Participation

Participation on any specific project team is at the discretion of the team's Project Manager (PM). Persons who wish to participate in any MOST Development Project should read the rest of this section and the links it suggests and then, if still interested in participating, submit an introductory posting (as described below) to the MOST-Dev-Projects mailing list (including the "form").

Selection Criteria and PM Discretion

The PM will usually select qualified participants for each role on the team on a FQCFS (first-qualified-candidate, first-selected) basis. The PM will usually use the role descriptions as described in the MOST SDP section of the site to determine general qualifications for each role. However, the PM may waive the suggested qualifications or FQCFS criteria at her/his discretion to form a group that he/she believes will operate most effectively as a team, or because the project team has explicitly decided to serve as a training facility for "unqualified" individuals.

MOST Dev Project Team Rules of Conduct

Persons who wish to participate in any service of The MOST should read and understand the etiquette page. We try to have fun here, and don't want it spoiled. Please comply with the rules of etiquette so we can all concentrate on teaching/learning Mac OS technologies instead of worrying about flaming each other and soothing hurt feelings. Not to mention lawsuits :-(. Thank you.

The Project Manager for any specific project will have final decision making authority for *all* project related decisions. All participants on the project team need to understand the full significance of that statement and not belabor any points in MOST mailing lists after a decision has been reached. We would like to keep list traffic focused on project specific discussions. Occasional humor is always welcome, of course :-).

Acceptance of Participation Requirements

Those who wish to participate in a MOST Development Project should ensure that they understand the philosophy of The MOST regarding the efforts expended by the participants and the subsequent free public distribution of the materials produced by that effort. We outline our position on the Credits/Ownership page. Please ensure that you understand and accept the criteria explained there. Those who wish to participate in the exercise at any level must submit an explicit agreement (see below) stating their acceptance of these terms in an email to the MOST-Dev-Projects mailing list.

The MOST explicitly recognizes the need to encourage the professional development of programmers of ALL ages. We do not wish to exclude "minors" from participating in these exercises, but also don't want to incur any legal hassles. I don't know the legal requirements to ensure that everyone's rights are respected, but will act in good faith at all times here and expect our participants to do so as well.

With this in mind, we will accept minors in the exercise (assuming they have the required skills for a specific role - just like anyone else) and accept their submission of acceptance of the criteria and their statement that their parent or legal guardian concurs as sufficient to allow them to participate. If you ARE a minor, discuss your participation in this activity with your parent(s) or legal guardian(s) and ask them to read the sections of the site that describe our associated policies, and indicate their acceptance of these policies in the appropriate section of the waiver.

The MOST has a strong public policy to discourage software piracy. With this in mind, the form below contains an explicit statement in the "Statement" section that the participants agree NOT to use pirated copies of any tools, etc. in producing any components for the project. This also means that the user will have actually paid the appropriate fee for any shareware which they use in producing materials. Shareware isn't FREE, and you are supposed to pay for it if you actually USE it (the exact criteria are established by each author). We aren't in a position to enforce this, but here's one of the places where the above comment about expecting all of the participants to act in good faith applies.

We will not ask for signed hard copy forms from anyone. I don't expect this to ever BE a problem, actually. Since we are making all materials produced by the teams freely available to the public at no charge and are ensuring that the authors are explicitly recognized for their work, it's kind of hard to see how The MOST could ever be accused of exploiting anyone here, but we do live in a lawsuit-crazy world so we're going this far as a precaution.

The Agreement Form

Copy the text between the Begin and End lines in its entirety into your introductory email, and provide the appropriate information (name, address, and email) in part 3. If you are a minor, include the additional information (age and concurring responsible party) in the indicated places in part 3.

****** Begin Agreement Form ************

Agreement to Abide By The MOST's Policies

1) Scope

This agreement affects all materials produced by the signer as part of a project team for The MOST, be it source code, email or other communications, documentation, or anything else that's intended for use in the project or as part of defining or developing the project.

2) Statement

The signer states that he/she will not use any tools, applications, programs, utilities, etc. to produce any materials within the Scope for which he/she does not have an appropriate license from the copyright holder.

The signer states that all the materials within the Scope are to be put into the public domain. The signer explicitly states that The MOST is allowed to present these materials to the public as part of any of its chosen distribution/presentation methods and that, as with all materials placed in the public domain by their author(s), implicitly anyone is allowed to make any use of them that they see fit, including use in commercial activities, without credit or compensation to the original author and without credit or compensation to The MOST.

The signer provides these materials AS IS, without any warranty as to the usability, correctness or fitness for any particular purpose.

3) Signer

The signer is identified below. The MOST accepts this agreement in good faith without a hand-written signature. The MOST does not make additional efforts to verify the signer's identity or age but simply accepts that the signer acts in good faith and in accordance to the intent of this agreement.

Name:

Address:

e-mail:

If you are not yet of the age of legal consent in the country or state in which you reside, please provide the following additional information:

Age:

Name of responsible person who has read our policies and concurs with your participation:

******* End of Agreement ******

Subscription to Appropriate List(s)

Anyone who participates in ANY service of The MOST should subscribe to MOST-Announce. You may subscribe manually, or via our web based form.

To participate on any specific project team, you should subscribe to MOST-Dev-Projects and submit a brief introduction. In the introduction, include a filled in copy of the Agreement Form, a statement of your skills, and the roles that you feel you are qualified for and interested in filling. You may subscribe manually, or via our web based form. For the introductory posting, and for ALL subsequent postings to the MOST-Dev-Projects list, be sure to include the project's identifying string in the subject line.

It is the official policy of The MOST that all PMs are encouraged to allow anyone who wishes to do so to participate on a project team, regardless of their current skill level. On most projects, there will be plenty of coding and even MORE testing to do. However, all students are expected to understand that a PM is not expected to assign a COMPLETE novice to a role that requires high levels of technical competence and that there is an upper limit to the effective number of participants in any given project (to be determined by the earliest members of the team and the project manager). Bottom line: i don't expect we'll be turning away anyone, but if it ever happens, please look objectively to see whether these criteria apply before you decide to take it personally :-).

Requested Availability for Subsequent Mentoring

This part is optional, but we hope that everyone who feels that they benefited from participating in a group development project will be willing to pass that benefit on to the next group of participants. Each project will list its team members and how to contact them via email (when available). Those who serve a particular role for a project and are willing to serve as ad hoc mentors for individuals who fill that role on a subsequent project are encouraged to make their willingness to provide this service known to the project manager. Doing so will result in the inclusion of that individual's name, experience, and email address in any references we maintain at The MOST for use by subsequent project teams. Individuals who subsequently wish to be dropped from any such listings will be accommodated with reasonable haste after they send an email indicating their intention.

Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998. Last Update to This Page: 1998/05/07
This Page Maintained by: radar pangaean * * * Original Author: radar pangaean
The MOST web site is built and maintained by the voluntary efforts/donations of our members.