One does not contribute to the development of the research or the software itself, but one helps others that don't know how this is done with the Open'ing aspects.
Of course, I know that there are several online resources for learning, but what beats a mentor who dedicates some if his/her time?
@lavergnetho@pyOpenSci@scientific_python@turingway we try to help our users of the renku platform by pointing them in the right (we think) direction from the start and then helping them along the way. If you're after a good way to keep code, data and compute together in a reusable way, have a look at renkulab.io - and drop in to our forum if you have questions!
@lavergnetho I have been considering offering this as a service (but directed at businesses). Basically that: HOWTO contribute to free/open software successfully.
I sort of doubt it would scale for individuals (i.e. "I'd have to charge too much" probably).
@meejah Interesting. There might be a niche to exploit there for research scientists working in bigger institutions.
For bigger projects, we have to write grant proposals (to the EU, to Space Agencies,...) to carry out our research, and these often involve several institutes. We sometimes take in board partners to do project management or communication. So why not a partner/consultant for the #OpenScience or #OSS aspects...
@lavergnetho Yeah, exactly: I'd think of it as preparing an org (business, whatever) to "do FOSS" either on their own project or an existing one. Hasn't progressed past "idea" stage ;) but ...
@meejah@lavergnetho Don't know whether you can do anything with this information, but I once gave back a research grant because the grantmaker's mentoring that was meant to provide exactly this help turned out unable to do so. They just didn't have a mentor with the matching knowledge.
Service availability would be excellent. Paying for it is hard but, if an identifiable service were at least there, grant applications could be written for it.
Thanks Adam! The @osgeo mentorship programme, albeit way too ambitious for me at this stage already has some good description of what they are looking for in #OSS, including actual community contribution (guidelines, governance, ...)
I am aware mentorship like consultancy has a cost, and I am not against the idea.
@lavergnetho@pyOpenSci@scientific_python@turingway I suppose the best mentors are those in the trenches; unfortunately, they are also heavily oversubscribed. Mentorship is inherent to the contributing process; the team helps newcomers to incorporate their changes into the project, and the skills transferred are often passed forward in a similar manner. Many projects in the ecosystem also participate in more targeted annual programs, such as #GSoC and #outreachy.
Well I guess it is fair, yes. Beginners will first contribute to existing projects, learn by doing under the mentoring of the project maintainer, and off they go.
But that can be intimidating. And in our case, the team and I need to get started on a brand new own #OSS project, and the learning curve is steep.