[gst-devel] GStreamer as Google Summer of Code project

[Christian Fredrik Kalager Schaller]

On Wed, 2006-04-19 at 14:01 +0200, MDK wrote:
> > Hi team,
> >         I have started the process of registering GStreamer as a summer
> >         of code project this year. If that is going to be a success for
> >         us we need two things, one is good ideas for what the SoC
> >         students can work on and even more importantly we need mentors.
> 
> Hey, I think it's a great idea. Count me in as a "secondary" mentor for
> something/everything. I'm definitely willing to help the students and
> I'll look into getting some of the work integrated in Diva at the end of
> SoC. 
> 
> Since I was a SoC participant last year, here are some off-hand
> thoughts: 
> 
> * There is money involved, there is some stress involved too. Money
> changes attitudes so I think it's important to keep the projects more or
> less equally hard and difficult. I know it was frustrating for
> participants to see that some are doing very hard things, while others
> are getting the cheque for 3 weeks of lightweight hacking. 
> 
> * I was working under the The Mono Project. Even though Miguel De Icaza
> (who was mentoring all the projects) did a great job at trying to bring
> everyone together, it somewhat happened that only 2-3 people (out of the
> group of 15 I think) are still contributing/being active in the mono
> area. The rest has "disappeared". I'm not sure how all this can be
> handled better, but obviously the biggest aim should be not only to get
> some extra gst work done, but to acquire some future Gst contributors.
> It's a hard thing. 
> 
> * To keep the projects successful for everyone it's important to be
> "tough". Keep a weekly schedule, not accept cheap excuses. Students are
> lazy by definition and they tend to postpone everything till the very
> last minute. Sometimes it proves fatal. Schedules are important to
> pinpoint problems early on and help the people that need help.
> 
> Like I said before, the whole thing is (unexpectedly) very emotional for
> folks. At the end Soc 2005 there was some misunderstanding and bad
> mouthing -- students complaining about mentors, etc. The only way to get
> rid of that is to keep the rules simple and tight. 
> 
> BTW, The Mono Project has already a nice page with interesting notes
> too: http://www.mono-project.com/StudentProjects

Hi Michal,
Thanks for the feedback, I think that we should probably do our own
little mentor/student guide based on your experience.

> Speaking of projects -- what about interlacing support? Too hard? 

It is the kinda thing which in addition to coding on the needed elements
requires designing extensions to the core. If the student is the right
person this is of course not a problem, but I am a bit skeptical to
giving a task to someone without a strong GStreamer track record as API
once its added we are stuck with. Of course is the mentor is willing to
do the design work as part of his/hers mentoring then this might not be
a problem.

Christian