Re: [gentoo-soc] Welcome, GSoC students!

[Mu Qiao]

On 05/14/2010 11:04 PM, Donnie Berkholz wrote:
> Welcome to Gentoo's edition of the Google Summer of Code, and
> congratulations on your selection! We hope you're already in touch with
> your mentor and getting comfortable with the tools you need, so you can
> write code starting on day 1 of the summer. The rest of this email
> contains general information to help you be more productive this summer.
>
> If you aren't already in touch with your mentors, this email should be
> followed by another email from your primary mentor giving you more
> specific details. This year, you'll be working on 1 of 19 projects. We
> grew more than 100% from last year, when we had 7 projects, so we're
> really excited about working with all of you this summer!
>
> I've included a list of all of the people you'll be working with this
> summer, and their projects, at the end of this email.
>
>
> Communicating
> =============
>
> The community bonding period has already begun, and the purpose is to
> familiarize you with our general community practices. It is *very
> important* that you are in constant touch with your mentor throughout
> the duration of the program. 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 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 a lot of us are not native English speakers, so don't be ashamed of
> writing 'bad english'. 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 are aware of 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
> ---
> The majority of 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.
>
> Bugzilla
> --------
> Gentoo maintains a bug database on: http://bugs.gentoo.org/. We
> recommend you 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
> yes, to what extent.
>
> Blogs
> -----
> Many developers use blogs to communicate with the community at large. We
> recommend 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 already don't have one), and use it to write
> anything relevant to your project under a category such as 'gsoc2010' or
> 'gentoo'. We will aggregate your blogs on our Planet for the entire
> Gentoo community to read.
>
>
> Code Management
> ===============
>
> Gentoo uses a mix of CVS, SVN and Git internally. We expect you to
> maintain a repository containing your code on Gentoo infrastructure,
> although you may choose to actively work on the code elsewhere (for
> example, Github). One of the explicit aims of the Community Bonding
> period is to get you up to speed with the version control system you
> will be working with. Please contact your mentor for help *before*
> signing up with a particular service. In some cases, you may be expected
> to work on an existing repository -- contact your mentor for specifics.
>
> To have a repository set up, contact Robin Johnson (robbat2@g.o)
> and send him a public SSH key, the repository type, and the repository
> name. Your mentor can help you with this.
>
>
> Project Websites
> ================
>
> We highly recommend having a centralized location for information about
> you and your project, and Trac is an ideal way to do that. We are happy
> to set up Trac instances for your project, so it has an online home
> where people can go to learn more about it. This will provide you with a
> homepage, a wiki, a timeline, and possibly integration with your source
> code.
>
> To have Trac set up, contact Patrick Lauer (patrick@g.o) with
> details about your project. The Trac instance should have the same name
> as your repository, if possible. Discuss with your mentor whether Trac
> is something you need.
>
>
> 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. Contact Robin Johnson (robbat2@g.o) with your
> public SSH key, and he will set you up with access.
>
> If you don't already have an SSH key, you can generate one like this:
> `ssh-keygen -t dsa`. Be sure to set a passphrase on your key. The
> 'id_dsa.pub' file is what you send to Robin.
>
>
> Progress Reports
> ================
>
> We expect weekly progress reports from each of you, at the very least.
> Feel free to report more often! Your mentor will tell you his preferred
> method of communication, but you must also post your weekly progress
> reports to the gentoo-soc mailing list, as well as on your blog for all
> to see. Make sure that you inform your mentor well in advance if you
> plan to be missing for a week or more (vacation, exams etc.). We
> understand that you 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.
>
>
> 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 our organization
> administrators 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
>         Alec Warner (backup admin): antarus@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. Please make sure you've
> got all the background work done by May 24 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 19 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!
>

Thank you for giving such detailed information to us! I really
appreciate that Gentoo community provides us with a bunch of useful
resources.
I have questions about the Blogs and Progress reports.

1. I didn't use blog before and I think it's time for me to get one as
you suggested. Is it possible to create a blog at blogs.gentoo.org?

2. When should we start reporting the progress of our projects?

-- 
Best wishes,
Mu Qiao
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