Re: foundation application..

[Pascal Terjan <pterjan gmail com>]

On 12 February 2015 at 18:24, Andrea Veri <av gnome org> wrote:
> 2015-02-12 14:42 GMT+01:00 Magdalen Berns <m berns thismagpie com>:
>
> > I suggest we just make the rules much clearer to people on the outreach
> > pages by clarifying what "non-trivial" actually means. GSoC/OPW interns are
> > told to make more contributions after their 3 month internship before
> > applying. That suggests that the contributions they make over their 3 month
> > internship of 40 hours per week are trivial. It's no wonder contributors
> > find the process of making a membership application intimidating considering
> > that, isn't it? How could a volunteer compete with an someone who is being
> > paid to work on GNOME full time (even if it is just for 3 months)?
>
> I can't find a single reference of anyone ever saying contributions
> made by interns during their internship are considered as trivial by
> the Membership Committee. One of the main requirements of gaining
> Foundation Membership is being active within the community for a
> little while *after* the internship has ended to demonstrate the fact
> there's a real interest staying around and contributing to the
> Project. The rationale behind this decision is mainly related to the
> fact a good number of interns stopped contributing right after their
> internship ended and it was clear to us their intent wasn't sticking
> around the community nor they probably were passionate about our
> project to justify staying around some more. We found extending the
> contributions period (usually one or two months) for interns the best
> solution to build a membership base made of people who really love and
> care deeply about the project and the values it promotes.
>
> What you are suggesting would be accepting every single intern
> regardless of this person being really interested and passionate about
> joining the Foundation. That will probably lead to a wider membership
> base for sure but how long these people are going to really stay
> around if their interest of contributing to the project was only
> tracked by the stipend they received?

I think it is more about changing the rules to mention the additional
requirement of remaining active after the internship, as current rules
say a non-trivial improvement should be enough and an internship is
not enough which may lead to people interpreting it as their
internship not being "a non-trivial improvement".