[kde-community] Should we allow non-KDE projects to participate in GSoC under KDE?

[Martin Klapetek]

On Fri, Feb 5, 2016 at 11:14 AM, Ingo Klöcker <kloecker at kde.org> wrote:

> On Wednesday 03 February 2016 14:58:54 Martin Klapetek wrote:
> > So I'd like to have this cleared - does the community agree to
> > have non-KDE projects, those that do not follow the Manifesto,
> > participate in our GSoC this year and in the following years?
> >
> > Imho this goes against the Manifesto as the projects gets to
> > "enjoy the benefits" without the complying with "commitments"
> > of the Manifesto. It's also less transparent overall (not able to
> > monitor progress as it's not on KDE infrastructure), can lead
> > to cheating and possibly kicking KDE out of GSoC in the worst
> > possible outcome.
> >
> > On the other hand, every accepted project gets the mentoring
> > organization some extra money, which is always handy.
>
> I'm sorry, but I completely lack the necessary information to give my
> opinion
> in this matter. From the thread I gather that there have been issues in the
> past with at least one non-KDE project. But without a list of the pros and
> cons and a short summary of the past experience with allowing non-KDE
> projects
> how am I supposed to decide?
>

If you are subscribed to kde-soc-mentor and have been in the
past, look up "About GSoC mentoring" thread from 2013.

In short: Tupi wanted to do GSoC with us, many people in that
thread said "sorry, GSoC is only for KDE projects". That same
year (and same thread) also ownCloud wanted to have a GSoC
slot for better KDE integration. Again people agreed to "sorry,
this is for KDE projects only" (and ownCloud didn't consider
themselves a KDE project). GCompris was a similar situation
but they joined in time and all was fine iirc.

Year later SubSurface wanted a slot, we again said "you either
become a KDE project or we're sorry" so they didn't get a slot.

Last year after GSoC has started, Vishesh found out that Calamares
is in our accepted GSoC projects and yet is not a KDE project
(and was put up by the GSoC admin). There was a long discussion
where it was said it is at least unfair to all those previously rejected
projects and that it was thought to be a rule to not accept non-KDE
projects based on discussions and decisions from previous years,
so how come this one got accepted etc etc etc.

This was all discussed on non-public mailing lists but I believe this
is actually a community matter as it affects the whole community
and as such the community should have a say in it. If only for the
reason that we all have our little side projects that are not in KDE
and would maybe want to join GSoC and nobody knows if it is
allowed or not.

Cheers
-- 
Martin Klapetek | KDE Developer
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