Previous Education Meetings logs/February 2008

1st February

Previous_Education_Meetings_logs/February_2008/1st February

8th February

Previous_Education_Meetings_logs/February_2008/8th February

[15:01] <ericb2> Let's start the meeting ?

[15:01] <vincentvikram> ok

[15:01] <ericb2> progeny: ok ?

[15:02] <progeny> ok

[15:02] <ericb2> Agenda for 8th of February 2008 meeting

[15:02] <ericb2> 1. Welcome people and devs joining Education project

[15:02] <ericb2> 2. Education Project Effort : proposed applications (work with Schools)

[15:02] <ericb2> 3. Events: FOSDEM 2008

[15:02] <ericb2> 4. Misc

[15:03] <ericb2> The first point is always a welcome for newcomer. Newcomers are invited to present themselves, and what the do

[15:03] * rggurley (n=rggurley@occhost243233.sunyocc.edu) has joined #education.openoffice.org

[15:03] <progeny> this goes to me? xD

[15:03] <ericb2> progeny: please :-)

[15:04] <ericb2> vincentvikram: you are invited too ;)

[15:04] <progeny> well not much to say

[15:04] <progeny> i'm currently in madrid doing a master course

[15:04] <progeny> on soft. eng.

[15:04] <progeny> but i'm from barcelona

[15:04] <ericb2> progeny: nice city 8-)

[15:04] <progeny> i landed to the educational foss group fromt the gsoc'07 students list

[15:04] <progeny> and from there to here :)

[15:04] <progeny> sure it is :)

[15:05] <progeny> i've not much time

[15:05] <progeny> with the master course and tring to setup my own busines

[15:05] <progeny> but i'm interested to see what you are cooking :)

[15:05] <vincentvikram> progeny: I followed the Olympics very closely when it was held at Barcelona.

[15:05] <progeny> :)

[15:06] <progeny> where are you from?

[15:06] <ericb2> progeny: thanks for your presentation, and be welcome in Education Project

[15:06] <vincentvikram> ericb2: shall I introduce myself?

[15:06] <ericb2> vincentvikram: please do !

[15:06] <vincentvikram> Ok

[15:07] <vincentvikram> I'm from Bangalore, India

[15:07] <vincentvikram> currently working with Christ college, Bangalore on various free s/w projects

[15:08] <vincentvikram> tinkering a bit on a task in GNU/Hurd.

[15:08] <vincentvikram> Coordinate Kannada(kn) localisation of Debian

[15:08] <vincentvikram> Passionate about free s/w

[15:09] <vincentvikram> well.. that would be it I suppose.

[15:09] <progeny> hurd!

[15:09] <ericb2> vincentvikram: if I'm not wrong you know sankarshan ?

[15:09] <progeny> a friend of mine started a hurd debian distro

[15:09] <vincentvikram> yes, I do.

[15:09] <vincentvikram> progeny: who?

[15:10] <progeny> pancake

[15:10] <progeny> let me pass you the link

[15:10] <ericb2> vincentvikram: well, I'm always glad to welcome newcomers, mainly when they come from all aournd the world. Be welcome in Education Project !

[15:10] <progeny> he felt so lonely doing hurt

[15:10] <vincentvikram> ericb2: thanks.

[15:10] <progeny> so, point 2?

[15:10] <ericb2> 2. Education Project Effort : proposed applications (work with Schools)

[15:11] <ericb2> let's go

[15:11] <ericb2> The idea is to create a bridge between schools and OpenOffice.org Project

[15:11] <ericb2> the most interesting for students and teachers is the real thing: write code

[15:11] <ericb2> but the barreer is too high, generaly

[15:12] <progeny> huge code base i supose

[15:12] <ericb2> and what I propose is to solve simple ( not exactly ) issues, mentoring the peers students /teachers

[15:12] <ericb2> The starting point is there : http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Education_Project/Effort

[15:12] <vincentvikram> ericb2: yes

[15:12] <ericb2> progeny: yes, Ocean of code, and without a navigator, it is dangerous ;)

[15:13] * ericb2 proposed issues, e.g. implement a correct baseline in Math ( formulas )

[15:14] <progeny> for doing that

[15:14] <ericb2> the idea is student / teachers have me ( or any other volunteer ) as contact, and I am here to explain all the basics

[15:14] <progeny> you need some veteran OO code contributors to act as mentors, right?

[15:14] <ericb2> when we need a specialist, I can organize rendez-vous and so on, with high level devs

[15:14] <ericb2> progeny: I'm developer myself, but I know personaly most of the devs in the project

[15:15] <progeny> sure

[15:15] <ericb2> progeny: this make the life easier ;)

[15:15] <progeny> but how many students can you handle at once?

[15:15] <ericb2> progeny: I think two or three, max, but not more

[15:15] <progeny> thats the point

[15:15] <ericb2> progeny: the first one intrested will be served

[15:15] <ericb2> progeny: let's start with a proof of concept

[15:15] <progeny> but

[15:16] <progeny> what i see, is that some (french) schools have been contacted

[15:16] <progeny> i dont know the relation of that contact

[15:16] <ericb2> progeny: I'll put all the information once confirmed

[15:16] <progeny> but i'm ver wrong if the idea is that they offer FOSS contribution to his students?

[15:16] <progeny> right?

[15:17] <ericb2> progeny: I'm not sure to get what yo mean. Sorry, my bad english probably. Can you explain more ?

[15:17] <vincentvikram> ericb2: The issue with development in India is that we are still dependent on face-to-face interaction, if at least in the beginning. Can something like that be arranged?

[15:18] <progeny> something like teachers saying to students: "hey, some OO guys have come to tell us that if you want to contribute they offer you a mentor"

[15:18] <vincentvikram> progeny: not exactly

[15:18] <progeny> oh

[15:18] <progeny> ok

[15:19] <vincentvikram> The students have an idea and some tangible interaction with experienced developers would make a good impact.

[15:19] <ericb2> as I said, I proposed to mentor students. The students must have a teacher, for "administrative" reason. The fact is, no newcomer , as good he could be, can write code directly for OpenOffice.org project.

[15:20] <vincentvikram> We have worked out such experiments in quite a few engg. colleges here and with reasonably good results too.

[15:20] <ericb2> here is my role: help to discover everything ( I'm working in the code since 4 years )

[15:20] <progeny> ok

[15:20] <progeny> for me to understand it

[15:20] <ericb2> *but* when we need expertise , high level devs are ok to help

[15:21] <progeny> which is the starting point: student goes to OO triing the contribute

[15:21] <ericb2> they just ask to schedule everything, because they have limited time for us

[15:21] <progeny> or OO goes to schools tring to get some students involved?

[15:21] <ericb2> progeny: the last proposal is more accurate: we are searching contributors

[15:22] <progeny> ok

[15:22] <ericb2> progeny: in return, we'll teach them what we do

[15:22] <progeny> so i dont see the diferent with what i was saying? :)

[15:22] <progeny> s/?//

[15:22] <ericb2> progeny: all ar winner: the school the students, the teachers for visibility. and the project, for the code

[15:23] <progeny> sure!

[15:23] <progeny> i agree on that

[15:23] <ericb2> progeny: some times, we say the same thing, but because of the language barreer, better repeat ;)

[15:23] <vincentvikram> ericb2: Is there a possibility that successful students may be absorbed by the project?

[15:23] <progeny> ok xD my english is not very good

[15:24] <progeny> vincentvikram: i think this is a secondary goal.

[15:24] <progeny> permanent involment

[15:24] <ericb2> vincentvikram: this is possible, but the project does not provide money. Only companies working on the porject ( Sun, Novell, IBM, RedHat .. ) will be able to hire them if this is what you mean

[15:24] <progeny> huh paid job

[15:24] <ericb2> vincentvikram: I myself have no power for that

[15:24] <vincentvikram> ok

[15:25] <ericb2> vincentvikram: nevertheless, good work for OpenOffice.org is an extremely good business card for a job ;-)

[15:25] <vincentvikram> ericb2: yes, I agree.

[15:25] <progeny> i think this is one of the more stronger driver to opensource

[15:26] <ericb2> progeny: then, feel free to propagate the idea ;-)

[15:26] <progeny> yeah

[15:26] <progeny> i dont know if i'm moving out of schedule here

[15:26] <progeny> but the foss google group has de same target

[15:26] <progeny> but without focusing in openoffce

[15:27] <progeny> more like "peak your project and we'll get a mentor"

[15:27] <ericb2> progeny: exactly. But from my side, I can't explain another software ;)