[Xapian-discuss] GSoC 2015

[Olly Betts]

Google's Summer of Code is happening again this year.  If you're not
familiar with GSoC, see:

http://code.google.com/soc/

We decided to apply some time ago, but applications for orgs are now
open and need to be in by this coming Friday (20th) so we need to get
things a bit more organised.

Accepted orgs are due to be announced on March 2nd, and students can
apply between March 16th and 27th, but the keen ones have already
started to talk to orgs (as you've probably noticed).

The full timeline is here:

http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/events/google/gsoc2015

The main priorities right now are:

 * Refreshing the list of project ideas.  I've already done a fair bit
   of cleaning up, and I'm in the process of adding some ideas we
   brainstormed at the mentor summit, but the better the breadth and
   depth of ideas we have, the more likely we are to be selected:
 
   http://trac.xapian.org/wiki/GSoCProjectIdeas

   Ideas do *NOT* have to be for work on Xapian itself - projects
   related to Xapian in other software are within scope (e.g.
   integrating Xapian into a framework, or adding Xapian search to an
   application).  You'll need to provide mentoring related to the
   other software, but we can help out with Xapian-specific questions.

   Ideas don't need to be fully planned out - we expect the students to
   do some research, planning and to discuss the project as part of
   getting from the project idea to their proposal.  But we do need to
   clearly say what the aims are, give some pointers to useful
   resources, and a list of required or beneficial skills.  And the
   scope needs to be suitable for taking a student developer about 12
   weeks of full time work to complete (ideally including getting it
   merged).

   If you have a suitable idea, feel free to add it to the page, or
   raise it for discussion here or on IRC.

   This list is one of the key things google look at when reviewing org
   applications, so we want it to be in great shape by 20th.  You can
   still add or improve ideas after then, but it's less likely to make a
   difference to us being selected.

 * Identifying potential mentors.  Every idea on the list should have at
   least one suitable potential mentor attached.

   If you're interested in acting as a mentor for one of the ideas
   there, please update the page.

   One of the questions I need to answer in the org applications is
   how many mentors we have, so if you are interested in mentoring, then
   speaking up before Friday would be helpful.  It's OK for us to end up
   with more mentors than we say at this point, but being able to
   realistically respond will likely help our application.

 * Talking to the students who've started to appear.

If you are a student eligible for GSoC and interested in working on
Xapian, please feel free to get in touch.  You don't have to choose from
the ideas on the list - you're welcome to propose your own project
ideas.

If you want to discuss being a mentor or a student, or a project idea,
you can do so on the mailing list or on #xapian on freenode (if you
aren't already an IRC user, see http://trac.xapian.org/wiki/GSoC_IRC for
links to a web IRC client).

There's also a general GSoC IRC channel - #gsoc on freenode.

Cheers,
    Olly