Google Summer of Code
Contents
What is it?
The Google Summer of Code™ is a program sponsored by Google where they pay students to develop open source software. In its third incarnation in 2007, Geeklog took part in the program for the first time.
Call For Brainstorming
After last year's successful participation, we are planning to apply again in 2008. For this we need two things:
- ideas
- mentors
Please note: Projects for the SoC should be doable during the 3 months that the program runs. Ideas for smaller projects are probably better suited for Geeklog's bounty program.
Ideas
- Webservices revisited
- Install script: Plugins and Migration
- Improving the comments
- SWOT (Spam: Web of Trust)
- Mailman Plugin
- Improved Search
- Add Social Networking Features
- Implement a theme based on the YUI CSS Foundation Libraries
- Cross Site Alerting and Publication API
- Implement Open Web Analytics
- Core Notification Service
- Geeklog2 Syndication API
- Geeklog2 Anti-Spam "Solution"
There are also some leftover ideas from 2007. Feel free to add some more.
Notes for Students
Required skills
Students interested in any of the above projects should have reasonable experience with PHP and some basic SQL knowledge. Being able to set up your own LAMP server (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) would probably help but isn't a prerequisite.
Background information
Please note that there are two versions of Geeklog currently under active development but that they share little other than the name and a few contributors.
- Geeklog 1.x (currently 1.4.1, with 1.5.0 "almost done") is the software you may have seen running websites such as Groklaw.
- Geeklog 2 is "the next generation" of Geeklog and has been rewritten from the ground up. There are no released versions of Geeklog 2 yet.
Geeklog 1.x was started back in the year 2000 and its code is still mostly procedural and it uses its own (thin) database abstraction layer. Geeklog 2, on the other hand, is fully object oriented and uses technologies such as MVC and design patterns.
So basically, you can choose between working on a system that is in wide use already or one that uses all the latest and greatest in technology but isn't quite ready for mainstream use yet. In either case, you would be helping the Geeklog community immensely.
Contact
For all questions regarding Geeklog and the Summer of Code, please email us at contact-us(AT)lists.geeklog.net (or use this web form).
