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Welcome to Gentoo’s edition of the Google Summer of Code, and |
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congratulations on your selection! We hope you’re already in touch with |
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your mentor and getting comfortable with the tools you need, so you can |
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write code starting on day 1 of the summer. |
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|
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The rest of this email contains general information to help you be more |
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productive this summer; please read it completely and carefully so you |
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don’t miss anything critical. |
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|
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If you aren’t already in touch with your mentors, this email should be |
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followed by another email from your primary mentor giving you more |
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specific details. This year, you’ll be working on 1 of 15 projects. |
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We’re really excited about working with all of you this summer! |
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|
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I included a list of all of the people you’ll be working with this |
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summer, and their projects, at the end of this email. |
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|
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|
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Communication |
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============= |
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|
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The community-bonding period has already begun. Its purpose is to |
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familiarize you with our general community practices and allow you to |
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complete your project design so you can start coding by May 23. |
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|
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It is *very important* that you are in constant touch with your mentor |
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throughout the duration of the program; poor communication is one of the |
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most frequent causes of failure. There are several channels of |
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communication that Gentoo developers use, and we’ll go through the most |
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important of them: |
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|
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Mailing Lists |
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------------- |
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gentoo-dev is the list where technical discussions related to Gentoo but |
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not suited for more specific lists takes place. We highly recommend you |
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subscribe to this list and lurk for a while to get a feel of what kind |
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of questions are asked on it. |
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|
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You should already be subscribed to the gentoo-soc mailing list, where |
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you will receive important announcements related to the program. In |
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addition to these two lists, your mentor might also want you to |
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subscribe to another list, depending on your project. A complete listing |
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of all our mailing lists, along with information on how you can |
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subscribe to them is available on: |
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http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/lists.xml |
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|
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The primary language of communication on most of our lists is English, |
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but many of us are not native English speakers, so don’t be ashamed of |
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writing “bad English” although SMS text language is typically frowned |
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upon (“u” instead of “you” for example). It is usually sufficient if you |
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are able to communicate your idea and everyone understands what you are |
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trying to say. Also, don’t be afraid of asking “stupid questions” — many |
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of you are new to the world of open-source software, and we know that. |
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We’re here to help. |
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|
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When starting a new thread on a mailing list, send a new email to the |
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list — don’t reply to an existing thread. Also, you are expected to |
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send plain-text email, no HTML! Learn how to quote relevant portions |
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when replying to a thread. This web page might help: |
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http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html |
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|
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IRC |
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--- |
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Most Gentoo developers hang out in several channels on the Freenode IRC |
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channel. IRC is generally used for real-time conversations and is very |
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useful when you want a quick reply. The starting point for you should be |
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the #gentoo-soc channel; your mentor will tell you which other channels |
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you are recommended to join. If you are new to IRC, this might help: |
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http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/irctutorial.html |
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|
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IRC is a highly informal environment, and we don’t recommend you make |
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important decisions there unless you’ve scheduled a meeting with your |
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mentor to discuss them. Even if you do, we recommend you archive that |
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decision by other means (a post to a list, blog post) since most IRC |
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channels are not logged. Also, some developers don’t use IRC at all but |
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they may have something valuable to say. |
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|
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Bugzilla |
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-------- |
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Gentoo maintains a bug database at http://bugs.gentoo.org/ and you should |
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sign up for an account there. Depending on your project, your mentor may |
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expect you to file bugs and follow them. Whenever your project involves |
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changes to code maintained by existing Gentoo developers, you will |
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usually have to file a bug and follow it up. Your mentor will tell you |
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whether or not you will be using Bugzilla, and if so, to what extent. |
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|
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Blogs |
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----- |
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Many developers use blogs to communicate with the community at large. We |
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highly recommend, but do not require, that you read posts on Planet |
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Gentoo (http://planet.gentoo.org/) and add the feed to your reader. We |
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also highly recommend that you get a blog for yourself (if you don’t |
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already have one), and use it to write anything relevant to your project |
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under a category such as “gsoc2011” or “gentoo.” We will aggregate your |
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blogs on our Planet for the entire Gentoo community to read. |
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|
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|
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Code Management |
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=============== |
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|
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Gentoo uses a mix of Git, SVN, and CVS internally. We expect you to |
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maintain a repository containing your code on Gentoo infrastructure. One |
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of the explicit aims of the community-bonding period is to get you up to |
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speed with the version-control system you will be working with. In some |
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cases, you may be expected to work on an existing repository — contact |
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your mentor for specifics. |
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|
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To have a repository set up, contact Robin Johnson (robbat2@g.o) |
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and send him a public SSH key, the repository type, and the repository |
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name. Your mentor can help you with this. |
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|
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|
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Project Websites |
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================ |
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|
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You must have a centralized, permanent location for information about |
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you and your project that is hosted by Gentoo. If you're working on an |
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established codebase like Portage or Porthole, you can just use its |
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existing infrastructure. Otherwise, Trac is an ideal way to fulfill this |
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requirement. |
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|
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We are happy to set up Trac instances for your project, so it has an |
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online home where people can go to learn more about it. This will |
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provide you with a homepage, a wiki, a timeline, and possibly |
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integration with your source code. |
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|
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To have Trac set up, contact Robin Johnson (robbat2@g.o) with |
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details about your project. The Trac instance should have the same name |
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as your repository, if possible. Discuss with your mentor whether Trac |
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is something you need. |
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|
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|
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Shell Access |
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============ |
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|
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As a GSoC student with Gentoo, you get access to one of our shell |
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servers. This is an ideal place to run an IRC client like irssi coupled |
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with screen, so that you are always available on IRC and can reconnect |
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from anywhere. Contact Robin Johnson (robbat2@g.o) with your |
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public SSH key, and he will set you up with access. |
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|
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If you don’t already have an SSH key, you can generate one like this: |
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`ssh-keygen -t dsa`. Be sure to set a passphrase on your key. The |
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“id_dsa.pub” file is what you send to Robin. |
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|
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|
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Progress Reports |
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================ |
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|
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We expect progress reports from each of you at least once a week. Feel |
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free to report more often! At the top, provide a brief summary of your |
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project to remind anyone who hasn’t followed it closely and tell us |
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whether it's on schedule, ahead of schedule, or behind schedule. Then |
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tell us about your accomplishments, your problems, how you solved them, |
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and your plans for the next week. |
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|
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Your mentors will tell you their preferred method of communication, but |
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you must also post your weekly progress reports to the gentoo-soc |
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mailing list, as well as on your blog for all to see. Make sure that you |
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inform your mentor well in advance if you plan to be missing for a week |
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or more (vacation, exams etc.). We understand that you have a student |
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life to attend to in parallel, but if you are missing for more than a |
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week without reason, we will be forced to disqualify you from the |
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program. |
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|
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Gentoo's GSoC admins will also require very short surveys on a regular |
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basis to help us ensure you have a great time this summer. |
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|
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|
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Questions |
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========= |
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|
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Your mentor is the primary contact for any questions pertaining to the |
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program, technical or not. However, it is possible that a mentor may be |
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unreachable for sometime due to personal reasons or otherwise. It is |
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*extremely* important that you immediately notify our organization |
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administrators in the event that your mentor is unavailable for more |
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than 3 days. The administrator will immediately look into the issue and |
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assign a new mentor, if required. Since all of us are from various |
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cultures around the world, it is also possible that you and your mentor |
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may not “get along” very well. Please do contact our organization |
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administrators to discuss any such issues: |
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|
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Primary admin |
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Donnie Berkholz: dberkholz@g.o |
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|
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Backup admins |
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Alec Warner: antarus@g.o |
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Leslie Hawthorn: lh@g.o |
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Grant Goodyear: g2boojum@g.o |
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|
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As a final note, we want to remind you that this is the Summer of Code, |
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and not the Summer of Project Research And Design or the Summer of |
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Learning Your Programming Language And Tools. Please make sure to |
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complete all the background work by May 23, so you can spend the whole |
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summer writing code. |
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|
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We’re looking forward to a great summer with all of you, and we hope |
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that all 15 projects are successful. Please don’t hesitate to use any of |
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the mentioned communication channels if you have a question or doubt. |
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|
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Have a great summer! |
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|
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-- |
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Thanks, |
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Donnie |
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|
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Donnie Berkholz |
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Admin, Summer of Code |
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Gentoo Linux and X.Org |
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Blog: http://dberkholz.com |
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|
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|
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|
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Projects |
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======== |
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(Primary mentor listed first, backup mentors and co-mentors later) |
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|
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|
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libbash runtime |
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Student: Mu Qiao |
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Mentors: Petteri Räty |
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Client-server model for reporting and querying package statistics |
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Student: Vikraman Choudhury |
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Mentors: Alec Warner, Chris Harvey |
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Gentoo/Java IDE Integration |
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Student: Kyle Pan |
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Mentors: Serkan Kaba |
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Django CMS replacement for the www.gentoo.org website |
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Student: Theo Chatzimichos |
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Mentors: Matthew Summers, Robin Johnson |
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Apache Maven Integration for Gentoo EBuilds |
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Student: Kasun Gajasinghe |
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Mentors: Mathieu Le Marec - Pasquet, Serkan Kaba |
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Distfile patching support |
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Student: Rafael Goncalves Martins |
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Mentors: Robin Johnson, Denis Dupeyron |
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PMS compliance test suite |
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Student: Michał Górny |
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Mentors: Denis Dupeyron, Sébastien Fabbro |
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Gentoaster - freshly cooked Gentoo VM images, on demand |
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Student: Liam McLoughlin |
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Mentors: Ole Markus, Tim Harder |
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Rework Porthole to use the portage API |
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Student: Detlev Casanova |
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Mentors: Brian Dolbec |
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Automated benchmark suite for numerical libraries in Gentoo |
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Student: Andrea Arteaga |
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Mentors: Sébastien Fabbro |
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Glentoo |
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Student: Robert Seaton |
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Mentors: Anant Narayanan, Luca Barbato |
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Auto dependency builder |
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Student: Alexander Bersenev |
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Mentors: Marien Zwart |
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Provide Gentoo 11 LiveDVDs with Anaconda installer |
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Student: Wiktor Brodlo |
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Mentors: Denis Dupeyron, Luca Barbato |
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Help Gentoo Council by providing web based applications |
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Student: Joachim Bartosik |
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Mentors: Petteri Räty, Luca Barbato |
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Ebuild generator |
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Student: Sebastian Parborg |
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Mentors: Constanze Hausner, Donnie Berkholz |