Outreach Program to Join Conservancy from GNOME; Program Renames to Outreachy

[Software Freedom Conservancy]

URL: http://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/feb/04/outreachy-joins/

            Outreach Program to Join Conservancy from GNOME
                      Program Renames to Outreachy

Software Freedom Conservancy and the GNOME Foundation together announce
that the Free and Open Source Software Outreach Program is moving from
GNOME to Conservancy. As Karen Sandler, Executive Director of
Conservancy and co-organizer of the Outreach Program, announced in her
keynote at FOSDEM this weekend, the program will be rebranding as part
of the transition under the new name "Outreachy".

Outreachy helps people from groups underrepresented in free and open
source software get involved by providing a supportive community for
newcomers to contribute to throughout the year, and by offering focused
internship opportunities twice a year with many free software
organizations. To date, the program has had 214 interns with 35
different free software organizations, including the Linux Kernel,
Wikimedia, GNOME, Mozilla, Twisted (a Conservancy member project), and
OpenStack. Marina Zhurakhinskaya, Community Engagement Lead at Red Hat
and co-organizer of the program said, "It's amazing that the program we
started four years ago with eight GNOME interns has grown to enable
hundreds of women become established free software contributors across a
broad spectrum of projects. I vividly remember the call in which Karen
proposed the idea of inviting other organizations to participate, and
I'm excited to continue working closely with her in growing the reach of
the program."

The GNOME Foundation, previous nonprofit home of the program, remains a
core partner of Outreachy, providing infrastructure support. "The GNOME
board is unified in its enthusiasm for Outreach to join Conservancy,"
said Jean-François Fortin Tam, President of the GNOME Foundation. "We're
proud to have launched the program and seen it grow beyond our wildest
expectations. We look forward to remaining a partner, supporting and
participating in the program in its new home as it continues to grow."

Over the next few months, Outreachy will complete its transition to
Conservancy, the non-profit home of over 30 free and open source
software projects. "Outreachy is a natural fit for Conservancy," said
Sandler. "Conservancy is organized to support many free software
projects — and to promote software freedom in general. This program has
become an essential way for free software projects to improve their
communities. I am honored to keep working with Marina, Sarah Sharp and
all of the other volunteers who keep Outreachy going."

The next round of Outreachy internships will have an application
deadline on March 24, 2015, and internship dates from May 25 to August
25. Coding, design, documentation and other projects will be
available. Applicants will be asked to select a project with one of the
participating organizations and collaborate with a mentor listed for
that project to make a relevant contribution to the project during the
application process. Accepted participants will work remotely, while
being guided by their mentor, and will receive a $5,500 stipend.

About Outreachy

Outreachy is the successor of the Outreach Program for Women (OPW). OPW
was inspired by Google Summer of Code and by how few women applied for
it. The GNOME Foundation first started OPW with one round in 2006, and
then resumed the effort in 2010 with rounds organized twice a year. In
the May 2012 round, Software Freedom Conservancy joined OPW with one
internship with the Twisted project. In the January 2013 round, many
other free and open source organizations joined the program. For the May
2015 round, the program was renamed to Outreachy with the goal of
expanding to engage people from various underrepresented groups and is
transitioning to Conservancy as its organizational home.

This program is a welcoming link that connects talented and passionate
newcomers with people working in free and open source software and
guides them through their first contribution. Through Outreachy,
participants learn how exciting and valuable work on software freedom
can be, while helping us to build a more inclusive community. The
organizational partners of the program are the GNOME Foundation, Red Hat
and Software Freedom Conservancy.

About the GNOME Foundation

GNOME was started in 1997 by two then-university students, Miguel de
Icaza and Federico Mena Quintero. Their aim: to produce a free (as in
freedom) desktop environment. Since then, GNOME has grown into a hugely
successful enterprise. Used by millions of people around the world, it
is one of the most popular environments for GNU/Linux and UNIX-type
operating systems. GNOME's software has been utilized in successful,
large-scale enterprise and public deployments.

The GNOME community is made up of hundreds of contributors from all over
the world, many of whom are volunteers. This community is supported by
the GNOME Foundation, an independent non-profit organization that
provides financial, organizational and legal assistance. The Foundation
is a democratic institution that is directed by its members, who are all
active GNOME contributors. GNOME and its Foundation work to promote
software freedom through the creation of innovative, accessible, and
beautiful user experiences.

About Software Freedom Conservancy

Software Freedom Conservancy is a public charity that promotes,
improves, develops and defends Free, Libre and Open Source software
projects. Conservancy is home more than thirty software projects —
including Git, Inkscape, Samba, Wine, Selenium, the Linux Compliance
project, PyPy, and Sugar Labs — each supported by a dedicated community
of volunteers, developers and users. Conservancy's projects include some
of the most widely used software systems in the world across many
application areas, including educational software deployed in schools
around the globe, embedded software systems deployed in most consumer
electronic devices, distributed version control developer tools,
integrated library services systems, and widely used graphics and art
programs. A full list of Conservancy's member projects is
available. Conservancy provides these projects with the necessary
infrastructure and not-for-profit support services to enable each
project's communities to focus on what they do best: creating innovative
software and advancing computing for the public's benefit.