GSoC 2017

[Olly Betts]

Google are running their Summer of Code again this year.  If you're not
familiar with it, see:

https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/

Last year was very successful and I think we probably want to apply
again this year, assuming there are a sufficient number of people
interested in mentoring to make it worthwhile.

Org application open on 19th (this Thursday) though the deadline
is February 9th, so we have a little time to sort ourselves out.

The main priorities right now are:

 * Identifying potential mentors - currently 3 people (including myself)
   have indicated willingness for this year, but I've not actively asked
   around yet.

   If you're interested, talk to James Aylett or me.  You certainly
   don't need to understand all of Xapian in detail to usefully mentor
   - any questions you can't answer can be directed to others, and a lot
   of it is helping students with learning more generic skills - for
   example what a good commit looks like, automated testing, etc.

   I'd particularly encourage previous GSoC students to consider
   mentoring - it's a great way to get more involved, and having seen
   the process from the other side is very helpful.

 * Refreshing the list of project ideas.  James and I have done some
   cleaning up, but the better the breadth and depth of ideas we have,
   the more likely we are to be selected:
 
   https://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 and get 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 the GSoC team look at when
   reviewing org applications, so we want it to be in great shape by
   February 9th.  You can still add or improve ideas after then, but
   it's less likely to make a difference to us being selected.

 * 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 https://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