Forum OpenACS Q&A: Google Summer of Code 2008 Coming up

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Posted by Matthew Burke on
well, I guess I'm not going to be the first one to mention this...

Yes, I'm interested. I can even dredge up the application that Karl Blesius and I submitted last year.

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Posted by Matthew Burke on
Well the rousing silence is not too promising.

I'll mention, however, that if you have a potential project in mind, feel free to include it in the GSoC application by the Tcl/Tk community.

The relevant page is http://wiki.tcl.tk/20832

Matt

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Posted by Matthew Burke on
Last call---at least for the time being.

We will be submitting the application for the Tcl community (AOLserver and OpenACS projects welcome as well) tomorrow with whatever projects we have at the time.

Afterwards, if we get accepted, then I'll send out another call for projects/mentors.

Matt

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Posted by Tomasz Kosiak on
Hello everyone!

In 2007 I submitted GSoC application for Tcl community gaining even some support from Tcl Core Team - see http://wiki.tcl.tk/17872, http://objectmix.com/tcl/15343-google-code-summer-2007-tcl-tk.html. My application was heavily based on OpenACS last year proposal - unfortunately both our organization were not accepted by Google.

This year I feel we should combine our efforts and prepare one application for Tcl/Tk/AOLserver/OpenACS - representing Tcl Community as a whole - this way was successful for Pyton Community which mentored 25 students last year.

Few days ago I've contacted Mathew Burke (http://www.seas.gwu.edu/~mmburke/) who volunteered to be GSoC administrator for whole Tcl Community this year. I've provided him with all the information I gathered last year - especially insight into how GSoC was handled by Python. I've also in private contacted Jeff Hobbs, Donal K. Fellows, Gustaf Neumann and David N. Welton to gain broader support.

Please step in to help our efforts:

1. Review and enhance the GSoC 2008 application at
http://wiki.tcl.tk/20832 so it will be our common effort. It should be noted in application text that we represent three major Tcl open-source projects, so we can gain acceptance from Google.

2. Fill project ideas for students at http://wiki.tcl.tk/20836 you want to mentor. We certainly should note which project referes to Tcl Core, Tk, AOLserver or OpenACS. I believe that many of your last year proposals should be copied to new project ideas if they still apply. Interested mentors should sign in to gmail.com and send their Google logins to Mathew to be included into application. Google requires every proposed mentor to have Google account to be able after project accptance to log into GSoC site at http://code.google.com/soc/2008/.

3. Help us overcome what we've screw last year - belowe is explanation I've received last year from Google:

Hello Tomasz,

First of all, we want to thank you for taking the time to apply.
Honestly, it is simply that we cannot accept everyone and it is nothing
personal. Your application was well done. My only suggestion for
improvement would be to beef up your ideas list, classify tasks as easy,
medium and hard, and perhaps add some text about why each task would be of
value to the community.

HTH,
Leslie Hawthorn
Open Source Program Office
Google Inc.

4. Contact other community members who may be interested - especially those involved somehow in university.

For example I'm an entrepreneur from Northern Poland who runs his own company DAC System heavily based on Tcl technology. I continuously seek bright students at The Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics ETI of Gdańsk Technical University (http://www.eti.pg.gda.pl/). In my processional life I've introduced over 50 people to Tcl and give them basic or more advanced training in companies I've founded or worked for dacsystem.pl, zjednoczenie.com, polska.pl or former arena.pl. So I'm vitally interested in exposing Tcl to young talents.

5. Take a look at Google Summer of Code 2008 site (http://code.google.com/soc/2008/), FAQ, etc so we won't miss any requirement from Google this year.

Regards
Tomasz Kosiak (tkosiak @ gmail.com or dacsystem.pl)

PS. I'm posting this info to Tcl-Core, Tcl-Discussion, AOLserver and OpenACS list to gain broader exposure.

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Posted by Tomasz Kosiak on
Python Community was very sucessfull last year (see - http://wiki.python.org/moin/SummerOfCode/2007). This year they just started, be we could learn from them (http://wiki.python.org/moin/SummerOfCode).

What I like about their application/proposal is:

1. Mentor list - http://wiki.python.org/moin/SummerOfCode/Mentors

2. Links to other projects sites where there is discussion about Summer of Code

3. Explicit expectation & advise for students (which we could copy with linking to the source)

4. Link to previous attempts (despite that our application failed last year - be we could show our improvement to Google).

5. Links to Google Summer of Code site - to the most important documents like Google's Advice for Students, Google's Advice for Mentors, FAQ, etc. - so to reuse the hard work done by Google in explaining details

6. Special mailing lists for mentors & students - we could do that with Google Groups especially because every mentor is required to have Google Account. I belive that we should set lists which could be reused in the following years unlike Python.

Regards
Tomasz Kosiak

PS. I've also posted this to Tcl-Core & AOLserver lists.

Can I post to OpenACS forum by e-mail, probably yes but not sure nor found any instructions.

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Posted by Torben Brosten on
Project idea:

get Expect to work in a threaded environment

Expect could then be used with AOLserver and TclLib for some really fun dynamics.

I'm not volunteering for this, but it seems like fun for someone =)