Subject: Re: Git in Outreachy Dec-Mar?

From: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2018 15:12:37 +0200

On Tue, Aug 28 2018, Jeff King wrote:

> The Outreachy application period is set to begin on September 10th for
> interns participating in the December-March program. Do we want to
> participate?
>
> Details on the program are here:
>
>   https://www.outreachy.org/communities/cfp/
>
> If we want to, then we need:
>
>   1. Volunteers to mentor. This is similar in scope to being a GSoC
>      mentor.
>
>   2. To get our landing page and list of projects in order (and also
>      micro-projects for applicants). This can probably build on the
>      previous round at:
>
>        https://git.github.io/Outreachy-15/
>
>      and on the project/microprojects lists for GSoC (which will need
>      some updating and culling).
>
>   3. To figure out funding (unlike GSoC, the intern stipend comes from
>      the projects). I can look into getting outside funds (which is what
>      we did last year). Worst case, we do have enough project money to
>      cover an intern. Last year[1] opinions were that this was a
>      reasonable use of project money, but of course new opinions are
>      welcome.
>
> If the answer is "yes, we should participate", it will hopefully be
> accompanied with "yes, I will mentor", and "yes, and I will start
> getting the land#ing page ready." :)

I just have a "yes" to the first one of those. Which tells you how much
skin I have in the game (and how much you should(n't) listen to me) :)

Just a question: It seems to me that #1 and #2 is not tied up to the
Outreachy process. I agree that finding a qualified intern to work on
Git would be a good use of project funds.

What's not clear to me is if/how tied up this needs to be to a specific
external program such as Outreachy. I.e. do we as a project need to go
through that organization, or can that be just one of the ways in which
we send out a call for interns?

With GSoC we don't have a choice in the matter, since Google's paying
the bills and runs the show, but it sounds like in this case we at least
partially do.

Or maybe Outreachy is doing some heavy lifting with screening or has
partial subsidies which would still make it prohibitive to e.g. send out
a general call of our own for candidates on the mailing list & in other
venues.