatible open source OS ) was accepted again this year and might be of interest to you.

+1 to working with Haiku. I submitted some patches, and they're a friendly and welcoming developer community.

Re: Why Isn’t OpenBSD in Google Summer of Code 2017?

#37

Post by ak217 »

stsp wrote: post #18
d33 wrote: post #9

I guess that's a sign of a really unhealthy community if they have no process of getting hackers into their system so that they can get productive within 15 weeks. I really don't buy the "too much bureaucracy" argument. Google is really transparent in terms of GSoC and I would say they're really well managed. I read that as a sign of OpenBSD's weakness, not Google's.

For this particular open source project GSoC brings no advantage to the table (yes, it may be great for other projects). OpenBSD does not need GSoC to attract contributors. The project gets a good amount of new contributors on a regular basis, and they get onboarded quickly without causing much distraction, if any. The mentor/student relationship is atypical for open source projects which are used to operating as a c…

As a former GSoC mentor, I think it's important to have an onboarding pipeline in your project, and disagree with the notion that the mentor/student relationship is somehow atypical - such relationships pop up all the time in the natural course of projects, and are key to the health of most of them. It's up to you to select the students who you think will stick around. Given that, taking the time to onboard junior people is a really rewarding investment in the project.

(My student ended up going on to work for Red Hat. I don't presume I had a lot to do with it, but I think the culture did.)

Re: Why Isn’t OpenBSD in Google Summer of Code 2017?

#38

Post by tcrews »

stsp wrote: post #18
d33 wrote: post #9

I guess that's a sign of a really unhealthy community if they have no process of getting hackers into their system so that they can get productive within 15 weeks. I really don't buy the "too much bureaucracy" argument. Google is really transparent in terms of GSoC and I would say they're really well managed. I read that as a sign of OpenBSD's weakness, not Google's.

For this particular open source project GSoC brings no advantage to the table (yes, it may be great for other projects). OpenBSD does not need GSoC to attract contributors. The project gets a good amount of new contributors on a regular basis, and they get onboarded quickly without causing much distraction, if any. The mentor/student relationship is atypical for open source projects which are used to operating as a c…

In my experience money is a key incentive for students in GSoC and that makes it hard to keep them as volunteers

I think this nails it.

Re: Why Isn’t OpenBSD in Google Summer of Code 2017?

#39

Post by tcrews »

reachtarunhere wrote: post #32
stsp wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For this particular open source project GSoC brings no advantage to the table (yes, it may be great for other projects). OpenBSD does not need GSoC to attract contributors. The project gets a good amount of new contributors on a regular basis, and they get onboarded quickly without causing much distraction, if any. The mentor/student relationship is atypical for open source projects which are used to operating as a c…

As a former student I would like to emphasize that it is not about the money. I would have worked on the same project in the summer even if I was not getting paid. There can be various reasons why students won't return or become permanent contributors. For example in my case being a double major in very distant disciplines I do not have the time to contribute when school is on. Then summer I will be working on my the…

Having been on the receiving side of GSoC students, I'd say 90% of them come from poor countries and are looking for the money. I've seen some that weren't students at all and seemed to be working for "consulting" companies already.

Re: Why Isn’t OpenBSD in Google Summer of Code 2017?

#40

Post by Gracana »

busterarm wrote: post #35
stsp wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For this particular open source project GSoC brings no advantage to the table (yes, it may be great for other projects). OpenBSD does not need GSoC to attract contributors. The project gets a good amount of new contributors on a regular basis, and they get onboarded quickly without causing much distraction, if any. The mentor/student relationship is atypical for open source projects which are used to operating as a c…

For a working dev who occasionally uses OpenBSD, is passionate about the project & its goals and wants to contribute, how would you suggest I start? I tried keeping up with the mailing lists for a while, but I found it difficult.

Read the porting handbook and work on updating ports of software you're interested in. That's an easy way to get your hands dirty quickly. You can learn a lot about how OpenBSD works and you can work with upstream projects to make their software port more easily to OpenBSD.
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