GSoC 2009/Proposal
Describe your organization.
The Maemo community is a Nokia-sponsored, open source community developing software around the Maemo platform. The Maemo community has over 16,000 registered members who contribute to more than 800 development projects. We work with open source tools and processes. We develop new software on top of the platform as well as for the core platform itself. Applications developed with the Maemo SDK are used today by thousands of Maemo users around the world. The Maemo community is a well-organized group of people, including a Community Council (elected by community members every six months). The Maemo Community Council exists to represent the interests of the greater Maemo community other affiliated bodies.
Why is your organization applying to participate in GSoC 2009? What do you hope to gain by participating?
The Maemo Community is applying to participate in GSoC because, we think that GSoC can help our organization in several ways, and also because we have former GSoC Student and Mentors that are very enthusiastic about the program.
We expect gain a lot of good things by participating in GSoC, we already gain a lot, for just applying, a lot of brainstorming was done and new ideas arise, but we also have some goals for our participation in GSoC, that are:
- Attract new people to the open source world;
- Bring new talented developers to our community;
- Get some help in some of our community projects;
- Meet new people and have fun during the summer.
Did your organization participate in past GSoCs? If so, please summarize your involvement and the successes and challenges of your participation.
Yes, in 2007. Our participation in GSoC 2007 had good and bad aspects, we talked with our GSoC 2007 mentors in order to have a big picture of our previous participation. In 2007 we had two successful projects that helped a lot our organization, but also had disappearing students, that in our opinion is a very bad aspect for our community and also for the success of GSoC, that situation also leads that anybody have strengths to apply again in 2008, but this year we jointed a group of formerly GsoC mentors and students with some newcomers, and strongly believe that these persons will not disappoint us, they will keep our students strongly motivated, in order to have a great summer of code.
If your organization has not previously participated in GSoC, have you applied in the past? If so, for what year(s)?
N/A
What license(s) does your project use?
The majority of the projects are licensed under this licenses:
- GPL v2 or later;
- LGPL v2 or later;
- MIT license.
What is the URL for your ideas page?
http://wiki.maemo.org/GSoC_2009
What is the main development mailing list or forum for your organization?
The main development mailing list is: maemo-developers@maemo.org
All Maemo Community mailing lists can be found at: http://maemo.org/community/mailing-lists/
The main forum for discussing Maemo Community related topics is Internet Tablet Talk: http://www.internettablettalk.com/
What is the main IRC channel for your organization?
The main IRC channel for the Maemo Community is #maemo @ freenode
Does your organization have an application template you would like to see students use? If so, please provide it now.
Yes.
Student Template:
- Project title
- Project Abstract (short description, can be the same used above)
- Project full description
- Project tasks and deliverables
- Project schedule
- Do you have other commitments during the summer of code coding period ? If yes, what kind of commitments ?
- Why are you the right person for this project ?
- What are the benefits of your project for the Maemo Community ?
- Short Biography (academic work, open source background and other activities that you like to do)
Who will be your backup organization administrator? Please include Google Account information.
- Luis Felipe Moraes
Who will your mentors be? Please include Google Account information.
Mentors:
- Csaba Kertész
- Florian Boor
- Ilias Biris
- Leandro Sales
- Luis Felipe Moraes
- Mike Jipping
- Mohammad Anwari
- Valério Valério
- Zeeshan Ali
Backup Mentors:
- Andrew Flegg
- Quim Gil
- Ryan Abel
- Tim Samoff
- Simon Pickering
What criteria did you use to select these individuals as mentors? Please be as specific as possible.
We start to invite people with some GSoC experience, the majority of our mentors are formerly GSoC mentors and students from other projects, we think that previous GSoC experience is a important factor in the success of GSoC, some newcomers also show enthusiasm about GSoC, and due their proven track record inside our organization also become mentors. Our backup mentors are persons with a big community assent and very respected inside our community and also with a proven track record in the open source world, some of them also have some experience in GSoC. All of our mentors are strongly motivated in order to help our community reach our GSoC goals, providing a pleasant summer of code to the students that we will can host.
What is your plan for dealing with disappearing students?
At the students selection process we will be careful with students that have other commitments during the Google Summer of Code coding period, in order to avoid situations where the student have a big overload of work, that can lead to not fulfill our expectations. We will require students weekly reports to their mentors and assigned backup mentors in order to keep track of the students progresses, we will also require bi-weekly reports of the projects for our community mailing list, with this we will have the student status at any time, avoiding problems that can be arise during the coding period. At the beginning of the coding period the students and their mentors will review and adapt their project schedule, in order to keep the student in the schedule. Besides the preventive measures described above, we will try to keep our students motivated at any time.
What is your plan for dealing with disappearing mentors?
We plan for each project to have one "backup" mentor, that will be involved in the project development, in case of problems with the regular mentor, the backup mentor shall assist the student in order to accomplish the final goals of the project. The organization administration also will be in touch with the all the mentors, in order to prevent possible problems and also motivating them.
What steps will you take to encourage students to interact with your project's community before, during and after the program?
We will encourage possible students to get involved in ours mailing lists and IRC channels, before the coding period we will encourage students to do a brainstorming of ideas about their possible projects with the community, this way the students will do better project proposals and also better projects, we strongly believe in open discussion. During the coding period the students have to send bi-weekly updates to our community mailing list, this way they can share their thoughts, problems and decisions and also the community can give possible solutions for their problems. After the GSoC end, we don't want to have students anymore, we want to have motivated Maemo Community members, that will keep helping our community with their GSoC projects or other community projects.
What will you do to ensure that your accepted students stick with the project after GSoC concludes?
The Maemo Community is a very active and friendly community, during the coding period the students will be very motivated by their mentors, but also by the community, that will make suggestions about the students projects, this way the students will feel a community reward, and in the end of GSoC they will feel part of our community, this community commitment will ensure more collaboration with our community besides the GSoC period. We believe that the community reward and motivation is one of the key factors for a good and solid open source project.