[gentoo-soc] Welcome to GSoC 2014!

[Denis Dupeyron]

Welcome to Gentoo's edition of the Google Summer of Code! We hope you've
been in touch with your mentor and are already comfortable with the
tools you need, so you can begin writing code today.

The rest of this email contains general information to help you be more
productive this summer; please read it completely and carefully so you
don't miss anything critical.


Communication
=============

It is *very important* that you are in constant touch with your mentor
throughout the duration of the program; poor communication is one of the
most frequent causes of failure. There are several channels of
communication that Gentoo developers use, and we'll go through the most
important of them:

Mailing Lists
-------------
gentoo-dev is the list where technical discussions related to Gentoo but
not suited for more specific lists takes place. We highly recommend you
subscribe to this list and lurk for a while to get a feel of what kind
of questions are asked on it.

You should already be subscribed to the gentoo-soc mailing list, where
you will receive important announcements related to the program. In
addition to these two lists, your mentor might also want you to
subscribe to another list, depending on your project. A complete listing
of all our mailing lists, along with information on how you can
subscribe to them is available on:
http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/lists.xml

The primary language of communication on most of our lists is English,
but many of us are not native English speakers, so don't be ashamed of
writing "bad English" although SMS text language is typically frowned
upon ("u" instead of "you" for example). It is usually sufficient if you
are able to communicate your idea and everyone understands what you are
trying to say. Also, don't be afraid of asking "stupid questions" -- many
of you are new to the world of open-source software, and we know that.
We're here to help.

When starting a new thread on a mailing list, send a new email to the
list -- don't reply to an existing thread. Also, you are expected to send
plain-text email, no HTML! Learn how to quote relevant portions when
replying to a thread. This web page might help:
http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html

IRC
---
Most Gentoo developers hang out in several channels on the Freenode IRC
channel. IRC is generally used for real-time conversations and is very
useful when you want a quick reply. The starting point for you should be
the #gentoo-soc channel; your mentor will tell you which other channels
you are recommended to join. If you are new to IRC, this might help:
http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/irctutorial.html

IRC is a highly informal environment, and we don't recommend you make
important decisions there unless you've scheduled a meeting with your
mentor to discuss them. Even if you do, we recommend you archive that
decision by other means (a post to a list, blog post) since most IRC
channels are not logged. Also, some developers don't use IRC at all but
they may have something valuable to say.

You should be available on IRC during your regular working hours. Our
admins will want to be able to contact you there, and your mentors and
other Gentoo developers and contributors may wish to do so as well.

Bugzilla
--------
Gentoo maintains a bug database at http://bugs.gentoo.org/ and you
should sign up for an account there. Depending on your project, your
mentor may expect you to file bugs and follow them. Whenever your
project involves changes to code maintained by existing Gentoo
developers, you will usually have to file a bug and follow it up. Your
mentor will tell you whether or not you will be using Bugzilla, and if
so, to what extent.

Blogs
-----
Many developers use blogs to communicate with the community at large. We
highly recommend, but do not require, that you read posts on Planet
Gentoo (http://planet.gentoo.org/) and add the feed to your reader. We
also highly recommend that you get a blog for yourself (if you don't
already have one), and use it to write anything relevant to your project
under a category such as "gsoc2013" or "gentoo." We will aggregate your
blogs on our Planet for the entire Gentoo community to read. You can
contact planet@g.o about getting a blog -- do mention that you are
a GSoC student.


Code Management
===============

Gentoo prefers Git for code management. We expect you to
maintain a repository containing your code on Gentoo infrastructure,
unless you're working on an existing project that's already hosted
elsewhere.

You and your mentor should urgently contact Denis Dupeyron
(calchan@g.o) about getting repositories set up or gaining
access to existing repositories, if you haven't already done so. We
expect you to start committing in the very first days of your project.


Project Websites
================

You must have a centralized, permanent location for information about
you and your project that is hosted by Gentoo (unless you're working on
an existing project hosted elsewhere). If you're working on an
established codebase like Portage or Porthole, you can just use its
existing infrastructure. Otherwise, the Gentoo wiki is generally your
best bet. Please discuss it with your mentor


Shell Access
============

As a GSoC student with Gentoo, you get access to one of our shell
servers. This is an ideal place to run an IRC client like irssi coupled
with screen, so that you are always available on IRC and can reconnect
from anywhere. Talk to your mentor about this, if you aren't already set
up.


Progress Reports
================

We expect progress reports from each of you at least once a week. Feel
free to report more often! At the top, provide a brief summary of your
project (including links to resources like homepage and code) to remind
anyone who hasn't followed it closely, and tell us whether it's on
schedule, ahead of schedule, or behind schedule. Then tell us about your
accomplishments, your problems, how you solved them, and your plans for
the next week.

Your mentors will tell you their preferred method of communication, but
you must also post your weekly progress reports to the gentoo-soc
mailing list. Make sure that you inform your mentor well in advance if
you plan to be missing for *any* period of time (vacation, exams etc.).
We understand that you may have a student life to attend to in parallel,
but if you are missing for more than a week without reason, we will be
forced to disqualify you from the program.

Gentoo's GSoC admins may also require very short, occasional surveys to
help us ensure you have a great time this summer.


Questions
=========

Your mentor is the primary contact for any questions pertaining to the
program, technical or not. However, it is possible that a mentor may be
unreachable for sometime due to personal reasons or otherwise. It is
*extremely* important that you immediately notify an organization
administrator in the event that your mentor is unavailable for more than
3 days. The administrator will immediately look into the issue and
assign a new mentor, if required. Since all of us are from various
cultures around the world, it is also possible that you and your mentor
may not "get along" very well. Please do contact our organization
administrators to discuss any such issues:

    Donnie Berkholz <dberkholz@g.o>
    Denis Dupeyron <calchan@g.o>

As a final note, we want to remind you that this is the Summer of Code,
and not the Summer of Project Research And Design or the Summer of
Learning Your Programming Language And Tools. You should already have
completed all the background work, so you can spend the whole summer
writing code.

We're looking forward to a great summer with all of you, and we hope
that all your projects are successful. Please don't hesitate to use any
of the mentioned communication channels if you have a question or doubt.

Have a great summer!