Re: GSoC application

[Gregory Casamento]

I have made some further updates to the wiki.   Please take a look.
I've added detail for most of the tasks in the General Improvements
section and level of difficulty as well as a list of required skills.
This will aid students in their selection of tasks.

Please take a look and add level of difficulty and required skills for
each task as well as a breakdown of subtasks for each one, if
possible.

GC

On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 12:03 PM, Gregory Casamento
<greg.casamento@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have made updates to the project ideas page.  I have removed things
> which have already been completed by myself or by others recently and
> done some minor reorganization (some things which were listed under
> GAP should have been listed under Misc for the main project).
>
> GC
>
> On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 11:31 AM, David Chisnall <theraven@sucs.org> wrote:
>> I've started writing a draft for a GNUstep Ecosystem (GNUstep, GAP, Étoilé - 
>> any other projects that want to be included, speak now) GSoC application.  
>> There are bits missing, so contributions are welcome.  I'm happy to mentor 
>> and I'll be the administrator / backup if no one else wants to do it (but 
>> I'd be very happy if someone else did it - Adam?).
>>
>> The deadline is tomorrow evening, so we probably need to finalise this quite 
>> soon,
>>
>> David
>>
>> - Describe your organization.
>>
>> GNUstep began as a project to implement the OpenStep specification.  Since 
>> the release of OS X, it has continued to track changes made by the 
>> descendant of OpenStep: Cocoa.
>>
>> The GNUstep Ecosystem encompasses a group of projects that use GNUstep at 
>> the core.  This includes GNUstep itself, which provides implementations of 
>> the Foundation and Application Kit frameworks from Cocoa.  On top of this 
>> are the GNUstep Application Project (GAP) and Étoilé.
>>
>> The GNUstep Application Project aims to create a complete suite of GNUstep 
>> applications.  GNUstep itself is a toolkit and suite of developer tools, not 
>> a desktop environment.  GAP aims to provide all of the applications that are 
>> expected of a modern desktop environment.
>>
>> The Étoilé Project aims to produce a modern desktop environment, based on 
>> services and composite documents, rather than following the traditional 
>> application model.  Étoilé is built on top of GNUstep and its dynamic 
>> behaviour is made possible by the core features of GNUstep.
>>
>> There is some overlap between the three projects, with a number of 
>> individuals contributing to all three.  Code also moves between them, for 
>> example the Objective-C 2 compatibility framework that was developed as part 
>> of Étoilé was recently merged into GNUstep.
>>
>>
>> - Why is your organization applying to participate in GSoC 2010? What do you 
>> hope to gain by participating?
>>
>> {Why are we participating?  Because we want students to write code, 
>> obviously, but I presume that they can work that much out for themselves...}
>>
>> This year, we find that there are several active contributors to GNUstep and 
>> related projects who are still students.  The GSoC would permit some of 
>> these to work full-time on their chosen projects over the summer.
>>
>> We are submitting a joint application because improvements to one part of 
>> the GNUstep ecosystem benefit all of the other parts.
>>
>> - Did your organization participate in past GSoCs? If so, please summarize 
>> your involvement and the successes and challenges of your participation.
>>
>> GNUstep has participated in the Google Summer of Code twice before as a 
>> single project.  The existing Key-Value Observing implementation in GNUstep, 
>> which allows automatic notification of changes to object properties, was 
>> contributed as part of the GSoC program.
>>
>> Some of our other projects have been less successful.  In particular, we had 
>> problems with non-US students' term dates not meshing well with the GSoC 
>> programme.
>>
>> - What license(s) does your project use?
>>
>> GNUstep is released under the LGPLv2 or later.  Applications hosted by GAP 
>> use a variety of licenses, with GPLv2 or later being common.  Étoilé 
>> generally uses more permissive licenses, with the 3-clause BSDL being most 
>> common and some parts using the LGPLv2 or X11 licenses.
>>
>> - What is the URL for your ideas page?
>>
>> {GNUstep wiki page, Étoilé open projects page, GAP?}
>>
>> - What is the main development mailing list for your organization?
>>
>> GNUstep Developer <gnustep-dev@gnu.org>
>>
>> What is the main IRC channel for your organization?
>>
>> irc://irc.freenode.net/#gnustep
>> silc://silc.etoileos.com/etoile
>>
>> - Does your organization have an application template you would like to see 
>> students use? If so, please provide it now.
>>
>> {Do we have one?}
>>
>> - Who will be your backup organization administrator?
>>
>> {I'm happy to do this if someone else wants to be the main one (please!), 
>> otherwise I can be the main one and someone else can be the backup}
>>
>> - What criteria did you use to select these individuals as mentors? Please 
>> be as specific as possible.
>>
>> Mentors are selected as individuals who are both familiar with the code, 
>> having contributed to the relevant parts in the past, and who are willing to 
>> mentor.  The maintainer of the relevant bit of code will always be either 
>> the mentor or a backup mentor.
>> {We probably need to say more - suggestions?}
>>
>> - What is your plan for dealing with disappearing students?
>>
>> {We don't have one and we need one}
>>
>> - What is your plan for dealing with disappearing mentors?
>>
>> The mentors have been chosen from people who have been contributors to the 
>> projects for several years, and so it is considered unlikely that they will 
>> disappear for any reasons other than illness or injury.  To safeguard 
>> against this possibility, we will assign two mentors to each student and 
>> encourage students to participate in IRC/SILC channels and on mailing lists, 
>> so that they can receive support from the community as a whole, rather than 
>> just their mentors.
>>
>> - What steps will you take to encourage students to interact with your 
>> project's community before, during and after the program?
>>
>> {Ideas?}
>>
>> - What will you do to ensure that your accepted students stick with the 
>> project after GSoC concludes?
>>
>> This year, we intend to favour students who have already contributed to the 
>> project - even if only in the form of suggestions on mailing lists - and so 
>> have shown some interest in the project.
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> Discuss-gnustep@gnu.org
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> Gregory Casamento - GNUstep Lead/Principal Consultant, OLC, Inc.
> yahoo/skype: greg_casamento, aol: gjcasa
> (240)274-9630 (Cell)
>



-- 
Gregory Casamento - GNUstep Lead/Principal Consultant, OLC, Inc.
yahoo/skype: greg_casamento, aol: gjcasa
(240)274-9630 (Cell)