<div dir="ltr"><br><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 8:02 AM, Bradley M. Kuhn <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:bkuhn@sfconservancy.org" target="_blank">bkuhn@sfconservancy.org</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Chris Travers wrote at 21:22 (EDT) on Tuesday:<br>
<div class="im">> First, I have no intention of doing the Conservancy's evaluation work<br>
> for you. If I gave you that impression, I sincerely apologize.<br>
<br>
</div>There's no need to apologize, and I didn't think you'd suggested that.<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> Just a couple clarifications then, if once we are on the same page<br>
> what a "self evaluation" is there for, you still don't think it would<br>
> be helpful, we'll put together more general documentation and provide<br>
> a pointer to it.<br>
<br>
</div>Obviously I expect we'll look at any document you prepare. As I<br>
mentioned elsewhere on this list, Conservancy isn't ready to begin our<br>
work, in part because we're focused on fundraising, so I don't think<br>
we'll be able to look at anything in detail yet.<br>
<div class="im"><br>
<br>
> I further recognize the danger of appearing partial and I would<br>
> suggest actually inviting various open source candidates to provide<br>
> self evaluations.<br>
<br>
</div>This is an interesting idea. My first thought would be that it is<br>
somewhat presumptuous -- in the sense that: "Who is Conservancy to<br>
dictate to these projects what types of orgs they should support?"<br>
<br>
OTOH, it could save us effort, and it would be interesting to compare<br>
how the project sees itself vs. how someone new to the project sees it.<br>
<br>
Chris, is your thought that the same questions would be asked both on<br>
the self-evaluation and the one done by Conservancy, or should they be<br>
different? How would they differ?<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div style>I think for a self evaluation the best way to go is to give the project as much freedom as possible in volunteering information. Maybe a brief description of what you are doing, a link to the site for more info, and an invitation for the project to tell you anything they think is important for the evaluation purposes, with some optional sample questions. Something like:</div>
<div style><br></div><div style>[greeting]</div><div style><br></div><div style>We are getting ready to begin evaluating software projects for the Software Freedom Conservancy's NPO Accounting project. As part of this process we are inviting projects to provide concise self-evaluations, in order to help us determine a good fit. If you don't want to, that's fine. It won't disqualify you.</div>
<div style><br></div><div style>Feel free to tell us what you feel we may need to know (outside of what we can learn from a review of your documentation and an immediate review of your code). If you get stuck, the following questions may be helpful but they are there just to give you some ideas. We'd prefer responses to be reasonably short. Keep in mind we are evaluating over twenty projects, so overly long responses may not be given as much attention as shorter ones.</div>
<div style><br></div><div style>1. In your understanding, what do you think is needed to support the accounting requirements of NPO's better with your project? Are you interested in contributions to this end?</div><div style>
<br></div><div style>2. How would you introduce your community of users and developers to an outsider?</div><div style><br></div><div style>3. For someone looking at the codebase for the first time, what would you tell them to get started? Anything in particular to do or to avoid?</div>
<div style><br></div><div style>[....]</div><div style><br></div><div style>-----</div><div style><br></div><div style>The idea is just an invitation for the project to introduce themselves to you and tell you whatever they think you need to know to get started.</div>
<div style><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><br>
--<br>
Bradley M. Kuhn, Executive Director, Software Freedom Conservancy<br>
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</div></div></blockquote></div><br></div></div>