Re: ideas for Google Summer of Code

[Johannes Schindelin]

Hi,

On Fri, 16 Jan 2009, Graham Percival wrote:

> That said, SoC doesn't recognize the importance of documentation,

Not true.  For example, Drupal had a SoC project that was 
documentation-only, and I imagine other projects had as well.

> A full list of possible projects is on the google issue list;
> there's something like 300 open issues.

Keep in mind:

- it has to be a project that fills 3 months,

- the mentor is also expected to work almost full time at least in the 
  beginning,

- the main goal is to give the students a good introduction into Open 
  Source so that they _stay there_,

- GSoC 2009 was reduced in size _prior_ to accepting _applications_.  So 
  it is quite likely that new projects (i.e. I expect projects that did 
  not participate in the last years to have less chances of getting 
  accepted),

- you need students that are interested (so far I did not see students 
  interested in improving documentation),

- just mentioning their wishes, as others have done, is likely to be a 
  waste of time, not to mention an annoyance to the others, as _there have 
  to be competent mentors with enough time on their hands_ to do the job.

The last point cannot be stressed enough.  Too many people actually expect 
others to do the work, and those would be well advised to just go and do 
something useful instead.

So again, my advice is: if you are not prepared to mentor -- both 
time-wise and competence-wise -- just don't bother to post your idea.

The contrary is true for students: if you have a cool project you would 
like to propose, chances are that the proficient contributors of the 
project are either lured themselves, or can lure others, into mentoring.

So: students with cool ideas: just propose your ideas right away (even if 
others might shoot your ideas down; they are just morons).

Ciao,
Dscho