15:01:34 <quaid> #startmeeting
15:01:34 <zodbot> Meeting started Wed Dec  9 15:01:34 2009 UTC.  The chair is quaid. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot.
15:01:34 <zodbot> Useful Commands: #action #agreed #halp #info #idea #link #topic.
15:01:55 <sankarshan> hi
15:02:01 <quaid> #topic Summer Coding SIG - another working meeting to get organized? :)
15:02:38 <quaid> actually, with sankarshan here, progress on the process stuff makes sense
15:03:11 <quaid> I haven't been able to put in the time I hoped to so far this last few weeks,
15:03:24 <quaid> so we don't have much yet to help scale what we are doing
15:04:40 * quaid pulls up the minutes from last time
15:04:51 * sankarshan looks at them as well.
15:05:04 <quaid> #link No Plan.
15:05:07 <quaid> oops
15:05:21 <quaid> #link http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2009-12-02/fedora-meeting.2009-12-02-15.30.html
15:06:12 <quaid> OK, so I'm going to start editing stuff in to
15:06:21 <quaid> #link https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Summer_Coding_SIG
15:06:55 <quaid> the full log showed a bit more schedule, let me start with that
15:07:47 <sankarshan> I understand from the earlier "let's gather around the campfire" meeting that we wanted a stronger and structured way to work as an umbrella organization.
15:08:52 <quaid> yes
15:09:04 <quaid> on an aggressive schedule
15:09:17 <quaid> so those are the to things in parallel - the schedule and the process/structure
15:09:27 <quaid> #link https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Summer_Coding_SIG#Schedule
15:09:27 <sankarshan> Yes.
15:10:32 <quaid> so what are the elements of that structure
15:11:13 <quaid> this is all pre-Melange, right
15:11:32 <quaid> i.e., we need to cook up our on tooling or process as needed here.
15:11:52 <sankarshan> We already have a coordinator for the project/org with the organizers. What we do need to look at is how to set up a group of people who can be the fiduciaries of project proposals from developers/mentors and, help build up the proposals to acceptable shape and form.
15:12:06 <sankarshan> I assumed that this is *before* we hit Melange.
15:12:10 <quaid> yes
15:12:12 <quaid> it is before
15:12:50 <quaid> one caveat is, we discussed not really soliciting _proposals_ from mentors
15:12:52 <sankarshan> An important part here is to ensure that we have proposals/projects that are [1] do-able and, [2] reasonable/pragmatic. Not something that isn't going to see light of the day later.
15:13:23 <quaid> having ideas is fine, but the key is to be ready to work with interested students on the student's ideas.
15:13:46 <sankarshan> Yes. The proposal isn't meant to get the student do what the mentor did not have time/tasking for.
15:14:28 <quaid> so that is here my brain is having a harder time ... does our team vetting mentor/orgs just gather and organize the interested people with some pointers to a few raw ideas
15:14:32 <quaid> ?
15:15:44 <sankarshan> I thought about it a couple of days back, and, here's what I was thinking along. The mentors would be assured to see that there are a group of folks who are interested in taking up the raw idea and, turning it into a product idea which can then be offered to potential candidates to provide approaches_to_solution.
15:16:23 <sankarshan> The folks vetting actually have a harder job of ensuring that the ideas for the proposals are absolutely relevant in terms of what augments the Fedora story being incubator of great products.
15:17:41 <quaid> hmm, not sure that can be done ...
15:17:56 <quaid> that is
15:18:09 <quaid> we aren't always going to be able to sort wheat from chaff
15:18:29 <sankarshan> I would say we would be able to in a larger number of the cases.
15:18:56 <quaid> going on the idea of legitimate peripheral participation
15:19:22 <sankarshan> Are you indicating that it is contrary to the notion of LPP ?
15:19:22 <quaid> what may seem to a core team as not very interesting or valuable, well, we don't know its future.
15:19:30 <sankarshan> :)
15:19:40 <quaid> I'm saying that we have to accept ideas that seem peripheral to e.g. Fedora or JBoss
15:20:11 <quaid> I agree that some ideas are going to be more clearly "yay, winner"
15:20:50 <sankarshan> I do not disagree. What I did mention was that the folks vetting it have to be sure that the idea is feasible. An idea, that although peripheral and attractive does not result in a prototype at the end of a GSoC tenure has a greater chance of not being viral and, hence petering out.
15:21:01 <quaid> so I think we should be careful about making too much of the charter about vetting the raw ideas, use case
15:21:16 <quaid> ok, I think I get you
15:21:23 <quaid> setting a bounding limit
15:21:34 <quaid> "no matter what your idea, it needs to be containable in the time allowed"
15:22:13 <sankarshan> Most aptly put. I need to note that down. :)
15:22:15 <sankarshan> thank you
15:24:24 <sankarshan> The other part (which could be considered process in a way) is to look at pre-qualifying candidates. That is, solve or, approach_to_solve "this" (hence learn the basic hygiene if you are new) and, thereon propose to solve "the idea"
15:24:43 <quaid> ok
15:25:51 <sankarshan> How does this fit into the standard SIG structure that is available within Fedora ?
15:26:22 <quaid> SIG structure is fluid, it flows to work for us, aiui
15:26:29 <sankarshan> My understanding, fairly vague, of a SIG is that they are accountable to produce a framework and, process that would enable them to meet the genesis objectives.
15:27:36 <quaid> I think it's looser than that -- it's literally whatever the SIG needs to get whatever they think they want to get done
15:28:07 <quaid> I think we encourage frameworks because they have been successful for SIGs before, but not required.
15:28:52 <sankarshan> then it brings us to the bread-n-butter part of the story - what are the actions we should be targeting at in these coming weeks ?
15:29:15 <quaid> I think I'm seeing:
15:29:31 <quaid> #action organize the mentor vetting committee
15:30:02 <quaid> #action strawman, finish, announce new process
15:30:08 <quaid> #action schedule
15:31:47 * sankarshan will work on a note and send it to quaid before hitting the wiki : aimed at covering the aim of the vetting, mentor interaction and pre-qualification. If that helps in anyway.
15:32:10 <quaid> here, one sec
15:32:23 <quaid> take a look at the wiki again
15:32:30 <quaid> I captured (most) of what we said
15:32:45 <quaid> how'zat?
15:33:07 <sankarshan> that's the awesome. who do you manage to do that is something i need to learn !!
15:33:17 <sankarshan> s/who/how
15:35:09 * quaid was trained as a writer, so is able to convert ideas to words in real time :)
15:35:58 <sankarshan> :)
15:36:16 <sankarshan> To organize the committee/group - do we need to approach the board ?
15:36:35 <sankarshan> Or, in other words, how does one select the first bunch.
15:37:08 <quaid> oh, we just do that
15:37:13 <quaid> I mean, it's just part of the SIG business
15:37:25 <quaid> but how select ... eek
15:37:34 <sankarshan> :)
15:37:37 <quaid> I'm hoping, to be honest
15:37:44 <quaid> that the usual call for mentors works as well this time
15:37:48 <quaid> and this time we have more for them to do
15:37:52 <sankarshan> me too ...
15:37:56 <quaid> so some of them volunteer to work this
15:38:40 <sankarshan> Sounds fair.
15:39:57 <sankarshan> Are we ready to quickly call for mentors so that the group gets more time to bond and, get things going ?
15:41:57 <quaid> hmm
15:42:00 <quaid> almost
15:42:07 <quaid> which is why I keep having this urgency to what I'm doing
15:42:30 <quaid> I think we need to have the process and schedule ready
15:42:35 <quaid> so we are very close
15:43:08 <sankarshan> Do we need to have a FAQ of any sort ? Anticipating mentor questions like - What changes ? What does (s)he need to do ?
15:43:41 <quaid> good
15:44:17 <sankarshan> I'll jot down a couple that come to my mind and, wiki-fy them
15:44:25 <quaid> cool
15:44:43 <quaid> put in a new == FAQ == section on that page, OK?
15:44:55 <sankarshan> I will.
15:45:00 <abadger1999> quaid: Hey, just an FYI loupgarablond and some other people at FUDCon were interested in driving some content-repository work as a GSoC effort.
15:45:04 * quaid makes a save, then works on the sub-section instead
15:45:22 <quaid> abadger1999: sounds interesting
15:45:28 <abadger1999> Thinking of talking to Creative Commons, deviantart, and other orgs about maybe being the place for that effort.
15:45:32 <quaid> is this an existing sub-proj/SIG need?
15:45:42 <quaid> ic
15:45:46 <abadger1999> I don't think we have an existing SIG.
15:46:06 <abadger1999> Although we could have one -- there's been enough people interested in it over the past year.
15:46:34 <quaid> how does it differ from e.g. deviantart?
15:46:49 <quaid> or would the work be driven up in to such a project
15:47:06 <abadger1999> I think that's the idea.
15:47:09 <quaid> ah
15:47:19 <abadger1999> Find out if deviantart or CC would be interested in hosting the eventual results.
15:47:30 <abadger1999> Then work with them to build something that we can use as well.
15:48:04 <abadger1999> By "as well" I mean use their resources :-)
15:48:17 <abadger1999> But make it easy for Fedora people to get the content from them.
15:48:55 <quaid> cool
15:50:18 <sankarshan> Coming back (since I need to go get my dinner), we need to write out the process bit and, send it to the list before hitting the mentors with a Call for Mentors.
15:50:53 <quaid> exacty
15:50:57 <quaid> ly, too
15:51:05 <sankarshan> heh !
15:51:24 <quaid> ok, I'll keep working on these items this morning
15:52:06 <sankarshan> I'll join up through my day tomorrow.
15:52:21 <quaid> ok
15:52:26 <sankarshan> Is it alright if I drift away now ? :)
15:52:31 <quaid> go on, thx
15:52:35 <quaid> thx for the visit :)
15:52:38 <sankarshan> thank you. :)
15:52:41 <quaid> I'll finish up and send out the log soon, too
15:52:48 * sankarshan goes afk
15:53:02 <quaid> ok, I'm going to end the meeting so I don't get distracted and forget
15:53:10 <quaid> #endmeeting