Why is your organization applying to participate in Google Summer of Code 2013? What do you hope to gain by participating?: highlight modified paragraph
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== DRAFT, BRUTAL COPY OF 2012, DO NOT USE WITHOUT FURTHER MODIFICATIONS!==
== DRAFT, BRUTAL COPY OF 2012, DO NOT USE WITHOUT FURTHER MODIFICATIONS!==
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- Questions have been updated.
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- Questions have been updated
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== Introduction & overview ==
== Introduction & overview ==
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|Backup Mentors: ||
|Backup Mentors: ||
* [[User:Aquadran|Paweł Kołodziejski]], Google Account: aquadran AT scummvm.org link_id: aquadran
* [[User:Aquadran|Paweł Kołodziejski]], Google Account: aquadran AT scummvm.org link_id: aquadran
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* [[User:Fuzzie|Alyssa Milburn ]], Google Account: fuzzie AT scummvm.org link_id: fuzzie
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* [[User:wjp|Willem Jan Palenstijn]], Google Account: wjp AT scummvm.org link_id: wjp
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As usual, what we hope to gain is valuable code contributions. In previous years, we've had students take up and complete tasks which had been marked as "to-do", but the main developers had no time to implement them. The students took these up as self-contained GSoC projects and realized them. But also, some students have come up with new functionality, proposing and finally implementing it. These have been our favorite.
As usual, what we hope to gain is valuable code contributions. In previous years, we've had students take up and complete tasks which had been marked as "to-do", but the main developers had no time to implement them. The students took these up as self-contained GSoC projects and realized them. But also, some students have come up with new functionality, proposing and finally implementing it. These have been our favorite.
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In addition, we hope to gain new developers for the project. We hope that after their projects, students will stick around and improve them or work on other interesting tasks. We hope that GSoC brings the students in touch with open source and, in our case, brings them in touch with game developing. We hope these students will add their piece of code to this project, but will also keep on contributing afterwards.
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In addition, we hope to gain new developers for the project. We hope that after their projects, students will stick around and improve them or work on other interesting tasks. We hope that GSoC brings the students in touch with open source and, in our case, brings them in touch with game developing. We hope these students will add their piece of code to this project, but will also keep on contributing afterwards.
Last year, a student met all those expectations and even managed to exceed them: [[User:Somaen | somaen]] is still contributing to the project and is even volunteering to be a mentor this year!
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We've been successful in the past
five
years, and we're really looking forward to great results from the program this year too.
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We've been successful in the past
six
years, and we're really looking forward to great results from the program this year too.
=== Has your organization participated in past Google Summer of Codes? (Yes / No) ===
=== Has your organization participated in past Google Summer of Codes? (Yes / No) ===
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=== If you answered “yes” to the question above, please summarize your involvement and the successes and challenges of your participation. Please also list your pass/fail rate for each year. ===
=== If you answered “yes” to the question above, please summarize your involvement and the successes and challenges of your participation. Please also list your pass/fail rate for each year. ===
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We have participated in the GSoC program for five years running, in 2007-
2011
.
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We have participated in the GSoC program for five years running, in 2007-
2012
.
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In 2012, 5 team members mentored 4 students. Each mentor was also the co-mentor of another task, so the backup mentoring was still working well. 3 students passed, and one failed at mid-term. One student is still contributing to the project and volunteered to be a mentor for GSoC 2013, which is really great awesome. Based on discussion with other projects and on our experience, we considered merging student code earlier in the GSoC process and have modified our processes accordingly for the next years
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In 2011, 4 team members mentored 2 students. One student succeeded in objectifying the CruisE engine, which really needed it. The other student unfortunately gave up fairly quickly after starting work (although the work done was eventually merged into our main repository, after being worked on further by a team member). After stepping back to review our processes, we feel we can still consider them to be mature. Part of the problems which caused the student to quickly give up came from internal tensions, that we have since addressed by redefining the project management structure.
In 2011, 4 team members mentored 2 students. One student succeeded in objectifying the CruisE engine, which really needed it. The other student unfortunately gave up fairly quickly after starting work (although the work done was eventually merged into our main repository, after being worked on further by a team member). After stepping back to review our processes, we feel we can still consider them to be mature. Part of the problems which caused the student to quickly give up came from internal tensions, that we have since addressed by redefining the project management structure.
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In 2007 we had 7 students and 4 mentors in total. Two of our students have been promoted to active, regular developers in the team after having their respective code contributions integrated in the codebase. One other student's code contributions have also been integrated in the mainline. Two more have their code still in development to improve it and make it production-ready, either through optimization or extension and better integration. Two students failed to keep up with the schedule and/or produced inadequate code.
In 2007 we had 7 students and 4 mentors in total. Two of our students have been promoted to active, regular developers in the team after having their respective code contributions integrated in the codebase. One other student's code contributions have also been integrated in the mainline. Two more have their code still in development to improve it and make it production-ready, either through optimization or extension and better integration. Two students failed to keep up with the schedule and/or produced inadequate code.
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All in all, we maintain that we are refining our method of student selection
the
past years and this refinement leads to better results each year.
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All in all, we maintain that we are refining our method of student selection
these
past
three
years and this refinement leads to better results each year.
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The discussions, testimonials and proposed actions which the mentor summit has brought up -and which we have participated in these
six
years- have helped us a great deal, during this refinement process as well. Our new management organization has also proven its efficiency during these last
2 years
, and we expect much of it in the future.
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The discussions, testimonials and proposed actions which the mentor summit has brought up -and which we have participated in these
five
years- have helped us a great deal, during this refinement process as well. Our new management organization has also proven its efficiency during these last
8 months
, and we expect much of it in the future.
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=== If your organization has not previously participated in Google Summer of Code, have you applied in the past? If so, for what year(s)? ===
=== If your organization has not previously participated in Google Summer of Code, have you applied in the past? If so, for what year(s)? ===
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During the program, we will make sure that the students will feel comfortable with their tasks. Our mentors already have experience with that. Moreover, in difficult situations in the past there was not just a single person feeling responsible for a particular student, but rather the whole project was trying to help when needed. These reflexes on behalf of the mentor group but also on behalf of the active team members of ScummVM have proven to be a pretty good "tool" and we are going to do our best this year too.
During the program, we will make sure that the students will feel comfortable with their tasks. Our mentors already have experience with that. Moreover, in difficult situations in the past there was not just a single person feeling responsible for a particular student, but rather the whole project was trying to help when needed. These reflexes on behalf of the mentor group but also on behalf of the active team members of ScummVM have proven to be a pretty good "tool" and we are going to do our best this year too.
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Based on our more negative experience
last year
,
this year
we will also make sure that internal project tensions stay internal and under control, since they were an identified cause of demotivation of our disappearing student. The
new
project management structure should make sure that it will not as easily happen in the future.
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Based on our more negative experience
two years ago
, we will also make sure that internal project tensions stay internal and under control, since they were an identified cause of demotivation of our disappearing student
in 2011
. The
current
project management structure should make sure that it will not as easily happen in the future.
=== What is your plan for dealing with disappearing mentors? Please be as specific as possible. ===
=== What is your plan for dealing with disappearing mentors? Please be as specific as possible. ===
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For the mentors, the risk is relatively low; our past experiences absolutely verify this claim. In order to be even more efficient this year, three of our mentors are project leaders, core team members or project administrators and are reachable virtually 24/7 (in case of emergencies). We all have exchanged sufficient contact information (including cell phone numbers etc.) to be able to discover our whereabouts. Should something really bad happen which precludes a mentor from fulfilling his duties (including personal reasons), we will attempt to shift students to new mentors among the existing mentors, or drawn from our backup pool of mentors. This will depend on the number of students we have to mentor.
In
any case, the students will not be left hanging for any reason at all, no matter what happens.
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For the mentors, the risk is relatively low; our past experiences absolutely verify this claim. In order to be even more efficient this year, three of our mentors are project leaders, core team members or project administrators and are reachable virtually 24/7 (in case of emergencies).
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We all have exchanged sufficient contact information (including cell phone numbers etc.) to be able to discover our whereabouts. Should something really bad happen which precludes a mentor from fulfilling his duties (including personal reasons), we will attempt to shift students to new mentors among the existing mentors, or drawn from our backup pool of mentors. This will depend on the number of students we have to mentor.
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;We also defined for the last two years a co-mentoring system so the students have a primary and a secondary mentor, which comfort us in the idea that, in
any case, the students will not be left hanging for any reason at all, no matter what happens.
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=== What steps will you take to encourage students to interact with your project's community before, during and after the program? ===
=== What steps will you take to encourage students to interact with your project's community before, during and after the program? ===
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Not only the mentors, but also the entire development team, are encouraged to communicate with the students. The students are marked with a special flag on our IRC channel, so everyone knows who they are. And we require the students to write introductory letters to our development list, so everyone will have an impression about them, their skills and their assigned task (of course).
Not only the mentors, but also the entire development team, are encouraged to communicate with the students. The students are marked with a special flag on our IRC channel, so everyone knows who they are. And we require the students to write introductory letters to our development list, so everyone will have an impression about them, their skills and their assigned task (of course).
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This year, we also decided to merge in our Master tree the GSoC student code much earlier in the process. Based on our own experience, on discussion with returning students and on discussions with other projects, it should be very motivating for students to directly interact with our main repository and could potentially make some of them stay after the end of GSoC. We'll obviously have to make an assessment afterwards of the benefits and disadvantages of that new process.
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=== Are you a new organization who has a Googler or other organization to vouch for you? If so, please list their name(s) here. ===
=== Are you a new organization who has a Googler or other organization to vouch for you? If so, please list their name(s) here. ===