Thanks for your quick response, your comments and your support. On Mon, Dec 17, 2018 at 2:37 PM Rich Bowen <rbo...@rcbowen.com> wrote:
> It's worth mentioning that there's a conversation going right now over on > the members@ list about creating a "central services" kind of entity. That > discussion is primarily focused on design/graphic kind of stuff, but > training/documentation/presentations are similar in concept, if not in > content, and I'm definitely in favor of such an entity existing. > I managed to miss that thread but I'll go over it later today. Thanks for pointing that out. > Your anticipated question "Isn't the ASF all about code, now you want to do > PPT!" is very insightful. The ASF exists to provide services to projects, > and this is an unfilled need that many/most of our projects have. There is > precedent - we have an infrastructure organization, a conferences entity, a > marketing group, legal, brand, and so on, that provide non-code services to > projects. Recognizing contributors for non-code contributions is *critical* > for the survival of our projects, and of the Foundation as a whole, and we > tend to be very poor at it. > > So, suffice it to say, a huge +1 to this concept, although I'm not sure > where it should live - whether under ComDev (as you suggest) or as a > top-level entity. I think the latter makes a little more sense. While this > is indeed a function of community development/growth/education, it's also > sufficiently different that it may need to be independent. > I agree. It feels more like its own project but if others feel strongly I don't have a super strong preference either. > What are next steps? I don't *think* this is something that should go > through the Incubator. It's not a Thing Like That. Perhaps a proposal to > the Board to create a top-level thing? I'll put a pointer to this thread > into that other thread (referenced above), and apologies to those of you > who are not ASF Members and cannot see that thread. > I have to admit that I don't know either. But I thought that this mailing list would at least be a good place to discuss this as lots of projects start here and people have experience with it. And I assume that lots of members and some board people are reading here as well. I'm not opposed to start it as a top-level project. I'll defer to people with a longer ASF history. I'm not sure about the precedent but I know that it sometimes happens. > On Mon, Dec 17, 2018 at 8:23 AM Lars Francke <lars.fran...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > > Hi, > > > > I'd like to start a discussion around establishing a project (or Central > > Service) at the ASF to host and develop training and related materials > for > > ASF (and possibly others, where it makes sense) projects. > > > > I'm a committer and contributor to a few projects and make money doing > > consulting work. Naturally people do contact us for training, and we have > > developed our own slideware etc. but we find it incredibly hard work to > > keep those up-to-date. > > > > We also work with lots of other companies and they all face the same > > challenges. At the same time, we do not believe that a slide-deck is > worth > > that much on its own (others disagree, as we used to). We believe the > > instructor is the real selling-point and especially when that person is > > deeply embedded in the projects itself as a committer or PMC. > > > > So, we as a company[0] would like to donate our slide decks and other > > resources we have and establish an ASF wide training project in the hopes > > that we as a community can collaborate on those resources. We are > currently > > talking to partners to assess whether they are interested in joining us > in > > open sourcing their material. > > > > I'm not sure if this is a "Central Services" kind of thing or if it > should > > be an Incubator project to begin with. I'm posting this here because I > > think there are good arguments for it being a project (e.g. it appears > as a > > “project” in all lists that others can contribute to, it follows a > familiar > > structure etc.). It might be a bit different than other projects though > > (e.g. maybe there are no real releases?). > > > > This is also not limited to just slides obviously but also accompanying > > code and potentially other media forms. > > > > One concern I have is that the material should be as objective as > possible, > > but our clients especially value our (often subjective) input on the > > matureness of tools (third-party as well as ASF), processes and > > communities. So, we usually include that in our slides. I guess anyone > > using this material would need to customize it. > > > > This is how I see it but I'm happy to change based on feedback. > > In scope: > > * Develop shared material that can be used for trainings > > * Develop “labs” or “hands-on” exercises > > * Develop or document an infrastructure that can be used for those labs > > * Potentially develop tools to manage the material (e.g. ideally a slide > > repository that contains “modules” that can be easily reused and > combined) > > > > Out of scope (for now at least) > > * Something like what the CNCF has with their “Kubernetes Training > > Program”[1] with certified training partners > > * Project documentation > > > > I wasn’t sure whether to start this discussion in members@ and/or here > or > > somewhere else entirely. But as we believe it should be a “project” I > think > > this is the best place for it. I’m happy to cross-post if you think it > > worthwhile. > > > > I'm looking forward to any and all feedback you might have on this. I > would > > be happy to draw up a formal Incubator Proposal once we agree on a result > > and shape. > > > > Anticipated FAQs: > > > > Q: Shouldn’t each project take care of its own training? > > A: Yes and no. Ideally a project should be well documented but developing > > material for professional “training” is quite different from writing > > documentation in my experience. I think it's better to have a single > > central project doing this than having this as part of every project > > itself. One reason being that it makes sense to have cross-project > > trainings (e.g. no one is interested in an “Apache Hadoop” training. They > > all want to learn about the ecosystem). > > > > Q: Isn't the ASF all about code, now you want to do PPT! > > A: We’ve had committers for documentation for a long time and I’d > actually > > like to see much more of that in the future. I think it’s not about the > > code but about merit. We have a lot of Apache Way presentations now > (which > > could be part of this project) that go into depth on this one. > > > > Q: We have the Community project[2], should this not be part of that > > project? > > A: I honestly don’t know. There is definitely some overlap or alignment > but > > from all I’ve seen and read I think these could very well be two distinct > > projects but “we” could follow a very similar structure and probably > reuse > > some content and tools. > > > > Q: I don't like PPT/keynote/Apache OpenOffice/HTML slides/... everyone > > should do PechaKucha at all times. > > A: We are not set on any format for the content, finding a suitable > format > > will be part of this project’s mission. To me this is a technical > > discussion like it happens a hundred times a day on the Apache Jira and > > Mailing Lists. There will be disagreement and some people will be > > disappointed by some of the choices made but that’s no different than any > > other project. > > > > Q: How can I integrate slides from this project to match my corporate > > design? I'm not allowed to not use CD. > > A: Another technical question (plus probably one that involves legal@) > to > > which I do not yet have an answer. > > > > Thank you Bernd Fondermann, Sönke Liebau and Tim Robertson for the review > > of this mail. > > > > Cheers, > > Lars > > > > [0] <https://www.opencore.com/> > > [1] <https://www.cncf.io/certification/training/> > > [2] <https://community.apache.org/> > > >
