Re: Need Leadership

["natan yellin" <aantny gmail com>]

On Fri, Jun 27, 2008 at 6:06 PM, Marko Anastasov <marko anastasov gmail com> wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 27, 2008 at 5:03 PM, natan yellin <aantny gmail com> wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, Jun 27, 2008 at 3:16 PM, Thomas H.P. Andersen <phomes gmail com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> > That's a bit of an exaggeration, but there is something to what Leslie
>>> > said.
>>> > Personally, I felt that in the case of GHOP, the grand prize was more
>>> > important to most people than the money or the t-shirt.
>>>
>>> Well, maybe. I was not part of it. I do remember her saying that some
>>> students who did not get picked wanted to continue anyway just of the
>>> t-shirt. But sure. Money counts a lot too.
>>>
>>>
>>> >> Wearing a soc t-shirt gets you recognition from your fellow hackers.
>>> >> Having a "diploma" from google in your CV gets you recognition from a
>>> >> future employer.
>>> >
>>> > It's a bit early to focus on specifics, but don't use the word diploma.
>>> > Something like "First Place 2009 GNOME Design Winner" sounds better
>>> > even if
>>> > it's more verbose.
>>>
>>> Sorry, I wasn't being clear. I should have told you my position and
>>> motivation for this. I'm about to start the last year of my master and
>>> will soon start doing job interviews. By "diploma" I meant a nicely
>>> laid out document summarizing my contributions to gnome. I feel that
>>> what I have learned from doing gnome stuff is almost as important as
>>> my degree and I would like to be able to document that at a job
>>> interview. Hence the "dimploma". (sorry about that word. I don't know
>>> what to use instead.)
>>
>> I understand. Open source does provide great experience, and an official
>> document summarizing your contributions and skills is more meaningful than a
>> few sentences on your resume in which you detail your involvement yourself.
>>>
>>> >> Could we do something like that? A t-shirt for mvp hacker(s) of the
>>> >> year? Perhaps by vote from foundation members or the like? An official
>>> >> looking pretty printed/printable "diploma" summarizing ones
>>> >> contribution to gnome?
>>> >
>>> > That _does_ sound a bit lame, but perhaps thats just me. I think a
>>> > better
>>> > approach would be to have an awards ceremony at GUADEC (formal events
>>> > make a
>>> > much better impression), pay for the winner's flight, and give them a
>>> > cash
>>> > prize, no matter how small and insignificant it is. It's not necessary,
>>> > but
>>> > giving them a nice and shiny trophy like Apple does would also be a
>>> > good
>>> > idea.
>>>
>>> That's great for getting credit among your fellow hackers. That was
>>> what I thought the t-shirt would accomplish. Either way is good. One
>>> is just more expensive and I think money is a very limited resource
>>> for such a thing.
>>
>> While they both carry _some_ meaning, even just a paid ticket to GUADEC is
>> a lot more meaningful then a t-shirt recieved in the mail.
>> The ticket implies that they've done extremely good work, and not only do
>> they deserve recognition for that, but they get to attend GUADEC so that
>> they can continue to contribute more productively in the future.
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> It's all about motivating developers to do more stuff. I personally
>>> care about getting a pad on the back for doing good work from fellow
>>> hackers and I also care about how I can do stuff to help me get a good
>>> job. Whatever means gets us there is fine :)
>>
>> As you said, there are two issues here:
>> 1. People want something that they can show when they get hired.
>> 2. People appreciate recognition.

Why do you call them "issues"? You can always tell people what you've
been working on or contributing to. Recognition is relative, but it is
never lacking. Depends on what you expect.

Sorry. It was a bad choice of words.

Anyway, I disagree a bit here. First of all, the idea that some T-shirt is the
most important motive so that a young programmer can walk around with
it and get recognition sounds a bit silly to me. Most people on my university
don't even have a clue what GNOME is, and generally I don't talk about
the things that I do in the GNOME world in my free time to anybody but
one or two people.

In most of the places that I used the term t-shirt, I was referring to recognition in general. As I said, if you want to give an award it has to be something more serious. 

A formal document testifying your GNOME contributions is again, let's say
unnecessary IMO. If your potential employer cannot realize what it means
when somebody comes with a couple of open source project names and
brief explanations behind him then no other paper would matter more and
you should probably look elsewhere for the job.

In the end you're doing it for your own pleasure, at the same time aware
of the long term (in)direct professional benefits, right?

The prizes and ceremonies that you mention seem to imply that new
contributors would prefer to do some GNOME stuff over summer, then
later look for a job and more or less disappear. That's perfectly ok, but
probably not the main kind of a manforce that the project primarily needs.

That's not quite true. One of the advantages of inviting them to GUADEC is that it helps dispel that assumption and tries to keep them in the community.

Getting a GNOME-related job after a while is an awesome form of
"recognition" though, but it's usually not available for people
outside EU and US.

Regarding sponsorship for GUADEC - if you do anything worth even a
lightning talk, you can apply and will probably be given some kind of
financial support.

Oops. Personally, I'll go for that next year.

   Marko

Natan