Maintainer Month Special: Introducing Project Pods

[music] Woo! The castle on the All right. Thank you everybody for taking time to come back. I'm Cynthia from GitHub and I support open source for good at GitHub and a lot of our different partnerships with open source for good projects like Digital Public Goods. So, one thing that we have been wanting to do is connect more with the open source community of developers to support open source for good projects like Digital Public Goods. And so, as a result, um we work closely with um maintainers and other developers in the community to figure out ways on how we can find projects for the community of developers to work on that are Digital Public Goods or open source for good. And beyond just the good first issue types of tagging, something more on long-term projects like um different projects that some great coding organizations do like Code for Good. And we're very lucky today to have Sean Marcia from Code for Good who will talk a little bit more about um what they work on and things that they have built. Um thank you, Sean, for taking time to chat with us and tell us a little bit more about different projects that will be on Code for Good First Issue that are related to Project Pos and that we will launch today. Um so, today we will be launching the Project Pause. If you are a non-profit, you can then join, apply, um, and add your project on the Project Pause. So, Shawn Mersel will then walk us through a little bit more about that today. Awesome. Yeah, thanks Cynthia. And uh, hey everyone. I am excited to be here. Uh, yeah, so I want to just like jump right in uh, cuz I'm going to talk right about our launch. So, we're just launching this uh, this new way for uh, people to request entire teams to work on these Tech for Good projects. And hopefully everyone is aware of For Good First Issue. And so, and if you're not, I get to be the first to uh, to show you it. So, here we go. I'm going to share my screen. And once you can see my screen here. So, oh, let me just uh, change this. This is actually not live yet. I'm actually sharing this from my computer, but uh, if you if you go to For Good First Issue now, the the link that's uh, streaming, uh, you'll see this. And again, like these are um, uh, this is where you can come and find like kind of bite-size issues to like for individuals to uh, contribute to. But what we've uh, what we've done is like we're adding the ability like like Cynthia said for teams to come and uh, uh, find like something a little bit bigger to work on. Um, like the idea is um, like with this teams tab now, like a a team is going to come and um, and the idea is is we want like something a little larger. Like, you know, maybe like rather than individual things, like an individual issue, things where you're going to need like, you know, designers and product managers and engineers working together. Like a large uh, substantial chunk of work like suitable for a team. And uh, uh, and and again, like I'll just I'll I'll point out here that the all the issues with on here, these are just kind of test demo issues as an example. But I I can show what it's going to look like for us to um to uh uh to who like for for one of your organizations to to um if if you run an organization uh to submit an issue and get it going in here. And again, like um we can just walk through here. Uh it's going to take you to GitHub nonprofits or nonprofits.github.com and hopefully you're all familiar with this. And you're going to sign in for your your nonprofit organization. And um And now when you you come here, uh you're going to see the ability to, you know, uh request development help. And again, I'll also like as Cynthia said, we're just in the process of launching this. And so like when you come and you start to entering your information, uh it might look a little bit different just as we're, you know, we're just uh at the at the finish line here. And this is I think it's officially launching next week. So, um so it might look a little bit different, but all the functionality is going to stay the same. And so your nonprofit is going to uh are your tech for good organizations are just going to come in here. You're going to create your volunteer request. Um And you're just going to it's going to ask you to uh like just put in some information. And so like let's actually just go through and uh let's let's do this. Let's put in a real request. And the organization we want to um put in a request for are the like the tech for good. It's this organization called Flare Down. And Flare Down is uh it's a symptom tracker for people who have like chronic conditions, you know, like Crohn's Crohn's disease, lupus, fibromyalgia. And uh and it provides their like health care providers like with like really good actionable actionable information. And so And so yeah, so like let's let's just put that information in here. And I'm just going to copy and paste cuz Uh and so, right. So, Flare Down is a symptom tracker for individuals with chronic conditions like Crohn's, fibromyalgia, and lupus. And just like I said, And And what do we need? Well, we we need to we need to modernize our mobile applicate See, that's why I'm pasting it in. application. And And then now, what we want to do is we want to describe like the the work that's needed. And again, so like just a a little thing so like, "Hey, is this is this suitable for our team?" And, you know, I'll just copy and paste it in. And again, so like, they need a new web application. So, like, their web application is being used by people in over 100 countries, needs to be updated and modernized. Like, it's currently built in Ember, but they want to move it fully into the Ruby on Rails ecosystem with Hotwire Native. And so, we'll pick our language that it's going to be built that the nonprofit wants to built in is Ruby. Um And again, like, you can see the languages here. Oh. Oh, that was a Uh If If you If you don't see your language, uh you can just obviously just select other and you can just enter the language in. And again, this is a a Ruby Uh you know, we're looking for six volunteers. Uh and then here like, uh it's going to ask you to like, "Is there someone available to work with the volunteers?" And so, we're just going to put yes. You know, we we're going to put in our organizational website. And a link to the issue. And this is This is important. And like, let's let's Let's actually go take a look at this. Like, what we're looking for. I probably solved it. Okay. And so, like, what we want here is we want it to be very very obvious for our nonprofit or for the volunteers to be coming and to really understand what is being what is being asked of them. So, like it shouldn't like So, when you're requesting a volunteer, like you shouldn't be like requesting something very like open-ended. Like, "Oh, we need 100 people to work on our our thing." Cuz that's probably not going to get you the the people you need. Like like we're like they're going to want like a concrete ask, too. Cuz cuz again, like sometimes these are people working at at companies, you know, like GitHub or whatever, where, you know, they're going to they're going to ask their they're going to ask their managers, they're going to ask their people, like, "Hey, can I work on this? You know, they need me to build X, Y, and Z, and it's going to be, you know, this much of a time commitment." And so, you know, we'd like the the request structured something like this, like an issue with you know, like the like the current state of the application, what what work we're actually asking for, um like how how many how many folks we're looking to contribute or and like what they kind of think is a as a as a basis of people. Uh and then too, like what the nonprofit is going to offer, too. Like, hey, they're going to have someone regularly available to talk with the volunteers, uh a Slack channel for communication, um stakeholders available. And and then here, like like I said, the important thing we really need is like a time commitment. Like So, like right here, the this time commitment, 3 to 6 months. And so, uh Yeah, uh 3 to 6 months. And um And and right into it, like in that says in here, too. Like, obviously, if you work in software, you know, estimates aren't just that. Um and then if there are any restrictions, like this one, since it's health care and health care-related, like they're asking that it's not students that work on it cuz again, just like the like the the importance of the data. Not that students don't do doing work, but that's just the restriction the nonprofit has. and then to apply just, you know, comment on the issue and they'll they'll get in touch. and so we can Oops, where are where are we? Back here. Um and again, like my my issue has clear and concise requirements. Uh I can put yes, and then I can submit it. And and And also, too, like here it also walks through in the side like you know, we walk through the different steps. And we also ask you that you put the um uh like labels on your issues. Is it open? Is it claimed? Is it complete? Cuz like that's what's going to automate the the For Good First Issue like it'll when people are For Good First Issues showing if it's available or claimed. Which is why this issue has a team request open. And uh Oops, let me just close that so I don't keep clicking on it. And uh yeah, so then we we submit the request. Uh the request is submitted. Um and then we're going to see down here we we have our our request submitted, and at some point uh someone on the GitHub team is going to review this and approve it or deny it. Once it's approved, we'll see it on For Good First Issue for people to come and uh claim. that's uh that's it in a nutshell what what we're launching, and happy to answer any questions or or um Yeah, I think um one thing Sean, if you can go through and share what what happens if it's denied. Um I can share a little bit on my side. So, in the event that it gets denied, um it's not because we don't want the project, cuz we need a little bit more information. So, for example, in the event that um the project is not accepted yet, uh maybe we need a little bit more very clear deliverables on what you would like the volunteers to work on and what that outcome would then look like. So, just FYI, if you get that email, don't worry. You can still go back and resubmit with more details and we'll define what we're looking for. Um so I just want to highlight that and a question for you, Sean. Tell us a little bit more about a project that you've done that was a very well-defined project and what made it a good project for a group of people to work on rather than like one person to to fix a bug, for instance. Yeah, absolutely. Like and and again like the the projects that I think are good projects for a team are are things again are that are going to require the whole um that are going to require research. And so uh so like rather than like hey, add a button to this page that, you know, you click the button and sends an email. Like that's that's a pretty uh pretty small uh pretty small task. But but like something like like the and I can go back to like this issue. Um cuz again like this this like the the work linked here is like okay, like they're the nonprofit is asking you, you know, to sync with the stakeholders. Because again like they've been using this this application, this mobile application since I think 2015. And and obviously like things have changed since then and like and you know, it was launched and it was like this was launched like you know, via Kickstarter. They the person who launched it like you know, raised some money. But like now that it's been used, like I imagine that they've learned a lot and like there were probably some features that shouldn't be in there. There's some features that it's missing and like that's only going to happen like kind of through like this research and discovery with, you know, with actual users. And so uh and like that's what makes uh like a a good team-based request. Like something right that is going to just, you know, require like more than just like hey, I need to add a button. I need to, you know, I need to understand the problem. I need to like work with the people. I need to go um uh you know, do some testing, some back and forth, like building mock marks and you know, like user validation and and building it out. Oh, that's perfect. Thank you. And then also um I just want to add to that in terms of volunteer groups, the volunteers. You mentioned student groups, but of course we do depending on the project you accept student groups depending on the impact in terms of types of groups it could be corporation that has a volunteer group, a coding club, and any other groups that are looking to contribute to a digital public good. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, like like right like and obviously this this this one is just is just one, but obviously I see student groups, like Code for America brigades, um you know, your company as a team building thing. You want to get six people from your company together, three people and and all work on something in in in your off hours, you know, contribute some time. Uh right, like it's there you just have to have some really good friends, you know, who want to work on this. Yeah, for sure. Awesome. And then the last question I have is in terms of for maintainers, as a maintainer yourself, what's one tip that you would like to leave them for projects? Yeah, and I think just, you know, um just communicating and Uh yeah, I think communication is is key and like just I think with everything in life just good communication, clear communication, and and just very very very clearly defined um like a scope of work cuz like I I think like people people will get frustrated, you know, if they, you know, they're coming to volunteer, they're coming to help with some they think something, but then really, you know, you think it's something else. And so, uh you know, just um just just that back and forth, just that communication and just so there's no uh like so, you know, as a maintainer I don't have hurt feelings that they or bad feelings that they did something or they didn't do something I was expecting of them. And then also they don't the contributors don't have bad feelings cuz they did something they didn't they did they were doing a lot more than maybe they thought they were going to do and so just like clearly defined what the what the what the tasks and the roles are. So we're opening this up for Q&A to see if there's any other questions in the comments. All right. So I think we've answered all the questions. Thank you so much Sean for going through on this. As Sean had mentioned we are looking to launch this very shortly. You have the maintainer for maintainer month we have a preview of this and we're very excited to be able to engage more with the open source for good community. If you're not part of nonprofits at GitHub yet go ahead and join nonprofits at GitHub github.com and then you can submit for a project. If you have any questions feel free to reach out to us and we're excited to launch this shortly. All right. Thank you so much for everybody and have a great day.