[Reportbug-maint] How about we ask students at Allegheny college to improve reportbug's UI?

[Stefano Zacchiroli]

On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 11:01:46AM -0400, Matthew Jadud wrote:
> (I'm not on the reportbug-maint list, so I removed it from the CC line.)

No problem, but AFAICT it's open posting, just ask to be explicitly
Cc:-ed if you want to post there without being subscribed.

> This is true. That said, I want to make sure that any community that
> I'm working with is aware that we are operating on a tight timetable
> -- my fixed, 16-week timetable is an unfortunate challenge when
> interfacing between an open source community and academia. Hence,
> knowing that the students can interact with the community, and that
> they'll be responsive, matters to me.

It's very kind of you to be clear on these matters, I believe reportbug
maintainer would appreciate knowing too.

> > free software, they can propose changes, submit patches, but it's
> > ultimately up to the software maintainer to decide what to do with
> > them. I believe that clarifying that in the beginning can avoid bad
> > feelings later on in case the reportbug maintainers will decide they
> > don't like the proposed changes.
> Absolutely. I'm 100% aware of this, and the students will be aware of
> this as well.

Good. To clarify, I was just keen of pointing that out as I'm a teacher
myself and I didn't want to incur in the risk of creating "illusion" to
students, which can have very bad consequences.

> That said, if a community is definitely not interested in interface
> efforts (at all or at this time), then I have little desire to point
> the students at the project.
> 
> So, for example, if the reportbug maintainers are not genuinely
> interested in interface efforts taking place (that is, they know
> they're not going to give serious consideration to anything the
> student team does), then that wouldn't be my first choice of a project
> to target student effort.

That totally makes sense. IMHO, the best way to verify that is to ask
the reportbug maintainers. Asheesh step was the first good one, but I
wouldn't personally give up if they don't reply: they might busy with
our current freeze and/or on vacation as of now. My suggestion is to try
catching up with them on IRC.

> Many, many thanks,

Ditto! And I suggest we remain in touch for the future, maybe organizing
a bit better our activities.

Cheers.

-- 
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
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