Speaking from the perspective of a very less experienced professional and not a student.
My personal stance and not FOSS United’s.
The idea of certificates itself sounds very cliche to me. Certificates never mattered in the past, and won’t matter in the longer run. All the faculties and this education system has shaped students mind in wrong structure. The education system never taught students to think about tinker with different tools, writing more code on a sunday, or making a project which solves the problem is important than “Participation Certificate”. IMHO, someone looking for certificates and resume points is a very narrow mined and someone with a short goal. Certificates are just waste, I have designed and printed that waste myself and provided them to my faculty as well for certain quick needs. Apologies for the bold words.
I am not surprised with your HOD being surprised about FOSS United not providing a certificate. I wish you could make her understand the importance of code or contribution more than the certificate. The modern day students have materialized the term FOSS a lot. It’s a choice and not a need. Not talking about teachers here because at the first place they don’t know about the Free Software Ideology and Philosophy.
I think I agree with the part where you talked about more folks (not using the word students, as that would generalize it) coming towards FOSS United to fill their resumes and add experiences on the Linkedin Profiles, because I’ve seen many do that. But like rahul said, there are a couple of them who are solely here for The Movement and not just to satisfy their needs.
Last year, during SolapurFOSS my college HOD had asked us why are we working as laborers for FOSS United. Once, we had skipped classes to give introductory session in nearby colleges which they got know about. We were separately taken in for questions by almost 2-3 staff members. I was happy to ignore them straight, because its not worth wasting time in front of such people. I believe in not helping those who can’t help themselves.
What does this have to do with the discussion ? I don’t think this is relevant. Free Software Enthusiasts and developers never expected anything in return, how does that relate to this discussion? Are you talking about paychecks or about the need of certificates and acknowledgement as a contributor ?
FOSS Contribution comes through passion and the will to learn and solve a problem. Incentives and rewards are the words which have no place in this dictionary.
People like Steve Marquess and Stephen Henson have struggled in the past to get money for one person but had still maintained OpenSSL till 2012/14 until Heartbreak became public. (Please correct me if I’m wrong in the last part).
I disagree. FOSS should be a choice by everyone, for everyone.
The philosophy here is just about doing good work.
This would be my first and last reply to this thread. I don’t see anything which I can learn from in this thread here. But, this is an interesting topic to debate and discuss about with the larger public and audience, hence I have proposed a BoF session at IndiaFOSS. Hoping that the Jury team would feel worth to select this BoF Session.