Re: Summer of Code projects for GNU

[Thomas Lord <lord@emf.net>]

Chong Yidong wrote:
> Nick Roberts <nickrob@snap.net.nz> writes:
>
>   
>> In the past Emacs has not been directly involved but, assuming that Google run
>> a Summer of Code in 2009, I think that we should suggest some projects.  It's
>> still a long way off but successful projects appeared to be quite organised,
>> e.g.,
>>
>>         http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/grub-soc.html
>>
>> At the moment, I'm just looking for some consensus.
>>     

Are you sure the GNU project should be supporting GSoC?

For their investment in the project, Google gets a lot of volunteer
marketing, with people putting up posters at universities, press
coverage, etc.   Yet, they don't talk about free software but, rather,
open source.   And, in administering the project, they collect a lot
of HR-type recruitment data, both demographic and individual,
about the students.   And, they pick the funded projects by fiat rather
than accountably.   And, they arguably underpay the host projects
relative to the supervisory and reporting obligations they impose.
And, Google is very much a proprietary software company with
no signs of trying to change that.

I think GNU (and FSF) should look at the past few years of
GSoC, at the amounts of money spent on students and towards
FSF, add that up, and say:

"Hey, we appreciate support.  But this process is, at best, inefficient.
Your terms for getting that money is problematic.   How about just
giving us that money directly, instead, through one or more NPOs,
earmarked for development?   We don't want to encourage aspirants
to your program to advertise for you gratis.   We don't want to be obligated
to report to you in those ways.   We just want to advance software freedom
and develop free software and we can do that much better if you just
give us the money with fewer strings attached."


-t










>> For my part, I would like to suggest the migration of GDB in Emacs from
>> annotations to fully using GDB/MI and perhaps integration with ECB.  I have
>> quite clear ideas about how to do that and I am willing to do the mentoring.
>>
>> But it would be good to have other suggestions, which would require mentoring,
>> too.
>>     
>
> Good idea.
>
> One project that I can think of is a rewrite or revamp of the
> customization code.
>
>
>
>