[Sugar-devel] Fwd: Google Summer of Code 2009 is a go!

[Mel Chua]

> What scope of software projects is SL interested in mentoring this year?

See http://sugarlabs.org/go/Summer_of_Code, which (afaik) reflects the 
current state of plans.

> I am concerned that this program may make the typical first-year
> mistake of treating SoC like an opportunity to get free coding for
> known projects, rather than an opportunity to mentor rewarding
> internships for motivated and talented students.

I've asked Leslie (who runs the GSoC program at Google) as well as other 
GSoC alumni how SL can avoid n00b org mistakes, so thanks for the 
heads-up on this one.

I am puzzled, though; are these two things mutually exclusive? In any 
case, students will be proposing their own projects, as is usual with 
GSoC; what we're talking about is kickstarting their proposal thinking 
by listing known projects of the *type* they could take on (thought they 
may think the listed projects are the most rewarding they could do, 
that's fine as well), that SL developers themselves find interesting and 
important. Understanding what's hard and what's important to a community 
makes it far easier to join and participate in it, at least in my 
experience.

> A gsoc program that does not
> support activity development or activity toolchains would be
> dramatically different.

It would be quite different. Is this bad? OLPC, SL, and the software 
projects they work on were also in a dramatically different state a year 
ago. Can you help me understand your concerns with the current SL GSoC plan?

 > Jameson, I'm not sure in what sense you were delegated to ask
 > questions about GSOC and SL/OLPC, but I hope you will participate in
 > this thread.

Jameson graciously offered (thank you, Jameson!) to find out some things 
about this year's GSoC program since I've been pretty swamped the last 
few days and had earlier offered to take on the responsibility for 
coordinating SL's GSoC efforts for 2009. (This has been publicly 
discussed and documented; see 
http://sugarlabs.org/go/MarketingTeam/Meetings/12-2-2008 and 
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/marketing/2008-December/000116.html 
and such.) I'm always happy to share my responsibilities, though, as I 
tend to have this habit of working myself out of a job. ;-)

Hope this helps,

--Mel