On Thu, Jun 13, 2019 at 1:49 PM Joan Touzet <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hello everyone, I'm in transit and I'm officially out until Monday, but > wanted to respect Gris's request for feedback by the end of today. > > (FYI: My email is being authored offline, and I have no emails newer > than ~06-12 18:00 EDT. I'm sending to dev@, and have set Reply-To to > dev@, because it's important we discuss this as much as possible in public.) > > CC'ing Greg Stein and David Nalley for Infra questions. > > > # Summary > > * I support the initiative overall. > * I support the Outreachy budget item (Option 1) as seed money, but > * I think external funding for interns should be the goal (Option 2). > * Pick the right *tech focused*, externally useful project. I propose > PonyMail. > * This budget line-item should be extended to cover any paid Infra > staff's mentoring effort (see below for details, estimate 5h/week) > because Infra won't have budgeted for this additional load we'd be > asking of them. > * My other ASF responsibilities mean I probably cannot be Outreachy's > main champion for FY2020, sorry, but happy to help as much as I can. > * Sorry for the length of this email. I tried hard to make it shorter :( > > > # On Outreachy > > As I understand it, Outreachy's focus is getting individuals in > under-represented groups who are economically unable to sustain > themselves both the funding and the support they need so they can > successfully volunteer their time in open source development, with a > core focus on *coding*. > > One of Outreachy's most notable achievements, which took many years to > achieve, was working out how to help get inexperienced devs successful > in contributing to the Linux kernel. They're really successful in this! > They built a lot of supports around that process that thankfully the ASF > shouldn't need - in fact, they require applicants to prove their > suitability through a kind of gauntlet - but this is the type of "big > profile" engagement that we should be aiming for when we propose to them. > > Remember: just because we want to work with Outreachy doesn't mean > they'll agree to work with us, if it doesn't look like a good fit. We > get interviewed, too. :) > > > # So what project or projects make sense? > > I also like Niall's suggestion of 2x interns in FY2020, one in each of > the two cohorts. > > We need a crisp, technical-first opportunity. Since D&I hasn't started > to liaise with ASF Project PMCs yet (beyond those represented these > lists), I agree the first FY20 cohort (August 2019) would be a trial > run, using a central ASF-wide project. D&I has a clearer mandate here, > and it'll be easier to liaise with central groups. That leaves us > sufficient time to get 1 or more non-central projects engaged for the > Late January 2020 cohort. > > We have a lot of "cobbler's children have no shoes" projects at the ASF, > and I'd love more bodies on them (especially anything that makes PMC's > lives easier when interfacing with Infra, the Board, or [email protected]), > but Outreachy is about putting the needs of the *intern* first, *not* > our needs. They'd probably reject work on Whimsy on these grounds, in my > opinion. > > We need to consider that this individual likely won't be an ASF > contributor or committer yet, either, so a project that has strong value > outside the ASF as well would be best. > > Also, while there is room for documentation projects, website redesigns, > training materials and so on, I'd argue that these aren't the best > opportunities for an Outreachy intern. All too often it's precisely this > "work no one else wants to do" that falls to under-represented > individuals. It'll look especially bad if our first attempt at a > diversity initiative comes off as throwing undesirable work "over the > wall" to a minority intern. (It'd be even worse if it also looked like > we were asking them to do diversity-focused work...no one's proposed > this, just saying.) > > Things that touch the most people possible, AND have external-to-Apache > users would be the best opportunities. I think PonyMail might be the > best central project here. Can anyone think of others? > > > # On Mentoring > > Reminder: if we're picking a project primarily supported and run by > Infra staff like PonyMail, many of these are ASF-paid people. Their > hours are already allocated and tracked by Infra management for the huge > number of things we ask of them. (Read as: they're already overworked > and underpaid.) > > Assuming at least the first intern would be working on e.g. PonyMail, > let's budget for an additional 5h/week for Infra staff to cover the > expected mentoring duties. This shows respect to Infra for their time > and effort, even if this just ends up looking on the books like > Department A paying Department B. > > This whole proposal is still contingent on Infra agreeing to work > together on this. No one wants to be "volun-told." That, too, would look > really bad (on D&I, not the ASF at large). > > So, Greg/David (on CC): How does this sound to you? If positive (even if > PonyMail isn't exactly the right project), is this 5h/week a number you > can help Gris calculate to include in the line item? Remember, we don't > have to spend the money if it doesn't work out. > > > # On the ASF funding question > > No matter how clearly we state that Outreachy grants allow someone to > contribute voluntarily when they do not otherwise have the economic > means to do so, there will be a vocal group who will see this as "money > for code," and who won't easily be convinced of the subtlety here - even > if we're legally in the right. I agree that would be a bad precedent to > set, and might even endanger our non-profit status. > > (I also don't know if there is precedent of the ASF giving money to > another US-registered non-profit as a social or charitable initiative - > anyone know?) > > This is why I prefer Option 2 for the intern funding piece (Infra staff > mentoring time notwithstanding). If we go with Option 1 - which I also > support - I expect we'll need to be very, very explicit that this is > seed money for a trial run only, and that, if successful, future year > D&I/Outreachy intern funding would only come via coordination with > Fundraising. It would also give us a year to experiment and come up with > the right process to make it easy for our 300+ projects to engage with a > sponsor, Outreachy, D&I, and Fundraising for success. > > One footnote: if the central efforts with Infra work out well, I could > see future years continuing to fund Outreachy interns at the > Foundation-level. I would hope that D&I would work with the Board and > other Committees to ensure the right initiatives are chosen. >
I think Joan very much has the right idea here. So, tech-oriented makes sense to me, and there are a large number of Apache projects that could be extremely beneficial for the intern. However, I think the selection process needs to start with buy-in from the affected group. You're going to need the mentor to essentially sign up to doing this work. Otherwise dropping off volunteers on a project's doorstep is likely to end up a bad experience for all. I've seen this situation happen in the past at another open source project and its overwhelming for everyone involved. Just to add to the discussion for better understanding. Infrastructure doesn't even operate lists.a.o - our ponymail instance is outsourced. Ponymail is a standalone PMC, and Infrastructure has no official relationship there - though a Ponymail volunteer is also a Infrastructure staff member. As a matter of policy, Infra generally doesn't contribute code to ASF projects. As a result you won't find us generally contributing code to Whimsy, Kibble, Ponymail, Tomcat, or httpd, even though we use all of them. (What folks do on their personal time is another matter). Infra staff members are also generally not developers by trade or training - in fact over half of our staff members have no commit privileges on any Apache project. The other complicating factor is that we're still onboarding two new staff members, and that's consuming a lot of additional cycles right now. All other factors excluded, I don't think we'd be in a place to have the time to do this well. So, please don't count on us participating. --David
