[Xapian-devel] Feedback on Listing at teachingopensource.org

[Olly Betts]

On Thu, Apr 02, 2009 at 11:24:21AM -0700, Leslie Hawthorn wrote:
> I am writing with feedback on your Help Wanted listing at
> teachingopensource.org, specifically
> http://www.teachingopensource.org/index.php/Help_Wanted:_Xapian

Just to fill in the background for other list readers, I added our
listing here - the idea is to advertise that we're willing to mentor
(and otherwise work with) people teaching open source and students.

Information Retrieval has a long academic history (more than 60 years)
and Xapian's underpinnings come from that.  I believe it would benefit
us greatly to have more contact with people at the forefront of that
research, as would input from young and enthusiastic developers.

> Overall, I think your project listing looks very well done. On your ideas
> page, you haven't done a lot to sell/market each idea. Why is development of
> this specific project going to improve Xapian overall? How will that
> improvement empower/improve some of the downstream projects you mention use
> Xapian (e.g. Debian, OLPC).

Fair criticism.  I've started to work through the list (but I've only
managed one entry so far) - if other people want to help, feel free.

It would be good to get it overhauled by April 20th, as I understand
that Leslie plans to direct unsuccessful student GSoC applicants to it.
A lot of promising students fail to get places, and some are interested
in getting involved with an Open Source project even without the
stipend.

> I'd like to organize an IRC meeting for the folks who have signed up on the
> teachingopensource.org FOSS Mentor Projects wiki page, and plan to organize
> the meeting time, etc., on the teachingopensource.org mailing list. Would
> whomever from your team is interested in attending please ensure that
> you're signed up on this mailing list?

I have subscribed to the list, and am happy to attend the IRC meeting
(though I'm in UTC+12 so depending when what time it is it might fit
better with someone else if anyone else is interested).

Thanks for your feedback Leslie,

Cheers,
    Olly