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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?

#51

Post by stsp »

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…

> I would have worked on the same project in the summer even if I was not getting paid

Yes, this is exactly what GSoC can be good for. Ideally, it allows people like you to spend time doing what they love doing instead of working for crappy startups.

The good (and fun!) experiences I had as a mentor all shared this element.

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

#53

Post by protomyth »

SadWebDeveloper wrote: post #52

IMHO GSoC should be something like "hacktoberfest" where contributors for the projects get paid for squashing bugs not for making "new features" nobody needs.

That would be an interesting project. Have projects submit a list of bugs they would like some help with and then pay the selected students for each bug fixed (maybe with a base stipend). Probably teach quite a bit about the daily grind of software development.

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

#54

Post by sverige »

mhils wrote: post #8

I'm a GSoC org admin for a few years now. To be honest, the bureaucracy that comes with GSoC is really negligible from my point of view. The application form is fairly short, the evaluations during the summer are literally done in five minutes... there really isn't that much overhead. The part that takes a lot of time for us is mentoring students. You'll very likely invest more time into the student than it would tak…

"it was too much effort on the part of the foundation organizers mentors to deal with the bureaucracy involved, and we didn't really see enough return in terms of new developers to the project"

I don't think Bob's statement is a criticism of the bureaucracy itself, but rather that the amount of time spent on the GSoC project as a whole is better spent doing other things that need doing on the OpenBSD project. He explicitly says so shortly after the above quote.

I'm not sure why this is even an issue to be discussed. Are people here trying to figure out what GSoC could do better so that projects like OpenBSD might find it worthwhile to participate? Or is the purpose to criticize OpenBSD, or Bob Beck individually, or both, for daring to say publicly that they have better ways to spend their time and effort than participating in GSoC? Clarity on those questions would be helpful in determining whether it's worth talking about.

Incidentally, the thought I had when I saw this on the list is that if the person who originally posted the question on misc@ really wants to contribute to OpenBSD, he can begin the way other contributors begin without GSoC: port a favorite app that's not already available to OpenBSD, test patches that the devs post and provide meaningful feedback, propose a patch that provides a solution to some problem you have run into while using OpenBSD, etc.

I think OpenBSD offers a great environment for real mentoring while maintaining their high standards for correctness and security. Sure, a student doesn't get paid any stipend to do it, but what they can learn in the process of contributing something that has long-lasting value to a project with OpenBSD's standards will surely pay off in career development in other ways.

If OTOH they need money to pay the rent over the summer or to burnish their resume for their application to Google, apparently they'll be better off contributing to another project that has the resources to participate in GSoC.

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

#55

Post by Sylos »

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.

> 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 don't think so. OpenBSD is known for having really high code quality and excellent documentation. So, it probably just takes new contributors that long, because they need to reach that same level, before they can make meaningful contributions.

Sure, yes, that does slow the project down. It'd evolve quicker, if they'd accept almost any code and then fix it up over time. But that doesn't mean that the project is unhealthy or that those 15 weeks should be shortened somehow. It just means that the project is lead differently and has different goals than most other software projects. It's from perfectionists for perfectionists, and as such it does have its niche.

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

#56

Post by pwnna »

protomyth wrote: post #53
SadWebDeveloper wrote: post #52

IMHO GSoC should be something like "hacktoberfest" where contributors for the projects get paid for squashing bugs not for making "new features" nobody needs.

That would be an interesting project. Have projects submit a list of bugs they would like some help with and then pay the selected students for each bug fixed (maybe with a base stipend). Probably teach quite a bit about the daily grind of software development.

Google CodeIn is what you're looking for, although this is for pre-university students:

https://developers.google.com/open-source/gci/

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

#57

Post by protomyth »

pwnna wrote: post #56
protomyth wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be an interesting project. Have projects submit a list of bugs they would like some help with and then pay the selected students for each bug fixed (maybe with a base stipend). Probably teach quite a bit about the daily grind of software development.

Google CodeIn is what you're looking for, although this is for pre-university students: https://developers.google.com/open-source/gci/

Nice project, but a version with college students would probably work better.

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

#58

Post by jlarocco »

VLM wrote: post #41

Anyone interested in brainstorming how to make GSOC work, as it apparently doesn't? The first thing that comes to mind is pay a stipend to the project and the student. So if the student gets $6K and 99.99% of them skip town at the end of summer no further contact, the project gets nothing but unmaintained code and wasted effort. However... what if the project ALSO got $6K of cold hard cash? Or credit for google servi…

This will be an unpopular opinion, but paying students to work on OSS seems entirely backwards, and sends a confusing message about open source. It makes no sense for an experienced volunteer, contributing for free, to mentor a student being paid to contribute.

I think a better system would be some kind of endorsement program, where Google donates money to projects and in return the projects agree to mentor one or more student contributors. At the end of the summer if everything works out, Google can endorse the student for the work they've done. The project gets something done, the extra cost of bureaucracy is covered by Google, and the student gets real world experience verified and endorsed by Google.

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

#59

Post by 0x6c6f6c »

protomyth wrote: post #57
pwnna wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google CodeIn is what you're looking for, although this is for pre-university students: https://developers.google.com/open-source/gci/

Nice project, but a version with college students would probably work better.

At that point it seems like a glorified version of a bug bounty list[1].

The convenience of GSoC is that the students get to intern with pay on open source projects. If squashing bugs is the only goal, then going through their bug bounty lists and getting paid for it really is just picking a company on that list and doing it yourself. However, with a Google program behind it and the company's agreement, I'm sure the amount paid will be higher and/or more consistent.

Including my old link [2] for security/bug vulnerability discovery as well, since you get paid for these by the companies based on bug fixes or discoveries.

[1](https://www.bountysource.com/bounties/search)

[2](https://bugcrowd.com/list-of-bug-bounty-programs)

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

#60

Post by gribbly »

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 that's a bit pessimistic, bottom line is that during the summer, a lot of students take on jobs to improve their finances (at least back in my days), back when I was a student I would have loved being able to work on projects I love/interested in and getting paid for it, rather than, as in my case, pretty much waste my summer time working in computer/video game retail to earn some bucks.

So yes, money is an incentive, but you could probably make that money in a regular summer job, the big boon as I see it is to work on something you find interesting during the summer, which in turn increases the chance that you will want to continue working on it once GSOC is over.

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