[Soc-coordination] mentoring programs in Debian

[Wolodja Wentland]

On Sat, Mar 16, 2013 at 15:07 +0100, Ana Guerrero wrote:
> [Dropped -vote]
> 
> On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 08:48:33PM +0000, Wolodja Wentland wrote:
> >
> [...]
> > Would you mind elaborating on this? The background to this is that I am
> > currently considering mentoring the "Leiningen & Clojure packaging" project
> > [0] and your comments make me think twice about commiting to this. I thought
> > that the proposal has merit and would allow an interested student to gather
> > valuable insights into Debian and its packaging infrastructure or tooling.
> > 
> > [0] http://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2013/Projects#Leiningen_.26_Clojure_packaging
> 
> I chose not to be involved this year in GSoC so I can not tell you if this
> year "packaging proposals" are welcome or not. You need to talk with this
> year's admins.
> 
> What I can give you are my personal thoughts about why I think this kind
> of projects are usually not the best idea to be done inside the GSoC from 
> a mentor POV, but rather in a more traditional Debian mentorship approach
> in learning how to package and maintain software in Debian.

[…]

Thank you so much for taking the time to write this. I agree with you most
feervently and also never intended the project to be about packaging only, but
rather about developing the tools that are necessary to do that. The problem
is simply that /some/ packaging might have to be done before that, but I see
that work primarily on my (and other team member's) shoulders.

You make a valid point about the viability of tutoring someone who is unlikely
to stay involved and the observation that mentoring someone might take more
time than actually doing that task yourself. This is exactly why I do not want
to commit to a project that will result in this, is not seen as advantageous
or interesting within the Debian community or simply one that is not a good
fit for GSoC. As of now I still think that writing a new set of dh_* tools for
Clojure packaging is an interesting task that fits this, but I simply cannot
rule out that some packaging work will be part of this endeavour.

In the end it really depends on the student and her or his experience and
interest. Surely my hope would be to find someone who always wanted to get
involved in Debian (and Clojure) and has an interest in continuing that
relation, but you are right in pointing out that this should not be assumed.

Have a wonderful day!
-- 
Wolodja <debian at babilen5.org>

4096R/CAF14EFC
081C B7CD FF04 2BA9 94EA  36B2 8B7F 7D30 CAF1 4EFC
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 836 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
URL: <http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/soc-coordination/attachments/20130316/ca2d0acb/attachment.pgp>