[IAEP] (engineering) capacity building

[Caroline Meeks]

I agree, we need to target for volunteers that already have the skills we
need.

I think there are a lot of open source developers who want to help but don't
think they have the skills we need. For instance I wonder how many eJabber
or Moodle developers know we need them?  Our XS side is really lagging in
community and I think one reason is that everyone thinks of Sugar as a
desktop linux project.

Perhaps if we focused on some specific areas we could use some help, defined
some tasks, and asked on their mailing lists and message boards we might get
some high quality volunteers who wouldn't need that much help coming up to
speed.

I think a lot of the development work we need to do next is on the XS and
creating integration between the XS and Sugar and Activities.  For instance
GConpris and another even larger body of educational content both have
teacher administrtion pieces that would be really helpful for classrooms if
they were ported/integrated with the XS.  I don't feel like the people who
work in the server side code communties even know we need them.

We should assess what is important to do, even if we don;t currently have
the people who have the time and skills to do it, what skills we need to get
it done, then let the communities that have those skills know we need them.



On Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 2:48 AM, David Van Assche <dvanassche at gmail.com>wrote:

> One thing that comes to mind here is to guerilla market in irc
> channels... usually these are already full of developers and its just
> a matter of looking at the projects around, going to their respective
> channels, and let them briefly know wht sugar is and ask if they have
> time to spend on any other projects... still a long shot, but much
> more direct...
>
> David
>
> On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 6:52 PM, Tomeu Vizoso<tomeu at sugarlabs.org> wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > has been suggested that maybe we should code less and instead invest
> > more time mentoring newcomers.
> >
> > Though this is something very sensible to suggest and a good
> > recommendation in most occasions, I'm afraid is not what Sugar Labs
> > needs now. I say this after more than two years welcoming developers
> > that were attracted by the OLPC mission but that never had contact
> > with FOSS development before: has resulted in a few very big successes
> > but far less than expected.
> >
> > My suggestions are:
> >
> > == Send our message to channels that reach "already activated" people ==
> >
> > By "already activated" meaning people who are already FOSS
> > contributors or volunteers in grassroots organizations. If we grow our
> > community of these people, we may reach a position where we can
> > fruitfully introduce random people and help them contribute
> > successfully.
> >
> > Right now we are getting ourselves known in the general public (kudos
> > to Sean), but this is a very inefficient way of increasing our
> > contributors base. Nor the message is appropriate for FOSS developers
> > nor we use channels that specifically reach them.
> >
> > Concrete actions: publish articles in the Ubuntu, Fedora, GNOME,
> > Mandriva, etc "planets" and in specialized outlets like LWN, GNOME
> > Journal, Ars Technica, etc. making very clear our non-profit nature,
> > governance model, educational impact, relationships to other FOSS
> > projects, etc.
> >
> > == Understand better how current contributors got to contribute ==
> >
> > We have this knowledge in some of our heads, but aren't putting it in
> > common nor profiting from it. How did you got to know about Sugar? Why
> > did you establish contact with the Sugar community? Which was your
> > first contribution? Why did you kept contributing? What are your
> > suggestions for improving? Etc.
> >
> > Concrete action: publish interviews to existing members with similar
> > questions and debate how we can improve the volunteering experience.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Tomeu
> > _______________________________________________
> > IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
> > IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
> > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
> >
>
>
>
> --
>
> Milton Berle  - "If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door." -
> http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/milton_berle.html
> _______________________________________________
> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>



-- 
Caroline Meeks
Solution Grove
Caroline at SolutionGrove.com

617-500-3488 - Office
505-213-3268 - Fax
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