Ya$h

I’m sorry but if you don’t want Indian students to be an embarrassment in the global Open Source Community, you have to teach them! Not about how to use git or GitHub, or how to land a PR, but on Internet etiquette. You’ll have to explain the nuances and implications of actions. Shaming and calling out bad behaviour, spam, low effort AI slop doesn’t help because it occurs after the fact. It’s not useful for preventing unethical behaviour in the first place. So how do you do this? You teach them some history. About how open source came to be, about the four freedoms of free software, about the GNU Project, about the Linux Kernel. You tell them about times where people were paying for things like Compilers, and how the free and open internet only exists because a relatively small number of individuals work tirelessly to keep it that way. Introduce them to some open source maintainers and make them read books like the Cathedral and The Bazaar! One thing that works is explaining the consequences. India is a fiercely competitive country where people can and will do anything to get ahead. However once you explain that low effort spam is likely to get them banned from say, GSoC orgs, and that mentors can easily see through AI slop, people do understand. Explain how to respect maintainers time, appropriate duration to wait between pinging for updates on an open source issue. Explain how just self assigning issues isn’t enough, you have to work on them. Explain why reading contribution guidelines and following them is important. Remember, things that are obvious to you are not obvious to beginners. That’s why they are beginners! #GSoC #OpenSource