Status report for the Apache Community Development Project
The Commmunity Development PMC is responsible for helping people become
involved with Apache projects
Project Status
--------------
No issues require board attention at this time.
GSoC
----
Started collating stats on our [GSoC involvement][1].
Actions:
* Evaluate reasons for reduced interest from mentors this year
* provide feedback to Google relating to complications cause by last minute process changes
Events and Speakers
-------------------
Actions:
* Agree scope of ConCom and ComDev collaboration on event support
* two members of ComDev are co-chairing an ACEU track
* three members of ComDev are seeking to assist with ACEU
* Raise awareness of Speaker and Event support materials
* some small progress made, needs concerted effort as part of ACEU and ACNA
* Integrate speaker app with Lanyrd (hosts all ApacheCon NA12 slidedecks)
* No progress
Website
-------
Some discussion about making our website "friendlier" but not work as yet.
Some minor improvements to small areas of the site.
Actions:
* Work with the IPMC to clarify any future role for ComDev in the incubation
process
* No progress
Status report for the Apache Community Development Project
The Commmunity Development PMC is responsible for helping people become
involved with Apache projects
Project Status
--------------
No issues require board attention at this time.
GSoC
----
40 GSoC students passed mid-term, one failed to submit a midterm evaluation:
in future, we should include a request to remind their students in the
reminders we send out to mentors about evaluations.
Feedback from admins regarding the applications process this years was that
there was confusion and chaos around the selection process. Many
orgs had the same issues as the Melange webapp has changed
significantly this year. This has been the case each year so far, yet we
continue to be hopeful that next year will go more smoothly as a result!
We haven't heard any complaints about the projects that did (or didn't)
get selected in the end, and in fact, we ended up giving back a couple
of slots because we didn't have the proposals to fill them out. This is
the first time this has happened, normally we take extra slots rather than
give them back.
It is also notable that a few projects have a larger than normal number
of students. We need to explore whether this is a change of attitude towards
GSoC within the ASF or a lack of outreach work on the part of the ComDev PMC.
It is my opinion (Ross) that the annual chaos of the selection process puts
mentors off - it's simply too much work tracking the moving goalposts.
Actions:
* Evaluate reasons for reduced interest from mentors this year
* provide feedback to Google relating to complications cause by last minute process changes
Events and Speakers
-------------------
Outstanding:
* Agree scope of ConCom and ComDev collaboration on event support
* two members of ComDev are co-chairing an ACEU track
* three members of ComDev are seeking to assist with ACEU
* Raise awareness of Speaker and Event support materials
* some small progress made, needs concerted effort as part of ACEU and ACNA
* Integrate speaker app with Lanyrd (hosts all ApacheCon NA12 slidedecks)
* No progress
Website
-------
Some discussion about making our website "friendlier" but not work as yet.
Some minor improvements to small areas of the site.
Outstanding:
* Work with the IPMC to clarify any future role for ComDev in the incubation
process
* No progress
Status report for the Apache Community Development Project
The Commmunity Development PMC is responsible for helping people become
involved with Apache projects
Project Status
--------------
No issues require board attention at this time.
GSoC
----
GSoC is underway with two experienced admins and a newcomer learning the ropes.
Googles insistence on changing the process on the fly without consulting orgs continues to
frustrate admins who have to adapt quickly and communicate this to our 150+ projects. Our thanks go to
this years Admins.
We have 41 projects spread across 26 projects (17 TLPs and 9 Podlings).
Participating TLPS are:
Xerces, Pig, OODT, Hive, James, Tapestry, Ofbiz, Gora, Synapse, Derby, Axis, POI, Whirr, Lucene,
Velocity, Libcloud, Xalan
Participating Podlings are:
ODF Toolkit, Airavata, Stanbol, Photark, Wookie, OpenMeetings, Nuvem, Hama, VXQuery
Completed:
* Publish updates to the GSoC Admin guidelines
* Verify that new mentor selection process is documented for GSoC
* Verify infra is OK with temporary accounts for GSoC
* Submit ASF to GSoC
* Work with projects to identify suitable GSoC tasks
Events and Speakers
-------------------
Very little progress here as ConCom has been busy dealing with the RFP for US and the proposal for EU.
A number of ComDev members are helping out in ConCom activities.
Outstanding:
* Agree scope of ConCom and ComDev collaboration on event support
* Raise awareness of Speaker and Event support materials
* Integrate speaker app with Lanyrd (hosts all ApacheCon NA12 slidedecks)
Website
-------
During the IPMC reboot discussions it was suggested that ComDev should take ownership of some aspects
of Incubation. This was rejected as ComDev felt that moving the problem was not solve it, however, it was
agreed in principle that overlaps existed. Now that Jukka seems to be be settling in nicely at the IPMC it
is time to restart these discussions.
Outstanding:
* Work with the IPMC to clarify any future role for ComDev in the incubation
process
Status report for the Apache Community Development Project
The Commmunity Development PMC is responsible for helping people become
involved with Apache projects
Project Status
--------------
No issues require board attention at this time.
GSoC
----
GSoC 2012 was announced at FOSDEM on 4th February. ComDev has commenced
our organisation. We've already had two experienced admins step forwards,
with a further two newcomers expressing interest. This is very encouraging.
Outstanding:
* Publish the GSoC Admin guidelines
* Verify that new mentor selection process is documented for GSoC
* Verify infra is OK with temporary accounts for GSoC
New Tasks:
* Submit ASF to GSoC
* Work with projects to identify suitable GSoC tasks
Events and Speakers
-------------------
Ross (ComDev chair) met face to face with Nick Burch (ConCom chair) to discuss
a stronger relationship between ConCom and ComDev. As a result Nick has done
a little work on the speakers application. The intention is to make a number
of web widgets (via the Wookie podling) available for hosting via the CMS that can be embedded in project
and foundation pages. Work is ongoing.
Nick and Ross also discussed the potential relationship relating to events.
Nick has shelved this work in preference to working on the RFP for producers.
Outstanding:
* Agree scope of ConCom and ComDev collaboration on event support
* Raise awareness of Speaker and Event support materials
* Integrate speaker app with Lanyrd (hosts all ApacheCon NA12 slidedecks)
Website
-------
There was considerable discussion about the use of org.apache package names on
apache-extras. This has now been clarified in the FAQ and Guidelines.
In the last few days before this report there has been a great deal of
discussion on general@incubator.a.o It seems that reform is in the air and
many people are suggesting that some of the key functions move to ComDev.
However, there is no consensus in the IPMC about what the future should look
like and thus no clarity around what ComDev is expected to pick up.
Some members of ComDev are involved with the discussion, but until there is
more clarity in the IPMC there seems little point in taking the discussion to
ComDev lists.
New Tasks:
* Work with the IPMC to clarify any future role for ComDev in the incubation
process
Status report for the Apache Community Development Project
The Commmunity Development PMC is responsible for helping people become
involved with Apache projects
Project Status
--------------
No issues require board attention at this time.
GSoC
----
Uli, our outgoing GSoC for this year has put together an admin
guide which should be very useful for future admins. This will include
press relations activities, something we have not done well on in the past.
Outstanding:
* Verify that new mentor selection process is documented for GSoC
* Verify infra is OK with temporary accounts for GSoC
Events and Speakers
-------------------
We made plans at ApacheCon to progress the speakers and local mentors app
forwards. We hope to see some work integrating this, and the speaker
slidedecks we currently link to, with Lanyrd soon.
Nick Burch and Ross Gardler VP ConCom and ComDev met to discuss further
collaboration on ASF event support. Proposals will be presented to each
PMC for discussion during the next reporting period.
Outstanding:
* Raise awareness of Speaker and Event support materials
Website
-------
No major changes this month, just a few minor tweaks to the Speakers section.
Objectives for next period
--------------------------
* propose opportunities for further collaboration between ConCom and ComDev
with respect to events.
Status report for the Apache Community Development Project Project Status -------------- No issues require board attention at this time. GSoC ---- GSoC went well overall, although there was one serious issue regarding a mentor who was approved but is not a committer. This situation was resolved in consultation with Google. We have proposed modifications to the process to prevent this happening again. In the future, mentors have to notify their respective PMC that they intend to mentor a GSoC project. The PMC has to acknowledge and a waiting period of 72 hours starts during which objections can be voiced. A notification template will be made available to prospective mentors. In addition, we will ask infrastructure to create a special group which holders of temporary accounts, i.e. GSoC students, have to be a member of. This group will be modifiable by pmc-chairs and comdev-pmc, and will allow such temporary accounts to be reviewed and if needed closed in due time. Some stats: * Students accepted: 40 * Students who passed midterm: 38 * Students who passed final: 36 Unfortunately we, once again, failed to do any press around our GSoC activities. This needs to be made an explicit responsibility of the GSoC admin (at present it is not in the Admin support materials) Events and Speakers ------------------- ComCom are using the ComDev web space to host an ASF events calendar [1], this has yet to gain significant traction. Similarly the "speaker" application is not being used by either ConCom or press@. ComDev to work with both to figure out how best to promote use of these resources. Nick Burch and Ross Gardler (along with anyone else who cares) will be meeting to come up with a plan for these resources at ApacheCon. There are still many requests for standard slide decks about the ASF. We have collected a few slide-decks for reuse and linked to them on our website [2]. These collections need to be extended and, possibly, linked to the speaker application. Website ------- ComDev website is slowly growing to include very high level information about how ASF communities work. Rather than duplicating content held elsewhere on the a.o site we are seeking to provide a minimum fuss entry point leading towards the appropriate detail heavy documents. The arrival of OpenOffice prompted the production of a fair amount of appropriate materials to help combat some of the initial confusion over what an ASF project looks like. Mentoring --------- Mentoring activity (other than GSoC) is almost non-existent, at least as coordinated through ComDev. The EU project which was supposed to be sending people our way is currently evaluating why students did not come to us (report due before next board report). Objectives for next period -------------------------- Raise awareness of Speaker and Event support materials [1] http://community.apache.org/calendars/conferences.html [2] http://community.apache.org/speakers/slides.html
Status report for the Apache Community Development Project Project Status -------------- No issues require board attention at this time. Community --------- Google Summer of Code is underway and once again we have plenty of eager students and mentors. Even more refreshing is that we have a completely new team of admins to spread the load around. We are still not doing a good job of foundation level PR around our mentoring opportunities. Other mentoring activities are slow, with 5 interested parties approaching us over the last quarter. The third pilot of the OpenSE project which keeps promising to bring waves of students to us is now underway, but no signs of significant activity yet. Use of apache-extras.org is increasing (100 projects at time of writing). We are noticing a number of projects suggesting it as a home for extension projects that cannot use the Apache licence as a result of dependencies. There is some work underway to formally document Apaches expectations that projects will be run independently of company affiliation. Objectives for next period -------------------------- Complete GSoC and make an appropriate press release upon completion. Improve documentation about independence of Apache projects
Status report for the Apache Community Development Project Project Status -------------- The Community Development is progressing well, although a little more slowly than some whould have hoped. No issues require board attention at this time. Community --------- Google Summer of Code 2011 is in preparation stages. For the first time we have more admin volunteers than we need - which is great. The EU project (OpenSE) that planned to bring students to our mentoring programme is about to commence its second pilot run. In the first run we had a number of interested enquiries but nobody actually started work as a mentee. On the one hand this is a dissapointment, on the othe it is good to know that our ASF volunteers are not wasting time on the initial phases of engaging mentees that, ultimately, bring nothing to the project. The OpenSE team believes the main barrier is the high expectations we have of students - we make it clear that they must be self-motivated and results oriented. This coupled with the reputaton of the ASF appears to be intimidating potential mentees. In the next pilot the learning assitants are focussing on the career advantages experience with ASF projects can bring and are introducing a "community game" which will introduce students to the idea of engaging in public. Apache-extras.org was launched. As agreed the committee is hands off on the management of this site. There are currently 89 projects listed. Objectives for next period -------------------------- - Coordinate Google Summer of Code - Analyse use of apache-extras.org
Status report for the Apache Community Development Project
Project Status
--------------
The Community Development is progressing well, although a little more
slowly than some whould have hoped.
The planned mentoring project has still not been formally launched. Largely
due to the loss of the labels module in JIRA which was previously used by
projects to indicate issues appropriate for mentoring. An alernative will
be put into place very soon.
Work on a project to provide hosting for Apache related software projects
is progressing. Legal documents have all been signed, draft usage
guidelines and a FAQ are available and PMCs have been ocntacted to reserve
projects names.
We have taken ownership of party@ mailing list (no changes in usage are
proposed)
Google Summer of Code completed - thanks to all involved. It is noticable
that once again we have failed to generate any press (we never produced a
press release for press@)
We applied for the Google Code-In (Google's contest to introduce
pre-university students to the many kinds of contributions that make open
source software development possible) but were, unfortunately,
unsuccessful.
Ross Gardler has spoken at a reasonably large number of events around
Europe addressing two key themes - The Apache Way and Innovation at the
ASF.
No issues require board attention at this time.
Community
---------
An increasing number of volunteers are becoming engaged with Community
Development PMC and contact from external participants is increasing
(although still low).
Objectives for next period
--------------------------
- Gain support from at least 5 PMCs for the mentoring programme
- Formally launch mentoring programme
- Launch hosting facilities for apache related projects
Status report for the Apache Community Development Project Project Status -------------- The Community Development Project is starting to ramp up again after the Google Summer of Code efforts. We have merged the women@a.o list into the dev@community.a.o and are commencing work on rolling out the mentoring program. No issues require board attention at this time. Community --------- The women@a.o mailing list has been closed and an autoresponder inviting people to post to dev@community.a.o has been set up. The vote to merge the women@a.o list was passed unaminously. One, previously unknown, community member voted -1 (non-binding). However, the owners of the women@.a.o list reassured the ComDev PMC that the list had been largely unsuccesful in meeting the defined objectives and welcomed the opportunity to work with the ComDev PMC in ensuring that the successes of women in the ASF are duly recognised. The local mentors program and local speakers program both continue to grow. We now have 53 local mentors, and 27 local speakers. If discussions on them on foundation-wide lists is anything to go by, they continue to be of use! Interest is growing in the mentoring programme with a number of enquiries to the development list. Ross Gardler reports that there will be between 10 and 40 students approaching the ASF for mentoring as part of their formal education in September. The draft process is already [defined](http://community.apache.org/mentoringprogramme.html) and will be refined during August in consulation with interested PMCs. There was one appeal from a GSoC student that failed in the mid-term evaluation. This was examined by both Google and the ASF admins. It was felt the mentors decision was fair and that our selection process was not at fault. A minor tweak relating to the communication of our expectations to the students has been implemented. Full details can be reviewed at http://markmail.org/thread/dsn6v2dagrm5nv7q Objectives for next period -------------------------- * Gain support from at least 5 PMCs for the mentoring programme * Launch the mentoring programme in September (no press at this stage)
Status report for the Apache Community Development Project No issues require board attention at this time. Apologies for not submitting last month. Website ------- Documentation about mentoring has been moved from the wiki to the comdev website A beta site for finding local mentors and speakers has been set up at http://community.zones.apache.org/ This is reasonably well populated via members@ and we expect to start pushing it to the wider community@ soon. Google Summer of Code --------------------- 44 Students accepted, this will generate income of $22,000 For the first time there were no major complaints about the selection process. Student work is underway. Mentoring Programme ------------------- We had planned to roll out the mentoring programme after the GSoC selection process. However, this has not yet happened. Documentation is in place and a pilot is being run with a single student. However, we have not yet rolled it out across the ASF. A lack of volunteer time is the real block here, this is expected to be resolved in coming months (a day job project for one of the ComDev team relating to this activity commences in July) The Apache Way -------------- Prompted by various discussions on members@ we started a community dev blog (http://blogs.apache.org/comdev/) This will be used to post useful pointers to existing resources and expertise. We are considering which activities discussed in the members@ threads can and should be implemented by comdev
Status report for the Apache Community Development Project The community development project aims to help newcomers to The Apache Software Foundation take their first steps on their way to being a part of our community. Issues for board attention -------------------------- GSoC invoicing process The ComDev PMC would like the board to evaluate the process for making claims for GSoC payments from Google. For the board's convenience, the process is currently: a) GSoC admin informs Google of total amount owing b) Google issue a PO c) GSoC admin liaises with ASF treasurer d) ASF issues an Invoice e) Google pays invoice At present the processes seems to get stuck at c). The GSoC admin is unaware of the issuing of an invoice for 2009 and we suspect other years may have been missed as well. This not only impacts ASF income but increases our costs since travel to the mentor summit is reimbursed through the same invoice. Main items to report -------------------- - addition of Isabel Drost, Nick Birch, Noel J. Bergman and Kathey Marsden to the Community Development PMC - documentation of proposed mentoring programme [1](1.html) - commencement of our first mentored participant [2](2.html) - two press interviews in response to word of mouth discovery of the project - GSoC has been officially announced and will be run this year with Noirin Shirley as admin, Ross Gardler and Luciano Resende as co-admins - creation of a "people near you" webapp populated with people available for presenting or meeting those interested in the ASF - this is not yet public as we are awaiting the creation of a zone on which to host it Main items for next period -------------------------- - Move documentation of GSoC from wiki.apache.org to community.apache.org - Launch of the "people near you" webapp - Launch of the ASF GSoC engagement - Preparation for the official launch of the ASF mentoring programme (which will occur after GSoC has commenced) [1](1.html) http://community.apache.org/mentoringprogramme.html [2](2.html) https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COMDEV-11