Should we become a community partner for FOSS Hack 2020?
FOSS United Foundation is a registered non-profit founded in 2020, dedicated to the cause of building Free and Open Source (FOSS) projects and communities in India and elsewhere.
I believe their goals resonate with that of ours too. They explicitly mention free software in their goals. They have a commitment to Free Software.
FOSS Hack 2020 is an online hackathon organized by the FOSS United Foundation to promote the creation and use of FOSS in India. They would like us to be their community partner.
I think it is a great opportunity for us to engage with more people and communities outside our usual circles.
Here's the mail Vishal, their community person sent me.
Hi Team FSCI,
This is Vishal from FOSS United. I get to know about FSCI through Abraham.
Zerodha and ERPNext are setting up a non-profit foundation (FOSS United - fossunited.org/) to promote FOSS in India.
For now, we're organizing an online FOSS hackathon(fossunited.org/hackathon) on September 12th and are creating a 10L prize money pot for the winners. As of now, we have onboarded 10 sponsors including GitHub, DigitalOcean and Unacademy.
We are partnering with communities/organizations to promote FOSS in India. We would love to have FSCI as a partner who can help us to reach more FOSS enthusiasts and strengthen the FOSS ecosystem in India.
I am attaching the community partnership prospectus. PFA.
What do you think?
best,
Vishal Arya,
I'm also attaching the 'Community Partnership Prospectus' they attached with the mail.
To avoid any confusion, I am not part of FOSS United in any way. Vishal and I know each other from community meetups and I suggested him FSCI as a possible community partner because I felt this would be something our community would be interested in :).
Poll Created Sun 16 Aug 2020 2:58PM
Should we become a community partner for FOSS Hack 2020? Closed Wed 19 Aug 2020 3:00PM
Details are mentioned above. Please feel free to ask any doubts you may have below. I will try to answer the ones I can to the best of my ability and others I'll relay to the FOSS United Team.
Do go through the following links to get a better idea of the project, before you vote:
Results
| Results | Option | % of points | Voters | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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Agree | 33.3% | 1 |
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| Abstain | 33.3% | 1 |
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| Disagree | 33.3% | 1 |
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| Undecided | 0% | 208 |
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3 of 211 people have participated (1%)
Pirate Praveen
Sun 16 Aug 2020 8:56PM
I personally don't think you can contribute to random projects in 2 days without those projects getting involved.
Pirate Praveen Tue 25 Aug 2020 12:04PM
@Abraham Raji https://abhas.io/advice-to-students-for-hackathons/ written by @Abhas Abhinav is relevant in this context.
Pirate Praveen Sun 30 Aug 2020 10:48AM
@Abhas Abhinav had some ideas about organizing a hackathon based on the values we promote - emphasizing philosophy over money, in a personal mail thread for another Free Software group. We will share more details here once we have an initial meeting today and we will continue the discussions in public here.
Pirate Praveen Sun 30 Aug 2020 2:25PM
Notes from today's meeting https://cryptpad.fr/pad/#/2/pad/edit/u70-awtitx1-tpcDNi4jCf9t/
Akshay Sat 12 Sep 2020 3:36PM
Although I missed this discussion, I think it was the right call to not join as community partners. The format of hackathons seem to send all kinds of wrong impression to young programmers about free software. While I appreciate the efforts of FOSS United, I find the vibe quite difficult to relate with. I agree that they're thinking on the hard topics like sustainability in FOSS and that the effort they put in is wholehearted. But for some reason I feel like they represent open source much more than free software.
Abraham Raji Sat 12 Sep 2020 4:22PM
@Akshay Even though I made this proposal I'm actually happy with the decision we ended up taking and the resulting consequences, thinking back now. Both communities (FOSSU and FSCI) are trying to solve different aspects of the problem and have their own answers. I failed to see that back then. Their answer may not sound right to us and our answer may not sound right to them and that's fine. I like the fact that they're trying. I can't really speak for their effectiveness as I haven't attended any of their sessions myself. I believe both communities (FOSSU and FSCI) are relevant in their own way and if both communities stay true to the cause, we both can bring a lot of positive change.
Pirate Praveen · Sun 16 Aug 2020 8:57PM
I would be okay, if existing projects are involved as mentors.