OpenSource documentation problems

[Terry Reedy]

"Paul Rubin" <"http://phr.cx"@NOSPAM.invalid> wrote in message 
news:7x7je1tl9w.fsf at ruckus.brouhaha.com...
> I think there is an attitude problem in the central Python development
> community, which is to expect external volunteers to do stuff with no
> cajoling and no guidance.

You are correct.  No one has volunteered to be a volunteer volunteer 
coordinator.

 > That just doesn't work very well.

Improvements are possible, certainly.

 > I was
> the first FSF staff programmer on the GNU project and we spent a LOT
> of our time coordinating volunteers and maintaining lists of tasks to
> recruit people to do, and generally trying to make stuff happen
> according to what we saw as the project's priorities, as opposed to
> simply passively waiting for code and doc contributions to come to us
> fully done.  We also saw doing gap-filling and grunt-work that didn't
> excite volunteers to be an important part of our purpose as paid
> staff: if somebody had to do it and no one volunteered, then the
> somebody was us.

As far as I know, there currently is no paid staff for Python.  Everything 
is either volunteer or employer-donated time.  You could suggest that 
someone be paid for a few hours a week of volunteer coordination and 
explain what such work would, concretely, consist of.

>The PSF and the FSF both sometimes fund
> people to do coding projects.  Why does the PSF (apparently) not fund
> anyone to do doc projects, like the FSF does?

Last fall, PSF funded two projects out of many submissions.  Were any doc 
projects submitted.  Perhaps next round, one of us will.  One could also 
send an uninvited proposal.

This summer, Google funded about 18 Python-related Summer of Code student 
projects.  Hmm.  The title does suggest code, not docs.

Terry J. Reedy