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APR
23
2006
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KDE in Google's Summer of Code 2006KDE is again participating in Google's Summer of Code. We did this last year and got 24 exciting projects running. They had all kinds of results, from widely successfull over interesting concept to mild failure. I mentored three projects and it certainly was a great and enjoyable experience, so I will be a mentor again this year. There already is a list of ideas for KDE projects in Google's Summer of Code 2006. It includes lots of interesting stuff. There are general ideas like implementing new concepts for rendering windows on the desktop, web services development tools or innovative ways of providing online help for applications. There are whole projects which provide ideas, like KOffice or KDevelop (my favorite feature from their list is the Unified code/header editing for C++, that's an interesting concept and a challenge which is just right for a Summer of Code). There also are lots of possible projects around Akonadi, the upcoming PIM Storage Service which will provide the base for handling mails, calendars, contacts and more in Kontact of KDE 4. As the Akonadi is based on a cross-platform and cross-desktop architecture it will be able to reach beyond the borders of KDE. This certainly is an inspiring area to work on. So if you are a student: Don't miss this opportunity. Get involved, pick a project or come up with an exciting new idea, apply for the program and earn some money while having a great time in the Summer of Code. As Chris DiBona put it: Flip bits not burgers.
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Comments
Problems with KDE's Wiki
Apparently Google doesn't yet know about KDE's list ideas exist since they don't link to it from the Summer of Code page.
But maybe that's a good thing, since KDE's wiki looks really unprofessional compared to the wikis of Mono, Beagle or Fedora. Perhaps it would be better to find another home for KDE's SOC ideas. Here are a couple of problems with KDE's wiki:
* The URL contains spaces that show up cryptically as %20. It's a pain to link to it.
* The left bar takes up WAY too much space and is uninformative
* The wiki has uneeded cruft like "Choose your location", "Language", "Style", etc. How many people actually change those. The language option is useless since most of the info isn't translated anyway.
* All those links at the bottom make the wiki look really unprofessional. I understand it's nice to give credit to the tools used to build the wiki, but why not list them in a discrete page of their own?
* What's the point of displaying "Execution Time", "Memory Usage", "GZIP enabled", "Server Load", etc? The reader could care less.
All in all, the wiki needs some heavy-duty polishing in order to reflect the seriousness and professionalism of KDE -- I suggest using the Mono wiki as an example.
SoC Ideas list
I agree with you on the problems of the KDE Wiki. But right now it's the only Wiki we have and on the time-scale of the application phase of the Summer of Code it's unlikely to change. We should work on improving it, though.
The ideas page is now also linked on the Google page, by the way.
Why not update http://developer.kde.org/summerofcode ?
One idea is to put the list in http://developer.kde.org/summerofcode/ . It is not a full-blown wiki, but the [Edit] link on the bottom right corner makes it pretty easy to update the page.