[Soc-coordination] Welcome to Debian's Summer of Code 2006

[Steve McIntyre]

Welcome!

Google have made their decisions as to what projects they want to
sponsor this summer. We've signed up all of our chosen students and
mentors to this mailing list to aid in co-ordination. If you want to
manage your list membership (e.g. to subscribe using a different
address) visit the listinfo page at

    http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/soc-coordination

We strongly recommend that all mentors and students stay on the list!

A few other things to cover:

Private information in proposals
--------------------------------

Google are going to make all the accepted proposals public; if any
students have personal/private information in their proposals that
they would rather *not* share with the whole world, now would be a
good time to edit your applications accordingly. All the necessary
information from the project proposals has already been collected by
the Google admins and each proposal should now be editable for you. if
you have any problems on this front, grab an admin and we'll sort it
out.

Source control - guidelines for students
----------------------------------------

Use of a source control system will help you to manage your
project. Keeping an open, accessible repository is encouraged. Debian
already has a Sourceforge-like system available for hosting and we
would suggest that you use it - see alioth.debian.org for information
on how to create an account and request project space. There is
already a SoC project ready to be used there, or if you prefer you can
request a separate one for your use.

If you do ask for a new project, please make sure that your mentor is
added with admin rights. Mentors should already have alioth accounts,
so adding them to projects can be easily done - just look for the
"Unix account name".

Regular reports
---------------

Starting ASAP (with a message saying that the project has started, or
is ready to go), mentors and students should regularly report progress
from now until the end of the summer. There are several ways to do
this: blog about what you're doing, or mail to this list or the Debian
admins (see below) as you see fit. We'd like to see weekly reports if
at all possible.

Problems
--------

If you have a problem with your project and need help, please contact
us ASAP. For students, the first person to talk to should be your
mentor, then the Debian admins. More general queries or issues may
also come to this list.

Unsure you're doing the right thing?
------------------------------------

If you're having second thoughts about this whole Summer of Code thing
right now, or you think you've made a major mistake and would like to
back out, contact us NOW - it's not too late. So long as project
changes and/or cancellations happen early, Google should be happy to
talk to you and us about reassigning funding if possible. Please,
whatever you do, don't just sit quiet at this point...!

Timeline
--------

As a reminder, here are some relevant dates from the Google page at
http://code.google.com/soc/studentfaq.html:

May 22, 2006:
- All mentors must be signed up with their organization by 08:00
  Pacific Daylight Time
- All student proposals must be ranked and assigned to a mentor by
  08:00 Pacific Daylight Time

May 23, 2006:
- Google publishes list of accepted student proposals on
  code.google.com
- Students commence work on their projects under the guidance of their
  mentors
- Summer-Accepted Google Group opens for discussions between accepted
  students, mentors and Google program administrators

Interim Period:
- Google begins issuing initial student payments
- Mentors give students a helping hand and guidance on their projects

June 26, 2006:
- Google solicits mid-program mentor evaluations of student progress

June 30, 2006:
- All mid-program evaluations of student progress due by 17:00 Pacific
  Daylight Time
- Google begins issuing mid-term student payments

OSCON, July 24-28, 2006:
- Google gives community update at OSCON 2006

August 21, 2006:
- All student projects due by 08:00 Pacific Daylight Time
- Final mentor evaluations of student progress commence
- Student evaluations of mentors commence

September 5, 2006:
- All mentor and student evaluations due by 08:00 Pacific Daylight Time
- Google begins issuing final student payments
- Google program administrators begin review of students' evaluations
  of their mentors

September 25, 2006:
- Google begins issuing payments to mentoring organizations

If you have exams or other commitments that will affect your ability
to meet the mid-term or final deadlines, share them with us
NOW. Google admins have already indicated that these dates are not
flexible in terms of timing, but the exact progress expected by the
mid-term evaluation is to be decided by the mentors. Complete
information to help your mentor work that out will help everybody. The
final evaluation is *not* as negotiable - the project should be
finished to the satisfaction of the student, the mentor and the Google
admins by that point.

Debian admins
-------------
If you need to contact Debian people for any reason, the following are
the admins for the project for SoC 2006:

 - Andreas Barth (aba at not.so.argh.org) 
 - Anthony Towns (aj at azure.humbug.org.au)
 - Baruch Even (baruch at debian.org)
 - Raphael Hertzog (raphael at ouaza.com)
 - Steve McIntyre (steve at einval.com)

Most of us are also contactable on IRC - see #debian-soc on
irc.oftc.net

-- 
Steve McIntyre <steve at einval.com>
Debian 2IC
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