[Building Sakai] Google Summer of Code

[Ross Gardler]

2009/3/18 Laura James <laura at caret.cam.ac.uk>:
> With help from Michael Korcuska and Chuck Severance (for which, many
> thanks!), I submitted an application for the Sakai Foundation to be a
> mentoring organisation for Google Summer of Code 2009.  And we've been
> accepted!

Congrats.

Some people here may be aware that I have been running the GSoC
activities in the Apache Software Foundation since the first year it
ran (2005). As such I have administered over 200 projects and about
170 mentors over the years (around 8% of the total GSoC students have
passed through the ASF). I've contributed to a considerable amount of
the documentation and processes around GSoC and feel I know the
process inside out and upside down.

I would be very happy to offer my support to your efforts here in any
capacity you would find useful.

There are many warning signs about good and bad mentors and students.
The key to a successful GSoC campaign is selection of the right
students and mentors.

Note GSoC is *not* about getting some free labour on Sakai. it is
about demonstrating good practice in open source software development.
For this to happen you need to be careful who you select. The students
need to be willing to engage openly and the mentors must understand
the importance of forcing things into the open.

If you feel my experience in administering GSoC in large projects
would be helpful to your engagement with GSoC let me know, I'm here to
help. Of course, I'm not a committer here so I'm talking about process
and admin assistance rather than code assistance.

Ross


-- 
Ross Gardler

OSS Watch - supporting open source in education and research
http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk