Re: [boost] [gsoc]

Subject: Re: [boost] [gsoc]
From: Arash Partow (arash_at_[hidden])
Date: 2012-03-24 22:52:58

On 25/03/2012 11:02 AM, Simonson, Lucanus J wrote: > > Rather than
completed libraries we should be focused on getting > active community
members out of the GSOC program. From that > perspective, biting off
more than they can chew during the summer > is actually a good thing.
If a GSOC student stops at the end of > the summer and we never hear
from them again it hardly matters > whether they finished the project
or not, because they aren't > going to be maintaining the code.  To a
certain extent, I think > that our odds of turning a GSOC student into
an active boost > community member are higher the more ambitious the
scope of the > proposal.

I agree with this point, long term retention of talent is a very
crucial issue. But we have to face the reality that most if not all
Boost projects that could be successfully completed within one GSOC
period, have already been done over the last decade - there aren't
anymore "simple" Boost projects that can be started from scratch, and
where there already exists a major desire for said functionality from
within the community, to entice someone to make such a proposal - at
the end of the day the GSOC candidates themselves want to be
successful in completing the project, but also would want to be able
to have some guarantees that they will be "successful", if that makes
sense....

Hence the two main remaining avenues for a GSOC candidate's
contributions are by building extensions upon already established
libraries GGL, GIL etc, or contributing to bug fixes and documentation
of existing projects - there is a third avenue which is quite rare,
and that is the potential candidate has been working on something long
before they entered university or whatever it takes to be GSOC
eligible, have a great deal of c++ knowledge/experience, understand
Boost structure and design concepts, and have something amazing to
offer, rare but not impossible - I believe fusion and its refactor was
a good example of this. But again none of these guarantee the
individual will become an active long term contributor.