[Soc-coordination] Debian as a GSoC umbrella org?

[Stefano Zacchiroli]

On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 02:30:17PM +0100, Obey Arthur Liu wrote:
> What is you opinion ? Would this be beneficial to the GSoC
> participation of Debian or would it be too much spread ?

I must admit I don't see the point.

Essentially, the proposal is to partition upfront slots among Debian and
sub-projects (such as, but not necessarily limited to,) blends. This
goes against a basic principle of meritocracy among proposals. Very good
proposals in one slot might remain out because in that slot all
proposals are very good, whereas not-so-good proposals will get into a
different slot if there aren't that many good proposals in that
slot. That, in turn, might reflect bad on future slot assignments *to
Debian*---as that is the name we're spending before the GSoC
organization---if it will happen that many proposals will, in the end,
fail. There is no guarantee that won't happen without upfront
partitioning of course, but I believe that meritocracy helps in
diminishing the risk.

Why can't we just allow proposals from blends to flow in together with
non-blends one? If they are good proposals, I don't doubt they will have
chances to compete side by side with other proposals, on the basis of
their merits.

Cheers.

-- 
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
zack@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -<>- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Quando anche i santi ti voltano le spalle, |  .  |. I've fans everywhere
ti resta John Fante -- V. Capossela .......| ..: |.......... -- C. Adams
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