GSoC 2008 Student Guidelines D1205341502 Adavide # #REQUIREMENTS FOR STUDENT PARTICIPATION # #We want every student experience to be productive and educational, #and we understand that for many students this will be a larger and #more open-ended kind of project than you have previously completed. #We believe that open and frequent communication is vital in helping #you succeed. # #Experience gained through previous Google Summer of Code efforts and #other mentoring and management activities over the years has led us #to establish these requirements for student participation. We #understand that some students may find themselves temporarily unable #to meet these requirements due to events beyond their control, such #as unexpected work, school, or family demands. However, long-term #failure to meet these requirements will result in removal from the #program. # # * The sole storage for your GSoC work cannot be a personally-owned # machine. This means that every week, or more frequently, your work # must be copied to a server operated by the Plan 9 GSoC project or # committed to a Google Code repository. # # * Every Sunday, by your local midnight, your project's top-level # CHANGELOG file must be updated. Your mentor and the project # administrators will scan for status updates at least as frequently # as every Monday at their local noon. # # * Before the coding period begins, you and your mentor will agree # on at least one milestone to be reached before the mid-term # evaluation. # # * Your mentor will be expected to remove you from the program at # the time of the mid-term evaluation unless your repository and # changelog have been up-to-date and you have met the agreed-upon # milestone. # #APPLICATION HINTS # # * If you aren't yet a user of Plan 9 or Inferno, please understand # that these systems are fundamentally different from what you're # used to. This is why we like and use them, but you should expect # that getting started will require a genuine investment in reading # and a willingness to do everything a different way than you're used # to. # # * If you are proposing a 9P/Styx project which will not run on Plan # 9 or Inferno (e.g., an embedded-system project or a Linux/BSD/*ix # project), we expect your design and implementation will benefit # from a healthy understanding of "the mother ship". # # * If at all possible, read up on Plan 9 and/or Inferno (see papers # on the web site) and complete an installation before finalizing # your application. # # * You should subscribe to the 9fans mailing list as soon as # possible and commit to keeping up with it. While most GSoC-related # traffic will be carried on a dedicated mailing list, discussions on # 9fans will provide useful background context, and we hope that # after following it for a few weeks you will chime in as appropriate. # # * Try to make it clear in your application that you understand the # parts of the problem and how difficult they are. A conservative # plan with some clearly achievable milestones will probably be more # attractive than an all-or-none "big bang" plan. # #GETTING HELP # #Don't panic! We do not expect all incoming summer students to have #been born knowing: # * how to read 20,000 lines of code and see how the parts fit # together # * how to debug obscure installation problems of obscure operating # systems # * how to guess which way a piece of hardware deviates from its # documentation # * how to make and adjust a development schedule In general, when # you don't know what to do next, ask somebody. # #For problems related to installation, configuration, source control, #and debugging tools, we recommend that you start with the #plan9 #and/or #inferno IRC channels on irc.freenode.org. If help is not #available in real-time via IRC, we suggest sending mail to the #plan9-gsoc mailing list. # #For issues specific to your project, do not hesitate to contact your #mentor. Furthermore, it will generally make the most sense for these #communications to include both your mentor and your backup mentor. # #If you feel the relationship with your mentor is not going well, #please do not hesitate to contact the Plan 9 GSoC administrator. #Personality conflicts do arise between well-meaning people and we #will work to resolve issues as well as we can. Please realize, #however, that it is important for you to get help right away: the #role of the project administrator is to help you make forward #progress so you can meet deadlines, not to override a mentor's #correct observation that program requirements are not being met. #