GSoC 2018

[Olly Betts]

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

https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/

Org applications are already open and close on January 23rd (this phase
is earlier than in past years, which I think is a good thing as it gives
students more time to talk to orgs).

We've taken part a number of times before, and it's resulted in both
new contributors and interesting new features - I think it's well worth
applying again if we have enough people available for mentoring.   So
far two people have said they'd be up for it, but I think we really want
at least a couple more.  I haven't actively asked anyone yet though.

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, and it's a good way to get more
involved with the project.

We also need to refresh the list of project ideas.  I'll do some
cleaning up over this weekend, but ideally we need a few new ideas
to replace those that were done last year.  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
open source 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 organisers look at when
reviewing org applications, so we want it to be in great shape by
January 23rd.  You can still add or improve ideas after then, but
it's less likely to make a difference to us being selected.

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