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The deal for me as a student was that I couldn't afford to take a whole summer off. Many students don't live at home, and so they have bills, etc. to pay. The

The deal for me as a student was that I couldn't afford to take a whole summer off. Many students don't live at home, and so they have bills, etc. to pay. These projects take a lot of time (most say you can expect a full-time workload), so you can't expect a student to devote a ton of attention to coding while also maintaining a full-time occupation. Do you also feel the same way about Greg Brown's Ruby Mendicant project? I'd say even though we gave him seemingly antithetical extrinsic motivators the greater good was better served by having him work full-time on it.

petercooper 17y ago
Do you also feel the same way about Greg Brown's Ruby Mendicant project? I'd say even though we gave him seemingly antithetical extrinsic motivators the greater good was better served by having him work full-time on it. The second paragraph of my comment explicitly referenced that very project :-) He had a great idea and put his neck on the line to appeal for money for it. I think of GSOC as more like a lottery grant. People know the money's there so they invent reasons to apply for it. That said, students are not the only demographic group who can not put "full time" into open source. I'd say the majority of open source contributors are doing it in their spare time (of which they have no more than the average student).
- halostatue 17y ago
  Except that most students also don't have the wherewithal to get coding jobs during the summer, and often have to fall back on jobs not in their chosen field. I know that I would have appreciated a program like this most summers, as it would have saved me from the absolute garbage jobs I worked as a student (pizza delivery, where I was robbed twice; outcall telemarketing; others).
  - petercooper 17y ago
    Except that most students also don't have the wherewithal to get coding jobs during the summer, and often have to fall back on jobs not in their chosen field. Sure, and you italicized "also" stressing that it's not only students that have this problem. While I have reservations about financially motivating people, the program would smell nicer if it didn't arbitrarily limit itself to a demographic. Why discriminate between a 20 year old taking marine biology and a 20 year old stuck working all year at a convenience store if they have the same desire to code on the side? Are "students" inherently "better" than other people and more deserving of programs like GSOC? The students who really deserve our respect are those who don't sit on their butts playing WoW or watching TV for hours every day and are making time to invest in their futures by contributing to open source. There are a lot out there and they're what we need more of.
    - jamesbritt 17y ago
      Might be more effective to find these students and surprise them with a check. Or otherwise support them and their code. If someone has an existing project it seems likely they will look after it over time. They've already shown the interest and initiative, so give them a boost. If someone needs to get funded by RubyCentral to hack on something, what happens when summer ends and the money is gone? Who takes care of the code then?

petercooper 17y ago

Do you also feel the same way about Greg Brown's Ruby Mendicant project? I'd say even though we gave him seemingly antithetical extrinsic motivators the greater good was better served by having him work full-time on it. The second paragraph of my comment explicitly referenced that very project :-) He had a great idea and put his neck on the line to appeal for money for it. I think of GSOC as more like a lottery grant. People know the money's there so they invent reasons to apply for it. That said, students are not the only demographic group who can not put "full time" into open source. I'd say the majority of open source contributors are doing it in their spare time (of which they have no more than the average student).

halostatue 17y ago
Except that most students also don't have the wherewithal to get coding jobs during the summer, and often have to fall back on jobs not in their chosen field. I know that I would have appreciated a program like this most summers, as it would have saved me from the absolute garbage jobs I worked as a student (pizza delivery, where I was robbed twice; outcall telemarketing; others).
- petercooper 17y ago
  Except that most students also don't have the wherewithal to get coding jobs during the summer, and often have to fall back on jobs not in their chosen field. Sure, and you italicized "also" stressing that it's not only students that have this problem. While I have reservations about financially motivating people, the program would smell nicer if it didn't arbitrarily limit itself to a demographic. Why discriminate between a 20 year old taking marine biology and a 20 year old stuck working all year at a convenience store if they have the same desire to code on the side? Are "students" inherently "better" than other people and more deserving of programs like GSOC? The students who really deserve our respect are those who don't sit on their butts playing WoW or watching TV for hours every day and are making time to invest in their futures by contributing to open source. There are a lot out there and they're what we need more of.
  - jamesbritt 17y ago
    Might be more effective to find these students and surprise them with a check. Or otherwise support them and their code. If someone has an existing project it seems likely they will look after it over time. They've already shown the interest and initiative, so give them a boost. If someone needs to get funded by RubyCentral to hack on something, what happens when summer ends and the money is gone? Who takes care of the code then?