Bonnie MacKellar wrote:
> Mark Guzdial's blog on computer science education has a somewhat
> negative post today on the usefulness of involving undergrads in open
> source development. He says that while students may be getting good
> experience working with a large codebase, they aren't getting access to
> the extablished developer community. Anyone care to comment on this?
>
> http://computinged.wordpress.com/2011/09/09/oss-is-led-by-an-elitist-circle-and-newcomers-dont-get-access/#comments
I've described this phenomenon before a couple of times.
I think of a free software community as being kind of like an onion,
with a small number of very key people setting the culture and technical
direction of a project (and doing most of the work), and outside this
layers of people working on the project because of that culture and
technical vision, working to support the goals of the project:
http://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2009/04/01/how-do-you-count-your-community-size/
And I think in mentorship it is difficult to remember what it was like
to be a beginner, or to see the obvious barriers to participation,
unless you're close to that experience. So I suggest that recently
mentored community members should (if they have the aptitude) become
mentors very quickly. I had some other suggestions for project leaders
on designing mentorship programs:
http://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2011/05/31/effective-mentoring-programs/
In short, I don't believe that there is a ghettoisation of project
newcomers, or a clique of project insiders, by design. Projects are like
any other regular social gathering (think PTA, chess club, political
party, etc.) - you are coming into an existing social hierarchy, and the
usual way that you gain access and meet people is through a social
sponsor - someone who takes you under their wing, introduces you around,
figures out what your skills & interests are, and puts you with the best
person so that you will integrate well into the group. And that's the
way I see mentors. And I would agree if you said that most projects
don't do this very well. But I would also say that it's unreasonable to
expect to become part of the core group without first understanding the
culture and politics of the group, and getting to know the people who
were there before you.
Cheers,
Dave.
--
Dave Neary
GNOME Foundation member
dneary@gnome.org
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