Xapian devel - Apr 2009 - Feedback on Listing at teachingopensource.org

Hello Xapian Developers,

I am writing with feedback on your Help Wanted listing at
teachingopensource.org, specifically
http://www.teachingopensource.org/index.php/Help_Wanted:_Xapian

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).

I think you'll see more interest from students if you jazz up the listings a
bit. I think for professors it's probably fine as is, though some verbiage
about why having a good fundamental understanding of search is a good thing
for students would be useful to both parties.

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? It's pretty  low traffic and I
will
prefix all messages with [MENTORS] in the subject line so you can further
filter your mail.

http://teachingopensource.org/mailman/listinfo/tos

I'm hoping to schedule this meeting to take place the week of April 20th so
this should give you some time to subscribe.

Looking forward to working with you folks!

Cheers,
LH
-----
Leslie Hawthorn
http://www.hawthornlandings.org
http://identi.ca/lh
http://www.twitter.com/lhawthorn
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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