Google Code-in != Drupal

Submitted by slashrsm on

Google Summer of code is very well know in our community, but it is not the only Google's program for open source projects. Another interesting project is Code-in, which is focused on pre-university students aged between 13 an 17 years. It's goal is to promote open source between young people and to encourage them to participate. Code-in is a great opportunity for projects like Drupal to attract new enthusiasts that have potential to become good developers in the future.

Chx posted a post seeking group organizers for Code-in a while ago. As a former Drupal's SoC student and mentor I found Code-in very interesting, so I volunteered. I wrote an announcement asking people to propose task ideas and started working on application itself. The announcement was posted on g.d.o front page, Twitter, Drupal planet and my blog. In order to apply we needed at least 25 tasks and we would need between 125 and 175 if accepted. Unfortunately not a single proposal was posted. As a result we did not apply at all and we'll be only able to watch other projects recruiting potential future driving force.

I am perfectly aware of Drupal 8 and the fact that most of active contributors are currently focused on it's development more than 100%, but I was still a bit disappointed. We have quite a big community and I believe that we should be able to find 50 contributors that would propose 3 tasks each even in times like this. 

My intention is not to rant and spread negative energy. My primary goal is to rise awareness about this question and to improve our attitude to Code-in. I am still ready to help and I believe that we can succeed next year.

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Comments

Better next time! :)

Submitted by Wim leers (not verified) on

While it may be sad that we missed it this year, let's just make sure we kick ass next year. Please reach out in time to the most visible people in the community. They'll know who you should talk to to generate enough tasks and publicity. If you'd ask around in #drupal-contribute on IRC, you'll surely end up finding the right people.

Alternatively, you could create a mailing list (or … a http://drupal.org/project/webform) or something similar so that you have an easy way to reach out to people who want to help out. I'd subscribe :)

IRC

Submitted by nod_ (not verified) on

The way i'd go about that is jumping on IRC, visiting #drupal-contribute and asking around. From what I can read you're not saying which areas you're interested in. Means that you're probably fine with whatever but giving suggestion helps.

More generally the way to go is ask people directly. Look at MAINTAINERS.txt pick the parts that sounds interesting to you and contact the maintainers.

To me this is only natural,

Submitted by Bojhan (not verified) on

To me this is only natural, its very common for the same contributors to be involved each year in making things like this happen. They aren't bother to be involved anymore, unless you address them directly as suggested in the comments above. This is a mere side-effect of having the same people involved, you will need dedicated new people to take up these parts of core development even for creating proposals.

I'm with Wim. I don't

Submitted by Cameron Eagans ... (not verified) on

I'm with Wim. I don't remember hearing about this either, which is really too bad because I live right next to a college campus and could have posted flyers and pushed the program through the university's CS department.

You should talk to xjm - I bet she'd love to promote Google Code-In during Core Mentoring Hours. I bet webchick would have some ideas about how to promote it as well. (I realize that it's too late now -- but for next year. You could also reach out to me and I'll try to put you in touch with a couple people that I know that could push it through their universities)

Thank you - and Sorry

Submitted by Donna - kattekrab (not verified) on

Hey Janez,

First - I want to thank you for the effort you DID put in - to announcing it, to preparing an application. And I want to apologise for not trying harder to spread the word, and engage people in the process to get tasks written.

I was aware of the code-in as I've been a big fan of this google initiative since it's first incarnation as GHOP and I should have done more.

This is definitely a missed opportunity - but as others have said above - we know we can do better, and work towards being better prepared next time.

In fact, it still probably wouldn't hurt to create these kinds of tasks anyway - build an ongoing initiative of small bite size starter tasks that will help our project, and help new contributors get started, that way when we need to swing into action for the CODE-IN - we'll already have everything in place.

Good on you for posting this and letting more people know!

That is a really good idea!

Submitted by slashrsm on

That is a really good idea! However, I doubt people will be interested to write tasks now, but we can try ask for tasks proposals a month or two before next Code-IN. We would give people enough time to prepare them this way. What do you think about that?

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