Re: Laptops for Outreachy interns

[Craig Russell <ap...@gmail.com>]

Hi Patricia,

This is exactly what I was looking for in terms of what kinds of barriers people face and how to reduce these barriers. 

Thanks for this insight,

Craig

> On Jun 30, 2019, at 8:30 AM, Patricia Shanahan <pa...@acm.org> wrote:
> 
> I think you may be forgetting the women in India. As Sage pointed out, some of them are subject to an imposed curfew. Depending on their area and travel arrangements, others will have decided for themselves that traveling back to their living quarters late in the day is too dangerous.
> 
> This is a question I had to consider seriously in the early 1970's, when I decided to do a master's degree in CS by evening study. At that time, of course, there were no PCs, laptops, or home Internet access. All my programming had to be done at college. It worked only because I felt reasonably safe walking along Marylebone Road, London late in the evening.
> 
> If their dorm or home does not have reliable WiFi, a laptop-as-terminal is useless to them in the evening. A laptop with the capacity store, edit, and build reasonably fast would let them program in the evening.
> 
> 
> On 6/30/2019 7:45 AM, Kevin A. McGrail wrote:
>> Interesting idea.  And then a decent but inexpensive chromebook would do
>> the trick nicely.  They can even run debian in development mode.
>> On Sun, Jun 30, 2019, 10:42 Craig Russell <ap...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hi Sage,
>>> 
>>> Thanks for this.
>>> 
>>> When I thought of why to provide laptops for interns, I thought of the
>>> challenges of compiling a large code base. I thought of a possible
>>> solution, which is using virtual machines (managed by the mentor
>>> organization) to do the heavy lifting. Obviously, this would mean that the
>>> intern would need a laptop and internet access but would not need a fully
>>> up-to-date laptop.
>>> 
>>> I'm not quibbling, just looking for more insight.
>>> 
>>> Thanks,
>>> 
>>> Craig
>>> 
>>>> On Jun 30, 2019, at 7:04 AM, Sage Sharp <sh...@otter.technology> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> The short answer is yes, the ASF could provide laptops to selected
>>> interns.
>>>> 
>>>> I'm setting the boundary that this thread *NOT* devolve into a discussion
>>>> of where the funds for those laptops come from. Please create a *separate
>>>> thread* for discussions about that. Let's keep this thread on the topic
>>> of
>>>> what sending laptops would look like, what incentive that provides, and
>>> the
>>>> known pitfalls.
>>>> 
>>>> Mozilla already provides laptops to selected interns. It's the only
>>>> Outreachy community to do so. Mozilla provides laptops because compiling
>>>> the massive Firefox code base is very slow and/or impossible on older
>>>> laptops. I'm not sure how they work around that issue in the application
>>>> phase, but I can ask the Mozilla coordinators.
>>>> 
>>>> Word about how the Mozilla interns get a laptop seemed to spread quickly
>>> to
>>>> applicants from Indian universities (Outreachy's largest demographic).
>>>> Applicants are very excited about the possibility of getting a laptop, so
>>>> much that they often search for Mozilla projects to apply to first.
>>> Mozilla
>>>> also has several other things that make them one of the more popular
>>>> communities for applicants, including a welcoming community, mostly web
>>>> development projects, and accepting a large number of interns.
>>>> 
>>>> There are some issues on Mozilla's side with sending a laptop. They often
>>>> get held up in customs. One intern from India did not get the laptop
>>> until
>>>> the internship was over.
>>>> 
>>>> That means Mozilla wants to lock down their intern selections as early as
>>>> possible in order to get their interns' address for laptop shipping. They
>>>> have to bend Outreachy's rule about not talking about intern selections
>>>> until the intern announcement date. They send interns an email asking for
>>>> their address to send "some Mozilla swag". I say it's bending the rule
>>>> because some applicants may guess asking for their address means they
>>> were
>>>> selected as an intern.
>>>> 
>>>> Giving the laptop to an intern directly is a way to avoid long customs
>>>> delays. If all the interns attend an ASF event during their first weeks,
>>> a
>>>> laptop could be given to them there. It also has the added benefit of
>>>> immediately connecting interns to the community.
>>>> 
>>>> The only problem with in-person events is getting a visa in time. That's
>>>> impossible enough for Indian interns that Mozilla has simply stopped
>>>> inviting them to events on a short notice.
>>>> 
>>>> I've thought some about what it would take for Outreachy to provide
>>> laptops
>>>> for all 40+ interns. Sadly I think that budget number is out of our
>>> reach.
>>>> If it was possible, we could try to work with a laptop supplier that
>>> ships
>>>> directly within India. Or give interns enough of a stipend to buy one
>>>> themselves.
>>>> 
>>>> A laptop itself may not solve all the barriers interns face. Some Indian
>>>> schools impose an evening curfew for all women students, in order to
>>>> protect them from gendered street violence. However, that means they have
>>>> less hours in the computer lab than the male students. Some of the
>>> women's
>>>> dorms do not have wireless internet. Interns from both India and Africa
>>>> often face power or internet outages. Outreachy mentors are expected to
>>> be
>>>> lienent when that happens.
>>>> 
>>>> That's a brain dump of what I know about sending laptops to Outreachy
>>>> interns. Let me know what questions you have!
>>>> 
>>>> Sage Sharp
>>>> Outreachy Organizers
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Sat, Jun 29, 2019, 7:47 AM Alex Harui <ah...@adobe.com.invalid>
>>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> Can I get a summary of all of these Outreachy threads?  I'm not on
>>>>> private@diversity and I think I've read every email on this list, but
>>> I'm
>>>>> seeing numbers like $10.5K being discussed and I have no clue where that
>>>>> number came from.  I'm on fundraising@ as well and still don't recall
>>> any
>>>>> source for those numbers.  Also, I thought that there was more than one
>>>>> entity that was willing to donate directly to Outreachy and there was
>>> only
>>>>> one or two ASF sponsors who were unable to redirect their money
>>> directly to
>>>>> Outreachy, so I don't understand why we are still having these long
>>>>> discussions.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I thought that if some entity was to donate money directly to Outreachy
>>>>> that there were no objections from anybody even if it benefited one or a
>>>>> few ASF projects and not others.  I would hope that would be the
>>>>> recommended workflow.
>>>>> 
>>>>> If it turns out there are some entities that are ok with the money they
>>>>> donated to the ASF going to Outreachy but for some reason can't directly
>>>>> donate to Outreachy, I would hope that we would make it clear that this
>>>>> workflow is not our recommended workflow but we would redirect some of
>>>>> their money to Outreachy and either let Outreachy pick which ASF project
>>>>> gets an intern, or can we document somewhere that this money was donated
>>>>> "on behalf of Entity X".
>>>>> 
>>>>> And then, IMO, the ASF is not paying for code.  Can we all agree to that
>>>>> and get going on Outreachy?
>>>>> 
>>>>> It was interesting to see it pointed out that there is a financial
>>> barrier
>>>>> to entry at the ASF.  It would be nice if the ASF could find a way to
>>> help
>>>>> lower that barrier without "paying for code", but maybe we should put
>>> that
>>>>> in its own thread and spend more time brainstorming on that while we get
>>>>> going on Outreachy.  IMO, the ASF has other barriers as well.  Every ASF
>>>>> project I've looked at is huge compared to many of the projects I've
>>> seen
>>>>> on Github, so the learning curve may be tilted against inexperienced
>>>>> programmers and they may need a more expensive computer to build the
>>> source
>>>>> without it affecting the interns productivity.   But even then, the
>>>>> entities donating directly to Outreachy could fund that more expensive
>>>>> computer.  The ASF should not feel obligated to take on smaller projects
>>>>> just to make Outreachy interns more successful.    Contributing code to
>>> the
>>>>> ASF is more like becoming a commercial truck driver, contributing to
>>> GitHub
>>>>> is more like becoming a ride-share driver.
>>>>> 
>>>>> One thought on the financial barrier before I forget:  the ASF offers
>>> VMs
>>>>> to projects.  Could they offer laptops as well?
>>>>> 
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> -Alex
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>> 
>>> Craig L Russell
>>> clr@apache.org
>>> 
>>> 

Craig L Russell
clr@apache.org