[Foundation-l] [Wikitech-l] Google Summer of Code

[Brion Vibber]

(leaving in lots of quoting as original didn't make it to foundation-l)

Evan Prodromou wrote:
> On Fri, 2006-14-04 at 14:01 -0700, Brion Vibber wrote:
> 
>> Google's doing their Summer of Code program again this year. We missed last
>> years', but I'm going to try signing us up as a mentoring organization this year.
> 
> Great! I think SoC is good for MediaWiki for a couple of reasons. First,
> hey, free code. Second, I think getting the intern process straight for
> the SoC would make it easier if the Wikimedia Foundation ever wants to
> stimulate development by giving the same kind of grant packages. (The
> idea's been floated before, I don't know what the status is right now,
> just thought I'd point out that SoC might be good practice.)

Yep! The fact that a lot of the basic administrative work will be done by
someone else is obviously convenient for a first time...

>> Feel free to put any relevant-sounding project ideas here:
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_Code_2006
> 
> I've added the list of future directions that Wikia, Wikitravel, and
> Wikimedia developed in LA last month. I think there are a lot of hot,
> juicy projects on there that a smart student might want to take a swipe
> at.
> 
> I want to quickly run through the requirements, from
> http://code.google.com/soc/mentorfaq.html#2 :
> 
>      1. A pool of project ideas for students to choose from. Check. Link
>         is above.
>      2. Someone available to review student "blue-sky" proposals.
>         Uncheck. I'll volunteer here if needed.
>      3. Someone available to decide which applications should be
>         accepted. This is more of a lead developer job, albeit with
>         input from the community and other developers, so I think it'd
>         have to be brion or Tim.
>      4. A person (or people) to monitor the progress of the students.
>         Unknown. Again, I would be happy to give some time to this, and
>         I think there are probably other members of the team who would
>         do it, too.
>      5. A mentor ready to take over for the assigned mentor(s) .
>         Unknown. I can volunteer to be a mentor, but I can't volunteer
>         to back myself up.
>      6. A written evaluation of each student developer. I can do that.

I've held myself out as our "organization administrator" for SoC; we can divide
the rest of the labor as necessary. :)

Once they get us in the system we should be able to set up the individual 'mentor's.

>> So I think it will be important to try to engage the folks working on our
>> projects if we want to keep them. :)
> 
> I'd strongly suggest that any new development be made as an extension.
> That will keep it from being problematic for our mainstream codebase.

Where possible I totally agree.

> Brion: will you be sending the application to Google?

Already have, they sounded very positive. Should work its way through the system
soon...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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