Simply put Kenfuse provides a collaborative learning platform led by the open source way, where individuals can setup projects. Projects typically have designated mentors (Owners). Developers / students can pick a project and start contributing with guidance from mentors. Coming up is a feedback system where mentors can provide valuable feedback to the participating developers upon task/issue completion.
Several, but prominent among them are
Overall we see it as a bootstrapped rapid learning process while contributing meaningfully to projects.
Going forward, Kenfuse also looks to have organizations (open source communities as well companies with interest in open source) as sponsors for some projects, besides visibility to recruitment agencies for technical positions/opportunities.
Kenfuse is focused towards one cause, rapid learning and does not aim to be a open source project hosting provider like sourceforge.net and a few others. In fact Kenfuse encourages the owners of such projects to get extra contributions from Kenfuse community and beyond. Project owners can start a project with pointers to their sourceforge.net project and for that matter any other location.
Yes, and no. Similar since it is around student and mentor concept. However, Kenfuse is more focused towards the learning and coaching aspects to prepare contributors. While the projects provide the seed for a richer learning experience, the focus is on learning groups. Besides, Kenfuse runs all year long and not just summer :-) . The biggest difference is Kenfuse does not pay stipend for projects and therefore almost no required approvals and acceptance etc. Anyone can contribute. Of course sponsors can always pick up or list a project and pay the contributors and therefore can be selective. However, in general Kenfuse aspires to be truly community led.
Surely. This is perhaps the biggest difference compared to other open source project hosting sites. There are many ways to contribute to projects. Code is one of the ways to contribute which developers do. However, non-developers or for that matter anyone can as well contribute with testing, documentation, tutorials, usage guides and almost anything that would benefit interested parties.
Besides users are perhaps one of the best sources of new ideas. For ideas one need not be a developer, right? Coming up soon is what we would like to call the Idea Junction.
No. Kenfuse provides a platform for collaboration and choice of hosting the project is left to the project lead.
That should not be a problem. See response to “Isn't Kenfuse much like sourceforge.net?”
While it is useful and much easier to have open source projects when working with a open community of developers, it is not necessary to be so. Kenfuse can still be used to host your project, of course in such cases you may want to create a closed workspace with access to invited members only. Request us for such controlled access. That said, we prefer open source projects
Typically none except that it should not be a duplicate or similar to another project or have anything objectionable. Of course you should consider highlighting the interesting features as well as differentiators so that users can easily relate. Project creation requires mentor privileges. Send a new project request with a description for a quick review and get the required access to set up the project.
You need to mention the type of license preferred for your project. While there are various types of licenses, to start with we have selected a few popular ones as per Open Source Initiative approved licenses.
Yes. The only consideration that you may have is it takes time to mentor project participants and you should take care not to overstretch.
Mentors typically would be the project owners or anyone designated by the project owner. A project can have more than one mentor. Individuals, developers with good feedback/rating can also graduate to become mentors with or without project affiliation, though it is recommended to be linked to a project(s).
Ideally yes. It is useful as a project owner to be the mentor as well. However, you can also designate anyone else to be the mentor or invite other mentors
As long as you have time really. Mentorship can be time consuming and therefore decide for yourself. Remember, developers would have lot of expectations from mentors.
Mentorship and in a broader sense the open source community is perhaps the single most important ingredient to open source learning. In a world where developers and contributors don’t rely on textbooks, much of the learning is expected to come through inputs from mentors and the community.
All, to be precise all users registered with Kenfuse are considered developers. Simply Sign up. Yes, it is that simple.
Project owners would typically create issues. Project issues can be features requests, bugs, enhancements etc. Pick an issue that you think you can deliver , assign it to yourself and get started. It is a good idea to mention estimated time you expect to take such that the project mentor is comfortable. Note that project mentor continues to have the right to reassign the issue to someone appropriate if required.
One of the thoughts behind Kenfuse was to have support for online resume as an option for developers. Won't it be nice to have a online portfolio of our work products so that other developers, projects and employers can reach you effectively? We are working on having this option activated shortly. Developers of course can choose what to share and with whom including a public profile. Stay tuned for some updates shortly on this.
Kenfuse Learning Center (KLC) is sort of a gateway to a selected set of educational resources on open source technologies. Targeted towards students, junior developers these range from quick tutorials and learning guides to more involved structured courseware. KLC’s objective is to help more and more students and junior developers pick open source technology skills early on so that they can rapidly transform themselves into open source contributors. While courseware being somewhat structured are expected to be handled by content providers collaborating to come up with the right approach, ‘Tutorials’ and ‘Howtos’ can be quick submissions by all users.
Absolutely! The main goal of learning center is to leverage pockets of individual learning to build a knowledge base that would aid and support project contributor both getting started as well as ongoing reference. Anyone can post a Tutorial or Howtos.
Courseware are relatively structured learning resources designed primarily to be offered as electives to under-graduate level computer science students. Courses typically would cover classroom instructions, optional quizzes on specific open source technologies, followed by assignments and in some cases project work. Courseware may also include evaluation guidelines for instructors.
Click here to find out more about courseware at Kenfuse