Google Summer of Code Application 2009 - Revision history

Wiki-Wolf: /* What criteria do you use to select the members of your group? Please be as specific as possible. (required) */

2009-03-13T14:32:08Z

What criteria do you use to select the members of your group? Please be as specific as possible. (required)

Wiki-HamishBowman: /* Please select your backup group administrator. */ trivial whitespace

2009-03-13T09:35:25Z

Please select your backup group administrator.: trivial whitespace

Wiki-HamishBowman: /* What steps will you take to encourage contributors to interact .. */ spelling

2009-03-13T09:34:50Z

What steps will you take to encourage contributors to interact ..: spelling

Wiki-HamishBowman: /* What is your plan for dealing with disappearing members? (required) */ spelling

2009-03-13T09:34:08Z

What is your plan for dealing with disappearing members? (required): spelling

Wiki-HamishBowman: /* Description (required) */ minor grammar

2009-03-13T09:32:26Z

Description (required): minor grammar

Wiki-HamishBowman: /* What steps will you take to encourage contributors to interact with your community before, during, and after the program? (required) */

2009-03-13T09:29:26Z

What steps will you take to encourage contributors to interact with your community before, during, and after the program? (required)

Wiki-Wolf: /* Please select your backup group administrator. */

2009-03-13T09:26:06Z

Please select your backup group administrator.

Wiki-HamishBowman: /* What is your plan for dealing with disappearing members? (required) */

2009-03-13T09:23:40Z

What is your plan for dealing with disappearing members? (required)

Wiki-HamishBowman: /* What is your plan for dealing with disappearing contributors? (required) */

2009-03-13T09:18:02Z

What is your plan for dealing with disappearing contributors? (required)

Wiki-Wolf: /* What is the main development mailing list for your group? (required) */

2009-03-13T09:17:36Z

What is the main development mailing list for your group? (required)

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 ==What criteria do you use to select the members of your group? Please be as specific as possible. (required)==
-Mentors are selected by project steering committees and development teams based on their reputation as skilled developers, domain experience, previously demonstrated ability to support new project developers, and stated willingness to devote time to the mentoring process. We also try very hard to match up the student working on a specific module or tool with a developer with the best expertise in the relevant area. We have in the past not voted up an otherwise good student project if there was no mentor capable of overseeing the project from a technical standpoint. Fortunately we have had a strong response from the developer pool so this has not been a major problem.
+The project administrator is appointed by the OSGeo board at the beginning of the year. The project administrator asks for one or two people he trusts to be the backup administrators. Mentors are selected by project steering committees and development teams based on their reputation as skilled developers, domain experience, previously demonstrated ability to support new project developers, and stated willingness to devote time to the mentoring process. We also try very hard to match up the student working on a specific module or tool with a developer with the best expertise in the relevant area. We have in the past not voted up an otherwise good student project if there was no mentor capable of overseeing the project from a technical standpoint. Fortunately we have had a strong response from the developer pool so this has not been a major problem.
 ==Has your group participated previously? If so, please summarize your involvement and any past successes and failures.==

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 Backup administrators:
 * Hamish Bowman (melange: hamish.bowman)
-* Landon Blake (melange: sunburned_surveyor )
+* Landon Blake (melange: sunburned_surveyor)
 [[Category: Google Summer of Code]]

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 The steps taken depend on the individual projects. As an example, last year we required weekly reports and encouraged the students to interact with us on the project mailing lists and IRC channels. We also encourage the developers and users who are not mentors to provide additional advice and feedback to the participating student and help with testing the students contributions during and after the program. In general other developers have not been shy about sharing their opinions, guidance, and advice on the member project development lists.
-Furthermore the mentors are encouraged to actively involve the students in the community by having the student interact with the mentor through the community (public) channels rather then one-on-one. This also assists with student integration into the project and alleviates the disapearing-mentor problem.
+Furthermore the mentors are encouraged to actively involve the students in the community by having the student interact with the mentor through the community (public) channels rather then one-on-one. This also assists with student integration into the project and alleviates the disappearing-mentor problem.
 ==What will you do to ensure that your accepted contributors stick with the project after the program concludes? (required)==

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 Project steering committees will appoint replacement mentors if existing mentors become unavailable or unresponsive during the project period. Where possible, we also plan to have backup mentors for projects so the backup mentor can fill in for, or replace the mentor in case of changing circumstances.
-Among all the OSGeo mailing lists there are 14,000 subscribers, indicating a good pool of people to draw from if required. Due to relatively high member project code and personel cross-over, in a pinch a mentor from another OSGeo project could usefully help out.
+Among all the OSGeo mailing lists there are 14,000 subscribers, indicating a good pool of people to draw from if required. Due to relatively high member project code and personnel cross-over, in a pinch a mentor from another OSGeo project could usefully help out.
 ==What steps will you take to encourage contributors to interact with your community before, during, and after the program? (required)==

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 ==Description (required)==
-OSGeo is an incorporated not-for-profit organization serving as an umbrella organization for the Open Source Geospatial community in general, and 16 projects in particular:
+OSGeo is an incorporated not-for-profit organization serving as an umbrella organization for the Open Source Geospatial community in general and 16 projects in particular:
 Web Mapping: '''deegree''', '''Mapbender''', '''MapBuilder''', '''MapGuide Open Source''', '''MapServer''', '''OpenLayers'''

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 ==What is your plan for dealing with disappearing members? (required)==
 Project steering committees will appoint replacement mentors if existing mentors become unavailable or unresponsive during the project period. Where possible we also plan to have backup mentors for projects so the backup mentor can fill in for, or replace the mentor in case of changing circumstances.
 ==What steps will you take to encourage contributors to interact with your community before, during, and after the program? (required)==

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 In order to minimize the chance of disappearing students we will ensure that the OSGeo administrative contact and the mentors have full contact information (email, home phone, etc) so that we can keep in touch with them at all times. We also stress to our students that this is a Job, as opposed to a school project.
-In addition, we will make our reporting requirements clear up front.  Letting the students know that we will require weekly progress reports, participation on public IRC channels and mailing lists will all help ensure ongoing commitment to the work.
+In addition, we will make our reporting requirements clear up front.  Letting the students know that we will require a weekly progress report to be posted to OSGeo's SoC mailing list (cc the member project's development mailing list), participation in public IRC channels and project mailing lists will all help ensure ongoing commitment to the work. Mentors are required to make sure that happens and that the lines of communication are kept open from beginning to end.
 Other possibilities include:
 # Having potential students work with their potential mentor to prepare a brief plan for the implementation of their project.
-# Setting milestones that need to be reached by the student. These milestones would be defined before the student's work begins. A student would subsequently write a brief e-mail informing the appropriate OSGeo or project-specific mailing list when they have reached a milestone, giving a brief description of the work completed to that date.
+# Setting milestones that need to be reached by the student. These milestones would be defined before the student's work begins. A student would subsequently write a brief e-mail informing the OSGeo SoC mailing list (cc project-specific mailing list) when they have reached each milestone, giving a brief description of the work completed to that date. This is in addition to the weekly progress reports which are intended to be more casual and actively soliciting feedback.
-# Selecting students that have shown interest previously in the geospatial field.
+# Selecting students that have shown previous interest in the geospatial field and free software. A student who already has a (reviewable) FOSS track record has a much higher chance of success.
 ==What is your plan for dealing with disappearing members? (required)==

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 ==What is the main development mailing list for your group? (required)==
+http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists
 ==What is the application template you would like contributors to your organization to use. (required)==