Seeking Mentors for Funded Reviewers

On 1/24/11 12:17 PM, Richard Broersma wrote:

PgUS is preparing to fund a grant for PgUS members to learn and
participate in the patch review process. We looking for experienced
reviewers that can assist a candidate through to process of testing a
patch - to submitting the final review. The ultimate deliverable
would be the actual review posted to Hackers.

Would anyone be available to assist with this?

Do we have candidate mentees?

--
-- Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
http://www.pgexperts.com

On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 5:53 PM, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote:

On 1/24/11 12:17 PM, Richard Broersma wrote:

PgUS is preparing to fund a grant for PgUS members to learn and
participate in the patch review process. We looking for experienced
reviewers that can assist a candidate through to process of testing a
patch - to submitting the final review. The ultimate deliverable
would be the actual review posted to Hackers.

Would anyone be available to assist with this?

Do we have candidate mentees?

Not at the moment. Were still in the process of getting ready.

We have the funding. We're looking for mentors. Next we'll just about
ready to open the application process. But I'd expect several weeks to pass
before have ready to look at applicants.

--
Regards,
Richard Broersma Jr.

On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 2:43 AM, Richard Broersma
<richard.broersma@gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 5:53 PM, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote:

On 1/24/11 12:17 PM, Richard Broersma wrote:

PgUS is preparing to fund a grant for PgUS members to learn and
participate in the patch review process.  We looking for experienced
reviewers that can assist a candidate through to process of testing a
patch - to submitting the final review.  The ultimate deliverable
would be the actual review posted to Hackers.

Would anyone be available to assist with this?

Do we have candidate mentees?

Not at the moment.  Were still in the process of getting ready.

We have the funding.  We're looking for mentors.  Next we'll just about
ready to open the application process.  But I'd expect several weeks to pass
before have ready to look at applicants.

Will the scheme be open to everyone, or just .USians? If the latter,
I'd be a little concerned that it may have a negative effect on
attracting reviewers from outside the US.

--
Dave Page
Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com
Twitter: @pgsnake

EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 12:42 AM, Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote:

Will the scheme be open to everyone, or just .USians?

I do believe that such grants are limited to members of PgUS. Although, I
should mention that there's no restriction for residents of any country
becoming a member of PgUS.

If the latter,
I'd be a little concerned that it may have a negative effect on
attracting reviewers from outside the US.

Hmm... I hadn't considered the possibility of PgUS grants beings a turn-off
to potential non-US residents. Would PgUS's open enrollment alleviate your
concern?

--
Regards,
Richard Broersma Jr.

On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 1:39 PM, Richard Broersma
<richard.broersma@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 12:42 AM, Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote:

Will the scheme be open to everyone, or just .USians?

I do believe that such grants are limited to members of PgUS.  Although, I
should mention that there's no restriction for residents of any country
becoming a member of PgUS.

OK.

If the latter,
I'd be a little concerned that it may have a negative effect on
attracting reviewers from outside the US.

Hmm...  I hadn't considered the possibility of PgUS grants beings a turn-off
to potential non-US residents.  Would PgUS's open enrollment alleviate your
concern?

Yes, I think so.

--
Dave Page
Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com
Twitter: @pgsnake

EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

On Tue, 2011-01-25 at 14:14 +0000, Dave Page wrote:

On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 1:39 PM, Richard Broersma
<richard.broersma@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 12:42 AM, Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote:

Will the scheme be open to everyone, or just .USians?

I do believe that such grants are limited to members of PgUS. Although, I
should mention that there's no restriction for residents of any country
becoming a member of PgUS.

OK.

Correct. You will have to be a member of PgUS. However, we don't
restrict who can be a member.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

--
PostgreSQL.org Major Contributor
Command Prompt, Inc: http://www.commandprompt.com/ - 509.416.6579
Consulting, Training, Support, Custom Development, Engineering
http://twitter.com/cmdpromptinc | http://identi.ca/commandprompt

On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 9:46 AM, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote:

In several weeks, the review period for 9.1 will be over. Is this a plan
for 9.2?

Yes. Our timing for this grant is unfortunate as it will likely be issued
too late to be useful for the 9.1 commit-fests. The delay is mostly my
fault. I wasn't able to devote enough time to the grant process late last
year.

However, having a mentee begin work early in the 9.2 commit-fest cycle might
be advantageous. I imagine that there is less pressure to review all of the
patches in the early commit-fests. Perhaps this will give prospective
mentors the ablility to spend more time with mentee's.

--
Regards,
Richard Broersma Jr.

However, having a mentee begin work early in the 9.2 commit-fest cycle
might be advantageous. I imagine that there is less pressure to review
all of the patches in the early commit-fests. Perhaps this will give
prospective mentors the ablility to spend more time with mentee's.

For 9.1, what about doing a bug-finding bounty when we get into the 9.1
beta cycle? Mozilla has been using bug bounties and they've been
surprisingly successful.

--
-- Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
http://www.pgexperts.com

On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 11:15 AM, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote:

For 9.1, what about doing a bug-finding bounty when we get into the 9.1
beta cycle? Mozilla has been using bug bounties and they've been
surprisingly successful.

This is do-able. We just have to present this in a way that will meet the
requirements of the 501c.

It needs to be a learning experience and there needs to be a well defined
criteria of what will be delivered by the person awarded with the grant.

--
Regards,
Richard Broersma Jr.

On Mon, 2011-01-24 at 18:43 -0800, Richard Broersma wrote:

We have the funding. We're looking for mentors. Next we'll just
about ready to open the application process. But I'd expect several
weeks to pass before have ready to look at applicants.

You're paying the reviewers; are you paying the mentors?

Are the mentors restricted to being US members?

--
Simon Riggs http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/books/
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training and Services

On Tue, 2011-01-25 at 11:15 -0800, Josh Berkus wrote:

However, having a mentee begin work early in the 9.2 commit-fest cycle
might be advantageous. I imagine that there is less pressure to review
all of the patches in the early commit-fests. Perhaps this will give
prospective mentors the ablility to spend more time with mentee's.

For 9.1, what about doing a bug-finding bounty when we get into the 9.1
beta cycle? Mozilla has been using bug bounties and they've been
surprisingly successful.

Many people are contributing patches for free. Will those people get
paid to fix their own bugs? I guess they might well be better at finding
and fixing them than others, so it is an interesting question.

--
Simon Riggs http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/books/
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training and Services

On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 6:15 AM, Simon Riggs <simon@2ndquadrant.com> wrote:

Many people are contributing patches for free. Will those people get
paid to fix their own bugs? I guess they might well be better at finding
and fixing them than others, so it is an interesting question.

I remember hearing about a case where the programmers started leaving
bugs in their code on purpose, so they could get paid for fixing them.
Setting these things up so that they work well can be tricky.

--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 3:12 AM, Simon Riggs <simon@2ndquadrant.com> wrote:

We have the funding. We're looking for mentors. Next we'll just
about ready to open the application process. But I'd expect several
weeks to pass before have ready to look at applicants.

You're paying the reviewers; are you paying the mentors?

I don't believe that PgUS can use the word "pay." Since PgUS is a 501(c)3
non-profit organization, there are restrictions how funding can be used.
One such way is to award grants to provide a learning experience by
development of a well defined deliverable.

are you paying the mentors?

Honestly, I hadn't considered the possibility of funding mentors. I'll
have to raise this question with PgUS to see if there is a provision for
this. However at this point-in-time, I am only proposing funding the
reviewer. The utlimate goal is to add more people to the ranks of
reviewers.

Are the mentors restricted to being US members?

The mentors can be anyone. If the possibility exists that PgUS can fund
mentors, then prospective mentors will need to be or become members of
PgUS.

--
Regards,
Richard Broersma Jr.

On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 12:17:16PM -0800, Richard Broersma wrote:

PgUS is preparing to fund a grant for PgUS members to learn and
participate in the patch review process. We looking for experienced
reviewers that can assist a candidate through to process of testing a
patch - to submitting the final review. The ultimate deliverable
would be the actual review posted to Hackers.

Would anyone be available to assist with this?

Thoughts?

I'm thinking that we should consider *very* carefully before we
introduce payments into what had been an all-volunteer effort. You
may get people to do things they might not otherwise have done, but
you'll also make people wonder whether they should be volunteering at
all.

Offhand, I'd say this is a really bad idea.

Cheers,
David.
--
David Fetter <david@fetter.org> http://fetter.org/
Phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666 Yahoo!: dfetter
Skype: davidfetter XMPP: david.fetter@gmail.com
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On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 7:38 AM, David Fetter <david@fetter.org> wrote:

I'm thinking that we should consider *very* carefully before we
introduce payments into what had been an all-volunteer effort. You
may get people to do things they might not otherwise have done, but
you'll also make people wonder whether they should be volunteering at
all.

Offhand, I'd say this is a really bad idea.<http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate&gt;

Wow, I hadn't considered this.

But I'm reminded of GSOC, which is essentially doing something similar. Has
this effect already taken place among the volunteering patch writers?

--
Regards,
Richard Broersma Jr.

On Jan 26, 2011, at 7:48 AM, Richard Broersma wrote:

On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 7:38 AM, David Fetter <david@fetter.org> wrote:

I'm thinking that we should consider *very* carefully before we
introduce payments into what had been an all-volunteer effort. You
may get people to do things they might not otherwise have done, but
you'll also make people wonder whether they should be volunteering at
all.

Offhand, I'd say this is a really bad idea.

Wow, I hadn't considered this.

But I'm reminded of GSOC, which is essentially doing something similar. Has this effect already taken place among the volunteering patch writers?

GCOC has been great. It helps bring in people who otherwise might not have participated in a project. IME, those who were already on a project were glad to have them.

I think M. Fetter is completely wrong. If people are rethinking whether they should volunteer based on whether other people are being funded for their time to review patches, we don't want such people around anyway. Let them leave.

You might consider targeting a specific audience, though. Part of GCOC's success has been in allowing a class of people to participate who otherwise would have had to get summer jobs flipping burgers. If you're helping people to help the project who otherwise could not have, it's a good thing.

Best,

David

On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 9:31 AM, David E. Wheeler <david@kineticode.com>wrote:

Part of GCOC's success has been in allowing a class of people to
participate who otherwise would have had to get summer jobs flipping
burgers.

This is essentially the idea for this grant, to fund a person in learning a
new skill. And hopefully, such a person might continue to offer support for
the project after the initial experience.

--
Regards,
Richard Broersma Jr.

On Jan 26, 2011, at 9:40 AM, Richard Broersma wrote:

On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 9:31 AM, David E. Wheeler <david@kineticode.com> wrote:

Part of GCOC's success has been in allowing a class of people to participate who otherwise would have had to get summer jobs flipping burgers.

This is essentially the idea for this grant, to fund a person in learning a new skill. And hopefully, such a person might continue to offer support for the project after the initial experience.

Perfect.

David

On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 3:12 AM, Simon Riggs <simon@2ndquadrant.com> wrote:

You're paying the reviewers; are you paying the mentors?

The answer to this question is that we can fund mentor (teacher). However,
the amount to fund a mentor would be significantly less that the amount to
fund a reviewer (student). The mentors are part of the educational process.

--
Regards,
Richard Broersma Jr.