[FM Discuss] thoughts on the gsoc event

[adam hyde]

hey

So a quick report. The GSoC (Google Summer of Code) Doc Summit happened 
last week. It was an event proposed by me to the GSoC Open Source 
Projects team. I had done 2 sprints with them, the first by invitation 
of Leslie Hawthorn (who has since left) and the second by Carol Smith 
and Cat Allman. These two sprints were focused on preparing manuals on 
the GSoC Mentoring process - one manual for students and one for mentors.

They are both hosted on FM and are used by the teams.

So, since we had pretty much written these guides and updated them the 
following year I proposed a doc summit instead to the GSoC team. They 
responded positively, mainly because I think they were happy with the 2 
other guides.

Cat Allman came forward and said they would do it. We worked out the 
format quickly. It was actually easy since Gunner from Aspiration and I 
had talked about such an event and had it on the cards. The GSoC event 
was an opportunity to prototype this format. So the proposal was to 
combine an Unconf with a Book Sprint.

As it happens this idea then got momentum as we discussed this format at 
the FM meet up which happened after the initial GSoC negotiations and 
before the GSoC event. At the FM meet up we agreed we must go ahead with 
this format "Sprint Unconf" so we were already planning more before the 
format was tested ;) I think there is more news of these ideas coming 
soon. If you want to be involved in the logistics for these events join 
the admin list:
http://lists.flossmanuals.org/listinfo.cgi/admin-flossmanuals.org

Note! the admin list is *not* for lurkers. You must take on tasks to 
push fm forward if you join this list.

Ok, so then we sent out calls for proposals. We wanted both individuals 
and projects to apply. The application process was as simple as we could 
make it - I think it would take anyone 5 minutes at a minimum to apply. 
That is afterall the FM way - make participation easy.

We got about 60 applications. 40 or so projects and the rest 
individuals. GSoC ad the budget to pay for about 20 people (food, accom, 
travel) so we tried to work out a good mix from the applications. We 
chose 4 projects, they all happened to be 2012 GSoC projects. This was 
not a filter by the way, we kept the process open to *any* free software 
project, it just turned out that way. On this note I also must say that 
I trust the motivations of the GSoC team implicitly. They have always 
been very open and are genuinely working to help free software wherever 
possible. I am very pleased we are working with them and hope it continues.

Ok...so then there was the requisite logistics. The GSoC team, 
specifically Stephanie and Carol stepped in and made this easy.

So then the event.

Well Gunner, being the Unconf maestro stepped in and took care of 
formatting the unconf before the event. I feel its almost redundant to 
say he was awesome. It almost goes without saying ;) The first day he 
really got 30 (20 from projects and about 10 individuals not affiliated 
with the 4 projects) people talking and feeling like one group. He also 
facilitated the process for Janet Swisher and Michael McAndrew who were 
guests ’presenters’ (it was an unconf so presentations dont fit the 
format so Gunner worked with Janet and Michael to make these interactive 
sessions).

The next day was Sprint day #1. well, I have to say I wasnt sure how 
this was going to wok :) I had a pretty good feeling it was going to 
work, having now done 30 or so sprints, but i wasnt sure of the exact 
path. Facilitating 4 sprints concurrently is tricky. Thankfully Anne 
Goldenberg (on the board of the french fm) was there as I am training 
her to facilitate Book Sprints. So I briefed Anne and she took to 
working through the sprint with the OpenStreetMap team and I took to 
facilitating Sahana and KDE and Gunner helped here a lot for the first 
day especially with the generation of the ToC and oiling the engine for 
OpenMRS.

We also divided the "floaters" (people not affiliated to projects) to 
the groups.

Well, the rest is more or less sprinting. Writing, reviewing, yadda 
yadda...using the various tricks and methods developed over the last 3 
or so years. All went pretty smoothly. I think the word counts were 
something like 25000 words or so for each of OpenStreetMap, OpenMRS, and 
Sahana Eden. 10,000 or so for KDE.

All this time Tuukka (who was there) was working on the new dev for the 
lulu.com export. He finished the beta and implemented it about 35 
seconds before we were planning to use it :D He didnt sweat! Very calm. 
Laleh Torabi designed some wonderful covers. So we invited Sahana Eden 
up to the front of the group and then exported the book DIRECT to 
lulu.com. Thats right, one push of the button and the book was 
IMMEDIATELY for sale in lulu.com....it was magic...

We asked all groups before this to create a lulu account so they could 
manage the books themselves and take the revenue. Also I have to note 
that throughout the event we emphasised that we were using Booki for the 
sprint but groups can take the content off Fm at any point. I wanted to 
emphasise that this event was not to make these projects part of Fm but 
to help them make good documentation.

We then went through the process back at the hotel for all the other 
groups.

I think its fair to say that people were astonished.

The last day was feedback and debrief unconf facilitated by Gunner and 
then ...you thought it had ended? no! The GSoC team had agreed to get 
paper books printed and so we distributed 20 of each of the four 
*beautiful* books to the mentor summit the next day. All bound and 
shiny...they looked amazing and set off quite a buzz.

Ok...so things to think about.

First, the event was much more successful than I hoped. Some things to 
think about:
* The discussions elevated beyond "what are my issues right now" to 
discussing how we can oil collaboration between open source 
documentation projects.
* one group already had 2 books released by established publishers. at 
first they didnt know why they should really do a book but at the end of 
the process they got it. closed source (proprietary) books are not good 
for open source. It was great to see this realisation evolve without me 
having to turn into an ideologue
* the process of asking for proposals from groups meant that many 
applied not really knowing what they were going to do. some turned up 
thinking they would work on their wiki docs. We just bulldozed through 
those expectations and got them on the road to making books without 
allowing them time to think. at the end the appreciated it. I think this 
goes to show we helped people see another, more interesting, way to 
doing things.
* I was particularly proud that at the end it was commonly accepted that 
wikis are just scratch pads and books require a much nicer readable 
narrative that is better for the reader
* I have received a tonne of feedback about how the books have already 
been used by the groups.
* booki has many bugs we need to address
* having the floaters there really worked - groups loved the extra minds 
and muscle. I am hoping some of the floaters will continue to be 
involved in the groups they were connected to
* the format absolutely worked. proof positive of the format for the 
future events...
* as always we have a lot to thank Gunner and Aspiration for
* the GSoC team were fantastic and I think they were pleased with it.

thats it in brief...maybe some of the others that were there would like 
to chip in some thoughts...




adam