gsoc: how to get prepared and write a good proposal (or how to start contributing with floss)

GSoC: How to get prepared and write a goodproposal

(or how to start contributing with FLOSS)

Joao Paulo Rechi Vitajprvita@gmail.com

http://jprvita.wordpress.com/

July 22, 2010

What is Google Summer of Code?

Flip bits not burgers!

GSoC Overview

I US$5k

I Mentor

I One month for community bounding

I Three month for code development

I Two evaluations

How to get in the game?FLOSS / GSoC

How to get in the game?

Choose a project you like :)

(or at least one you use)

How to get in the game?

Choose a project you like :)(or at least one you use)

Choose a project you like

150 participating organizations (2010) 1

1http://socghop.appspot.com/gsoc/program/accepted orgs/google/gsoc2010

Find the source, Neo

The source

I VCSI Git \o/, Subversion :( , Bazaar, MercurialI Get the code, change between revisions, generate a diff

I CompileI configure && make && make installI local installation (gnu stow, $HOME/local, /usr/local)I $PATH, $LD LIBRARY PATH, $PYTHONPATHI understand the configure process

I Run

The source

I VCSI Git \o/, Subversion :( , Bazaar, MercurialI Get the code, change between revisions, generate a diff

I CompileI configure && make && make installI local installation (gnu stow, $HOME/local, /usr/local)I $PATH, $LD LIBRARY PATH, $PYTHONPATHI understand the configure process

I Run

The source

I VCSI Git \o/, Subversion :( , Bazaar, MercurialI Get the code, change between revisions, generate a diff

I CompileI configure && make && make installI local installation (gnu stow, $HOME/local, /usr/local)I $PATH, $LD LIBRARY PATH, $PYTHONPATHI understand the configure process

I Run

Community Bounding

Community Bounding

I People

I Documentation

I Mailing lists

I IRC

Community Bounding

I People

I Documentation

I Mailing lists

I IRC

Community Bounding – Documentation

I RTMF!

I IF the F* Manual F* Exists !!

I Use the source, Luke

Community Bounding – Documentation

I RTMF!I IF the F* Manual F* Exists !!

I Use the source, Luke

Community Bounding – Documentation

I RTMF!I IF the F* Manual F* Exists !!

I Use the source, Luke

Community Bounding – Mailing Lists

I Archives are you friends :)

I Use plain text

I Don’t hijack threads

I Write a useful subject line

I Language

I Don’t top post!

Community Bounding – Mailing Lists

I Archives are you friends :)

I Use plain text

I Don’t hijack threads

I Write a useful subject line

I Language

I Don’t top post!

Community Bounding – Mailing Lists

>Because it changes the natural order of phrases.Why top posting is so bad?

Community Bounding – Mailing Lists

How to ask questions the smart wayhttp://www.catb.org/˜esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Community Bounding – IRC

I Nicks

I /whois

I Channel topicI Don’t ask to ask, just ask!

I Answers come faster if you know who to ask

Get Involved

Get Involved – Getting Kudos

I IRC – hang out and answer questions

I ML – answer questions / review patches

I Localization

I Talk / Post about your project (patches, howto’s)

Get Involved – Finding tasks

I Issue tracker / bugzilla

I TODO / HACKING files

I Mailing list

I GSoC project ideas (ask potential mentors)

When to start?

NOW!

GSoC Proposal

I Discuss the idea with the community

I Organization template

I Explain the implementation

I Schedule

I Why should you be the chosen one?

GSoC Proposal – Examples

A2DP Sink (BlueZ/2009)http://jprvita.wordpress.com/2009/04/28/gsoc09-is-up-and-running/

AVRCP Metadata (BlueZ/2010)http://jprvita.wordpress.com/2010/07/22/avrcp-metadata/

Questions?

Joao Paulo Rechi Vitajprvita@gmail.com

http://jprvita.wordpress.com/

Some ideas from this talk were based this LH’s talk:http://www.slideshare.net/lhawthorn/getting-started-in-free-and-open-source-software

This presentation is available at http://slideshare.net/jprvita under the

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License