Summary<br><br>illumos is applying to participate in Google Summer of Code 2012. I will be serving as org admin, and we need volunteers from the community to serve as mentors, as well as project ideas. Students will begin showing up the developer lists shortly, and we hope that community members will engage them to begin contributing to the project by fixing bite-sized bugs, learning how to navigate the codebase, and talking about work that needs done and can be done by a student in the course of a summer. Students will be treated as regular community members, with all the consideration and responsibility that entails, and will be expected to engage through regular community channels (developer mailing lists and IRC channels).<br>
<br>Submit Ideas for illumos Development<br>
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We have an Ideas List on <a href="https://www.illumos.org/projects/illumos-gate/wiki/Project_Ideas" target="_blank">https://www.illumos.org/projects/illumos-gate/wiki/Project_Ideas</a>
- but these are not the only possibilities - we encourage both students
and illumos community members to submit more ideas for projects that
need work and/or you'd like to work on.<br>
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Please bear in mind that our students are students. We want to make them
long-term contributors to open-source projects and preferably illumos.
Projects should be demanding but nevertheless pitched as three months of
work that is doable for a student likely making a first, serious
contribution. Students may not have had to work on such an extensive practical
assignment previously. Projects should be conceived at least as much in
terms of pushing the student to grow from where they are into an<br>
open-source contributor as providing a deliverable otherwise aligned with community priorities.<br>
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Work should be able to be submitted and integrated by the conclusion of the mentorship on August 21.<br>
<br>Community Involvement<br>
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illumos is applying as a project, with a deadline of March 9.<br>
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By March 17 we will provide links to materials advertising illumos participation in GSoC 2012. We encourage community members to advertise these opportunities through appropriate channels. If you have contacts in university departments that teach potentially qualified students or access to students through alumni social networks, it would be especially appreciated if you let them know of our participation and encourage them to make it known to their students.<br>
<br>GSoC is a commitment for the community, as well as for anyone who volunteers as a mentor.<br>
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Students will appear on IRC and mailing list from March 17 (some enterprising ones possibly earlier) to April 6 (the application<br>
deadline) seeking to learn more about illumos and project prospects. We strongly encourage applicants to learn more about illumos by building and installing illumos-gate on top of an existing distribution, fixing bite-sized bugs, learning to navigate the codebase, discussing projects either from the community suggestion page or on their own initiative, and otherwise becoming involved as contributors before submitting applications.<br>
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We encourage all community members to engage positively with promising potential applications who demonstrate such interest, capability, and commitment before and during the application period. Applicants will be evaluated in part based on public community interaction. If students contact you privately about their interest, respond as you feel comfortable, but please also remember that pubic interactions are a substantive basis for evaluation, both for acceptance and completion, and be sure that students are aware of this.<br>
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Students are expected to engage the project sufficiently before the official beginning of their mentorship that they can begin working on their official start date of May 21. Students will be expected to devote sufficient time to the project between being accepted on April 23 and starting on May 21 to begin development work on their start date.<br>
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During GSoC students will be active on the developer lists and IRC channel. Projects that treat students like regular contributors tend to have much more successful mentorships. We do not want to make students unnecessarily dependent on mentors, so we also encourage all community members to help answer questions, make students aware of self-service resources, and provide guidance and domain expertise. Please be aware that students will be expected to check in regularly and share work-in-progress over existing developer channels.<br>
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Mentoring<br><br>GSoC provides some general manuals:<br>
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* <a href="http://www.booki.cc/gsoc-mentoring/" target="_blank">http://www.booki.cc/gsoc-mentoring/</a><br>
* <a href="http://www.booki.cc/gsoc-mentoring/what-makes-a-good-mentor/" target="_blank">http://www.booki.cc/gsoc-mentoring/what-makes-a-good-mentor/</a><br><div class="im"><br>Mentors must be registered with Google no later than April 20, but illumos will need to rank students and projects and thus have firm commitments by mentors no later than April 16. Mentors are expected to check student reports to the mailing list daily, regularly (at least weekly) review progress and provide feedback over three months from May 21 to August 21, to complete mid-term evaluations the week of July 9 and final evaluations the week of August 20. and to hold students accountable for delivering on-schedule and communicating promptly about any difficulties they may encounter, particularly those that may require changes to deliverables.<br>
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Mentors can make arrangements for backup coverage (e.g. for holidays, in case of conflicting work obligations), but they must have the bandwidth to communicate with students on a daily basis for basic status checks, weekly for work review, complete midterm and final reviews, and otherwise to assist students with legitimate issues, either directly or by finding available resources elsewhere in the community. Time commitments will necessarily depend on the student, the project, and the wider base of community members able to assist. We expect mentors to evaluate this and to communicate these particulars to the org admin during student and project selection period from April 7-20.<br>
<br>Organizational Administrator<br><br>
The org admin (I've volunteered for this year, and Albert Lee will be supporting me as last year's admin) will help mentors keep track of student progress and make sure that students have development resources available to them, including remotely accessible development systems. If you are a potential mentor wishing to discuss applicants or projects during the application period, please contact the us privately.<br>
<div class="im"><br>Timeline:<br></div><br><a href="http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/events/google/gsoc2012">http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/events/google/gsoc2012</a><br><br>Main page:<br><br><a href="http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/homepage/google/gsoc2012">http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/homepage/google/gsoc2012</a><br>