GSOC Project ideas

[Stefan Sperling]

Another GSoC consideration is that it would be nice to have students
contributing directly to trunk. But with the 1.7 release "feature
freeze"[1] on going until we branch, they'd have to work on feature
branches, which get less oversight and testing.

Why would they have to? We could require them to work in incremental
steps that don't break existing code. Which is something they'll have
to learn how to do anyway, right? :)

[Stefan Sperling]

Working on trunk is no panacea that guarantees a student is going to
get quality review. I do not even see where it would make sense for a
student to be on trunk (depending on the task). The real issue is
that we probably do not have anyone able to devote the time to be a
mentor this year and so maybe we should just not participate?

I would mentor one student.

I prefer students to submit a couple of patches before they get
commit access. Whether it makes sense to work on trunk or a branch
depends on the task, I suppose. No way to decide yet.
I would tend to prefer having students work on trunk, though.
They get to have more interaction with the community that way
(e.g. by breaking the build :)

[yun lee]

As a GSOC student, I'm more interested in making a progress on my
development experience and skills. And whether to working on trunk is
not so important, however, I wish my work can be packed into the new
release for wide users, the earlier the better!

Post by Stefan Sperling

Working on trunk is no panacea that guarantees a student is going to
get quality review.  I do not even see where it would make sense for a
student to be on trunk (depending on the task).  The real issue is
that we probably do not have anyone able to devote the time to be a
mentor this year and so maybe we should just not participate?

I would mentor one student.
I prefer students to submit a couple of patches before they get
commit access. Whether it makes sense to work on trunk or a branch
depends on the task, I suppose. No way to decide yet.
I would tend to prefer having students work on trunk, though.
They get to have more interaction with the community that way
(e.g. by breaking the build :)

[Daniel Shahaf]

In any case: let's not special-case people because they came to us via GSOC.

IOW: whatever policy we decide on should apply equally to GSOC-sponsored
and other contributors.

Post by Stefan Sperling

Working on trunk is no panacea that guarantees a student is going to
get quality review. I do not even see where it would make sense for a
student to be on trunk (depending on the task). The real issue is
that we probably do not have anyone able to devote the time to be a
mentor this year and so maybe we should just not participate?

I would mentor one student.
I prefer students to submit a couple of patches before they get
commit access. Whether it makes sense to work on trunk or a branch
depends on the task, I suppose. No way to decide yet.
I would tend to prefer having students work on trunk, though.
They get to have more interaction with the community that way
(e.g. by breaking the build :)

[Stefan Sperling]

Post by Daniel Shahaf
In any case: let's not special-case people because they came to us via GSOC.

Yes. That's how we've handled it in the past, and it has worked well.