Hi, There are lots of things that we can do with "Students" besides GSoC. Definitely talking at universities and in a student linux/java user group is one of them.
In general, I would say that students are shy with engaging a community of professionals, and may not be up to submitting patches, talking on lists, and IRC. You can find a few students here and there who would give valuable contribution to CloudStack but they will be few. That said engaging students is a worthy endeavor. I was thinking we could develop an "EDU" area similar to what Google has done with http://code.google.com/edu , there www.google.com/edu is amazing but a bit far beyond reach right now. Quite a bit of our content (docs, slideshare, youtube) could be refactored to provide useful lessons plans around cloud computing, and provide tutorials. This is why for example I am very interested in DevCloud, it's a dev environment but also a great teaching tool. PS: Two examples of current collaboration with universities: *I have been working with University of Florida to help them put CloudStack on the FutureGrid (A US project): https://portal.futuregrid.org/projects/250 Some of you might meet Mauricio Tsugawa at the collaboration conference. *I am also working with a french engineering school who is using cloudstack as a capstone project: http://btrcloudstack.free.fr/btrCloudStack.php I would be happy to work with anyone interested in this and help coordinate an education plan for our community. -Sebastien On Nov 12, 2012, at 5:14 PM, Alex Karasulu <akaras...@apache.org> wrote: > On Mon, Nov 12, 2012 at 5:08 PM, David Nalley <da...@gnsa.us> wrote: > >>> Before going too deep into incentive programs, though, I'd encourage >>> checking out Stormy Peters' talk: "Would you do it again for free?" >>> >>> http://stormyscorner.com/would-you-do-it-again-for-free >>> >>> tl;dr - incentive programs don't always wind up generating long-term >>> involvement. >> >> >> This is my concern with GSoC - while it has produced some rockstars >> (and we even have someone who was involved in GSoC working on >> CloudStack, my experience is that unless the folks were previously >> involved with a project before GSoC they are gone after the fact, >> which is a huge loss for the investment needed. >> >> In general mentoring new folks is a huge timesink: >> >> > For the same reasons some sited above and below I feel the same. I've seen > 0% retention for GSoC students on the 4-5 projects I've seen take part in > GSoC. This is unfortunate indeed. > > >> If you look at the statistics pointed out by Dave Neary: >> in the first half of this blog post: >> http://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2011/05/31/effective-mentoring-programs/ >> You'll note that generally speaking they assume only 25% of mentored >> individuals will stay around, and that for the project mentoring >> students appears to be a net loss. >> >> My personal experience with students in Fedora has been less than >> encouraging, to the point I stopped my efforts in that area >> altogether. My experience was that the people who were interested >> would come looking on their own, would be easy to help, and would stay >> around much longer; going out recruiting, particularly among student >> populations (people who by definition are going through lots of change >> in a very rapid time period, have shifting priorities, etc) rarely >> yields any long term (more than a semester) contributors. >> >> Not trying to discourage you (or even say you shouldn't do it) just a >> heads up on some of the experiences of others. >> > > Ditto. > > -- > Best Regards, > -- Alex
