For several years now, I’ve been a Summer of Code mentor for Getting Things Gnome, under the GNOME umbrella.
This year again we received plenty of student proposals. GTG being a very small part of the GNOME project and having only few mentors available, we had to choose. That choice was sometimes really hard and it’s a pity to see some students not being selected.
In order to help them for next year, I would like to point what we, potential mentors, expect from the students.
I know I’m very late, but I really wanted to talk about this year Google Summer of Code.
For the third year in a row, I was a mentor. And this year I have a huge deception to share. I’m really sad. This week, I’v received the GSoC 2011 t-shirt. They sent me the wrong size. XXXL. I can use it as a sleeping bag with my girlfriend. I’m really disappointed.
Hopefully, GSoC is not only about receiving a t-shirt. It is also about mentoring a student.
Each year, Google is sponsoring a Summer of Code (SoC). During three months, Google pay students to work on various opensource projects. Each student should be followed by a « mentor » from the original project but the mentor is not paid, he receives a tshirt.
3 years ago, I was a SoC student and developed the now abandoned Conseil but I learned a lot from that experience.
This year, one of the GNOME SoC projects was related to Getting Things GNOME!, the software I started with Bertrand. The project was to add the concept of geolocalization to your tasks list so you would be able to see where you can do tasks. The candidate, Paulo Cabido, seemed bright and skilled. I was the mentor. Strange to be on the other side of the fence.
I’m happy to announce you the release 0.1 « Grand Canal » of Conseil. Conseil is a bug reader (and soon triager) for the GNOME desktop. Currently, Launchpad is the only supported bug tracking system.
In the eighty-ninth genus of fishes, classed by Lacepede, belonging to the second lower class of bony, characterised by opercules and ronchial membranes, I remarked the scorpaena, the head of which is furnished with spikes, and which has but one dorsal fin; these reatures are covered, or not, with little shells, according to the sub-class to which they belong. The second sub-class gives us specimens of didactyles fourteen or fifteen inches in length, with yellow rays, and heads of a most fantastic appearance. As to the first sub-class, it gives several specimens of that singular looking fish appropriately called a ‘seafrog,’ with large head, sometimes pierced with holes, sometimes swollen with protuberances, bristling with spikes, and covered with tubercles; it has irregular and hideous horns; its body and tail are covered with callosities; its sting makes a dangerous wound; it is both repugnant and horrible to look at.
Conseil, servant of Professor Pierre Aronnax, describing bug #1 in « Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea » of Jules Verne.