Re: foundation application..

[Andrea Veri <av gnome org>]

2015-02-12 14:42 GMT+01:00 Magdalen Berns <m berns thismagpie com>:

> I suggest we just make the rules much clearer to people on the outreach
> pages by clarifying what "non-trivial" actually means. GSoC/OPW interns are
> told to make more contributions after their 3 month internship before
> applying. That suggests that the contributions they make over their 3 month
> internship of 40 hours per week are trivial. It's no wonder contributors
> find the process of making a membership application intimidating considering
> that, isn't it? How could a volunteer compete with an someone who is being
> paid to work on GNOME full time (even if it is just for 3 months)?

I can't find a single reference of anyone ever saying contributions
made by interns during their internship are considered as trivial by
the Membership Committee. One of the main requirements of gaining
Foundation Membership is being active within the community for a
little while *after* the internship has ended to demonstrate the fact
there's a real interest staying around and contributing to the
Project. The rationale behind this decision is mainly related to the
fact a good number of interns stopped contributing right after their
internship ended and it was clear to us their intent wasn't sticking
around the community nor they probably were passionate about our
project to justify staying around some more. We found extending the
contributions period (usually one or two months) for interns the best
solution to build a membership base made of people who really love and
care deeply about the project and the values it promotes.

What you are suggesting would be accepting every single intern
regardless of this person being really interested and passionate about
joining the Foundation. That will probably lead to a wider membership
base for sure but how long these people are going to really stay
around if their interest of contributing to the project was only
tracked by the stipend they received?


-- 
Cheers,

Andrea

Debian Developer,
Fedora / EPEL packager,
GNOME Infrastructure Team Coordinator,
GNOME Foundation Board of Directors Secretary,
GNOME Foundation Membership & Elections Committee Chairman

Homepage: http://www.gnome.org/~av