

Ruby Summer of Code - jeremymcanally
http://rubysoc.org

======
jackowayed
They really need to make the requirements for students a little more clear
(for example, I'm a senior in HS, can I apply?). I'd assume they'll flesh that
out before they open the student app.

Also, from the questions for students they list there, it seems like they
might get some pretty bad outcomes:

> _Why do you use Ruby and/or Rails? How would you like to see them improve?

Outline the specific project you're proposing.

Why is this important to the Ruby and/or Rails communities at large? Why is
this important to you?

List a clear set of goals/milestones you'll hit during the summer, along with
a rough timeline. Be specific about your deliverables.

What are the "unknowns" in this project for you? What kind of pitfalls could
you run into?

How will you measure progress? How will you handle falling behind?_

To liken it to startups/YC, they're asking a lot about the idea, but not at
all about "the team" (the applicant). Anyone can say "I'm going to make
something awesome" even if they aren't very good at writing Ruby and will
almost certainly not do well.

Sure, they don't give you money unless you hit milestones, but they could
experience plenty of projects that technically do what they should but are so
badly written that they're certain to go nowhere.

That said, I'm really excited for this both as a potential participant and as
a Rubyist who would love to see some cool new projects come of it.

Edit: They also should make it a bit more clear what kinds of projects they
want. Just things that are directly useful to ruby programmers (libraries,
Rails plugins, etc)? Cool tools that are useful to developers in general
(something like <http://hurl.it/>)? Any piece of software that's useful to the
world and written in Ruby (like some good website written in Rails)? My guess
is the first 2 only, but that's just a guess.

~~~
spicyj
Apparently it holds the same eligibility requirements as GSoC, so you probably
wouldn't be able to participate. (Me neither! :()

~~~
jackowayed
That's pretty lame. I can get around that restriction because I'm taking a
differential equations class at the University of Delaware, so I'm "a college
student" :) But if I have to be 18 (as with GSoC), I'm out of luck, sadly.

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petercooper
This project has been created with good intentions and I hope people get some
good out of it. I'm not going to slam this well-meant project, but being
modelled on the Google Summer of Code, I have some reservations. The GSOC FAQ
states some primary "goals" of the program:

 _CREATE AND RELEASE OPEN SOURCE CODE FOR THE BENEFIT OF ALL_

Paying people to be motivated to bother to work on open source code seems odd.
If someone comes along with a _"I really want to do X but I need $Y to live"_
request (as Gregory Brown did a couple years back -
<http://rubymendicant.wikidot.com/proposal>) that's cool, because the request
has come from an intrinsic motivation and you can choose to donate based on
the utility of the work that will be done (and Greg did a great job on Prawn,
by the way).

With a GSOC-like program, there's a _pitching_ process by students who are
being provided an extrinsic motivation of $5000. Yet, this extrinsic motivator
does _not_ realistically reflect the typical motivations for contributing to
open source projects. The money provides an American Idol-esque motivation of
"try this out to win fame/money" rather than encouraging those who are
_already_ trying hard.

 _INSPIRE YOUNG DEVELOPERS TO BEGIN PARTICIPATING IN OPEN SOURCE DEVELOPMENT_

Is offering a (monetary) reward a good way to get someone with no experience
to start doing something? Perhaps, but in something like open source, does it
make sense to wave money at people who aren't already intrinsically attracted
towards the cause? It feels like paying your kids to do housework to me.

Open source is tough enough to _need_ serious intrinsic motivation from its
participants (even if you're ultimately doing it for "fame" or to get a job).
Are these new people going to stick around when there's no easy money? Looking
at past GSOCs, many participants appear to be folks who were _already_
contributing to open source development (if in a small way) but who happened
to get lucky with a nice stipend to do something they were already motivated
to do. That seems against the spirit of the program.

 _PROVIDE STUDENTS THE OPPORTUNITY TO DO WORK RELATED TO THEIR ACADEMIC
PURSUITS DURING THE SUMMER (THINK "FLIP BITS, NOT BURGERS")_

Limiting the program to the "young" and/or "students" also strikes me as odd.
Google has this educationally elitist air about it at the best of times. Is
the average software engineering student flipping burgers all summer nowadays?
I suspect the people flipping burgers are those who made bad decisions at a
younger age and are now stuck in that world.

Encouraging disadvantaged developers who aren't academically active through a
program like GSOC would be awesome, because some real chances to turn people's
lives around would appear rather than saving some university students from the
real world. Help people who flip burgers for pocket money or help people who
are stuck flipping burgers _all year_ too?

 _GIVE STUDENTS MORE EXPOSURE TO REAL-WORLD SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT SCENARIOS
(E.G., DISTRIBUTED DEVELOPMENT, SOFTWARE LICENSING QUESTIONS, MAILING-LIST
ETIQUETTE)_

Again, they need to be _paid_ to learn this stuff? If they're not familiar
with these concepts and they're taking software engineering classes, we need a
campaign to fix the syllabi.

All that said, I know the people behind this campaign and that they mean all
the best, and I hope some students get some good value from it. Good luck.

~~~
jamesbritt
Some seriously good points there, Peter.

I also do not question the motives or integrity of the people behind this, and
like you I don't care for the emphasis on students.

I don't care so much that they get paid; hell, I wish people would pay _me_
for doing open source software. I don't think it will alter any future
motivations of anyone.

But it may be entirely possible to achieve the desired results without the pay
out, and archive other useful goals with that money.

Now, it's easy to harp and suggest all sorts of imagined plans, while RSOC as
it stands is real. So big props for making this happen.

I think, though, that some separation of project acceptance and funding for
expenses would have been useful. E.g., first have people (really should be
open to anyone) pitch their project. Then, if accepted, they can argue for
financial support, if they can show some documented need.

Yeah, it's more work, and maybe the sort of thing that makes the difference
between a nice sounding plan and a real program. But I agree that waving the
$$ up front might be the wrong incentive.

~~~
jackowayed
What's "documented need"? Hosting costs for the project? Room & board for the
summer? College tuition?

I might not be considered to have "need." I'd live in my parents' house if I
were to do this. I have to pay a good portion of my Stanford tuition somehow
or another, but I could see you determing that that's not "need." (And if it
is need, then >95% of your applicants will have at last $5k of tuition to pay
for the year, so everyone will have need.)

Regardless of whether I "need" the money, spending an entire summer hacking
full-time has some serious opportunity cost. I could get a real job (and make
>$5k). I could hang out with my friends every day.

Do you really expect college students, most of whom have little money, to line
up to forgo ~$10k of income (roughly the amount you can make at a programming
internship, varying wildly of course) so they can do an open source project?

Sure, it would probably be more fun; it would be have completely flexible
hours; you might not end up quite having to work full-time on it. But still.
I'm a lot more likely to do it if I at least get a good portion of the
compensation I could get from working.

And even if you do find people to do it, the quality of people will be a lot
worse. For the most part, you'll get the people who _don't_ have an
opportunity cost of $10k because they're not good enough at programming to
land a good job over the summer. So you'd probably just end up wasting a lot
of the mentors' time because you'd have to accept lower-quality people. The
money helps you be selective and hopefully get some truly high quality
projects out of it.

~~~
petercooper
_Do you really expect college students, most of whom have little money, to
line up to forgo ~$10k of income (roughly the amount you can make at a
programming internship, varying wildly of course) so they can do an open
source project?_

People should go where they can get the most overall value. Getting $10K for
an in-the-flesh internship at a development shop is easily better value than
$5K from the GSOC program for most people.

People who are good for open source are attracted to it naturally. They care
about more than money. That's my whole point really.. that the best people in
open source _aren't_ motivated by cash, so why attract people who are?

~~~
jackowayed
Sure. And I'm not saying there are people who love OSS who will give up OSS
altogether because they can't or won't do SOC for free. They'd still hack OSS
on the side, but they wouldn't do SOC.

There's lots of college students that really need to bring in some money over
the summer so they can afford their tuition. Plenty are already taking out
loans as it is.

Think of it like the YC money--it's not all that much, lots of the companies
don't really need it, it generally isn't the main attraction, but some great
people absolutely need it to participate, so giving it ensures that no one
will have to turn the opportunity down because of money

------
blasdel
Doesn't this only exist because the Rails project's Google Summer of Code
application was denied this year?:
<http://twitter.com/rails/status/10685448004>

~~~
halostatue
No.

I'm not inside of the decision loop, but this is because of a perception that
Google's SOC administrators didn't want to work with Ruby Central over the
last two years.

I do not think that this perception is correct, but Ruby Central _was not_
provided a mentorship spot last year and chose not to apply for a mentorship
spot this year.

This is a Ruby Central initiative.

~~~
draegtun
Interesting. Google have accepted other like organisations, for eg. The Perl
Foundation (<http://www.perlfoundation.org/google_summer_of_code_2010>), so
they really should accept Ruby Central.

------
spicyj
Anyone have ideas as to how I might go about thinking of a project that would
sound promising and be helpful to the Ruby community? I'd certainly consider
myself a proficient Ruby developer, but I'm not nearly as familiar with the
development of these project and what they're lacking. Where might I start?

~~~
halostatue
I've applied to be a mentor, and I've suggested that some of my existing
projects could use some love for Ruby 1.9. One, net-ldap, has some Ruby 1.9
support, but needs more overall features and development.

Obviously, this is not just about maintenance, but these are ideas; you can
also look for things that haven't yet been addressed and propose those.

Based on my experience as a GSOC mentor, though, I think that maintenance and
enhancement projects (adding new features to existing projects) are more
successful in the end than greenfield projects.

------
c3
My company is (well be, soon as we get off our asses and send a check) one of
the sponsors of this. Why? We already do a bunch of open source; as well as
the 'giving back' factor, I'm genuinely intrigued with what will be produced.
Last year's outputs were a great benefit to the scene and the community. It's
the kids who are on the outside and _hungry_ who are attracted to this sort of
thing, and in my opinion are more capable of providing fresh genes to the
pool.

Hell, 20-year-old me would've jumped at it, for the money and the fame.
Actually, 20-year-old me was probably getting high in an alley, but that's a
story for another day.

