Summer of Code programs
GSOC

Public Lab has received support for fellows to work on Public Lab software projects via several "Summer of Code" style programs including [Google's Summer of Code program](https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com) -- 2021 is our eighth great year of open-source coding with GSoC! In 2017 and 2018 we also joined the [Rails Girls Summer of Code](https://railsgirlssummerofcode.org/) program, and in 2018 we participated in [Outreachy](https://outreachy.org). This is a key way that we are able to develop our collaborative platform (this website) as well as [other Public Lab coding projects](/developers). > We especially welcome contributions from people from groups underrepresented in free and open source software! ## How to apply Want to get involved? As a first step, **we ask everyone to complete a “first-timers-only” issue**, which you can find on our Welcome page at https://code.publiclab.org. While it’s helpful to have some experience with the Git version tracking system, we have [guides to help you go through this process](/developers#Resources), and will be there to help you get your code posted. Almost all of our code is in Ruby on Rails and JavaScript, so basic familiarity with these systems is a plus. We have a chatroom at https://publiclab.org/chat where you can get help pretty much any time. **** ### Project ideas We kick off each season with a big brainstorm of ideas. You can find this year's discussion here: (Coming soon!) Last years can be found here: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/7360 Our [Summer of Code Ideas Page](/gsoc-ideas) will list the **final brainstormed ideas** that come out of this process. **** ### Call for proposals We have not yet opened our call for proposals, but [you can read last year's here](https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/6285), to get ready! Feel free to ask questions there as well until the 2020 call is posted. Thanks! You can see past years' calls for proposals lists here: https://publiclab.org/tag/call-for-proposals The call for proposals asks people to post their proposals using this template: https://publiclab.org/gsoc-application-template We encourage people to leave comments, encouragement, tips, and questions on each others' proposals in a community fashion, and to be **friendly and welcoming** to one another! **** ## How we work Over recent years, we’ve steadily refined a workflow that helps new contributors get plugged into our community and code with a warm welcome, and aims to support building skills incrementally and cooperatively. We’re always looking for ways to improve, and welcome feedback! Once you are comfortable with our workflow by completing a `first-timers-only` issue (see above) we’d like to ask that you compile your project steps into a planning issue, which [you can learn about here](/notes/warren/01-18-2018/software-outreach-modularity-is-great-for-collaboration). You can see examples here: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/labels/planning At this point, we recommend you begin going through the task list, creating a pull request like a mini-project for each task. Each one will ideally have tests, and we can help you develop these. As you progress, we encourage contributors to grow as leaders by reviewing others’ pull requests, helping troubleshoot, and also taking small parts of your project to post as “first-timers-issues” for someone else. You can read more about these steps at https://publiclab.org/software-outreach and https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/labels/support. Your code will be reviewed, supported and troubleshooted (troubleshot?) and potentially published to our live site as often as once a week, and you’ll be able to see it running and get feedback from people about it to inform your work. Towards the end of your project, we’ll encourage you to take remaining pieces you’d like to see followed-up on in the future, and describe them with enough information for others to take up and complete. This could be in the form of “first-timers-only” issues, or “break-me-up” issues that list out steps that can be adapted into small stand-alone tasks. ### What makes a good project Hi all, at Public Lab, @emash and @warren brainstormed on this a bit, and we felt that a good project: - can be broken into smaller parts that can be merged into our main branch on at least a weekly basis - could be completed as a "small" initial version (MVP) that is later expanded on or refined - has an integrated recruitment plan, i.e. the student has plans to recruit others into the project and designs the project for this - has background/context/historic info readily available to inform the work - is generally self contained - all the code in one place (or clear integration guidelines provided) - contributes to our software roadmap - (stability, maintainability, low technical debt, legible: https://publiclab.org/notes/warren/05-22-2019/draft-of-a-public-lab-software-roadmap-comments-welcome) - solves priority issues for Public Lab's broader community - provides a feeling of accomplishment! - helps students build skills/portfolio - is a "cool new thing" (but not all the projects we NEED done fulfill this...!) - has a good plan for integration/publication to the live production environment, and schedules time for this ### Evaluations We've posted various guidance on how we do evaluations in our Summer of Code programs. Here is a short collection of suggestions and info! * https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/5930 * https://publiclab.org/notes/warren/08-20-2019/wrapping-up-outreachy-and-gsoc-2019 ## Using Milestones and Planning issues You have been selected for the Summer of Code Program, congratulations! The first thing you should think about in your first week is breaking down your projects into small chunks. Use this link as a resource on how to break down the tasks needed for your project https://publiclab.org/notes/warren/01-18-2018/software-outreach-modularity-is-great-for-collaboration Once you have broken down your tasks, the next thing to do is create an issue to list all the tasks needed for your project. You could use a format similar to these issues: * https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/8513 * https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/9069 Using the checklists and creating an issue for each task before the implementation period helps the mentors know what is expected and they can also help you break down or modify the tasks. Please also note that the tasks do get updated, modified, or added throughout the project, you need to be flexible and adaptable to that. Also, we encourage you to create a milestone that will track the progress of your completed task. Once a task is completed and marked as done on the issue checklist, or an issue /PR has been closed or merged add it to the milestone. Have a look at this link to learn more about milestones: https://docs.github.com/en/github/managing-your-work-on-github/tracking-the-progress-of-your-work-with-milestones/about-milestones You are always welcome to reach out and ask any questions **** # Questions [questions:soc] ## Activities [activities:soc] **** ### Mentoring What does it mean to be a mentor? Mentors **check in with a student at least once per week** roughly from May-August, and offer some project management guidance and encouragement... while relying on the [plots-dev list](/wiki/developers) and the `@publiclab/reviewers` group on GitHub to provide code-specific input, so that we share the burden of specific technical support. This means that **to be a mentor you don't necessarily need to know how to code** -- we need mentors who know Public Lab's community and practices well, and who can encourage students to speak up when they get stuck, and to ask the community for input and testing of their work. Students often get stuck when they don't know how something should look, or how a feature might be used by the community -- contextual info! If you're interested in being a mentor, email the developers list or jeff@publiclab.org -- and read over our [software outreach resources](/software-outreach) to get an idea of how we work! Some more resources on mentoring: * our [Summer of Code workflow](https://opensource.googleblog.com/2016/12/google-summer-of-code-2016-wrap-up_21.html) * read [different ways to mentor in this post](/notes/warren/11-08-2016/help-public-lab-s-software-grow-by-joining-a-supportive-team) -- we need various types! * read about [what reviewers do day-to-day on Public Lab code projects](/wiki/developers#Reviewers) * read about [our commitment to modularity](/notes/warren/01-18-2018/software-outreach-modularity-is-great-for-collaboration), very important in how we ask contributors to work * read over our [software outreach strategies](/software-outreach) * http://write.flossmanuals.net/gsoc-mentoring/ also has a lot of resources on mentoring, though not specific to Public Lab **** ### Communication We do occasional chat or video sessions, and mentors rely on each other quite a bit, in [the chatroom](/chat) and [on the plots-gsoc list](/developers). ### Benefits Our code contributor community is built on a commitment to mutual benefit -- we can’t create good software without welcoming in newcomers, and we are deeply invested in supporting contributors to learn new skills and grow as coders, designers, project leaders, and “cooperators”. Unlike many open source communities, much of our capacity is aimed at helping people become proficient coders, and to learn and apply principles such as code modularity, test-driven development, and more, as outlined at https://publiclab.org/software-outreach. But we also seek to change coding culture by recognizing how important communication, mutual support, and affirmative and welcoming tone are. As part of this, we seek to improve ourselves and help contributors learn how to support one another, welcome in a diverse and inclusive community, and build a more positive and equitable society by doing things a little differently. **** ### Past years * 2019: #soc-2019 #outreachy-2019 * 2018: #soc-2018 #outreachy-2018 * Starting in 2017, we began using tags to organize content, such as #soc-2017 * [Call for proposals](/notes/warren/02-28-2017/call-for-proposals) and [wrap-up](/notes/warren/09-07-2017/wrapping-up-google-summer-of-code-2017-at-public-lab) * [GSOC 2016](/wiki/gsoc-2016) program, projects, students and mentors * [GSOC 2015](/wiki/gsoc-2015) program (application only), projects, students and mentors * [GSoC 2014](/wiki/gsoc-2014) program, projects, students and mentors * [GSoC 2013](/wiki/gsoc-2013) program * [GSoC 2013 mentors & proposals](http://publiclab.org/wiki/gsoc-2013-mentors-and-student-proposals) **** ### Updates [notes:soc] ...


Author Comment Last activity Moderation
warren "That's true - projective distortion cannot be achieved with an affine transformation. The existing Cartagen/MapKnitter 1.0 code is just a wrapper ..." | Read more » about 10 years ago
lot "Hi Mercy, We did some test with the app this weekend, we are making the map this days, tell me if you want some images for test. We use Samsung S3..." | Read more » about 10 years ago
patcoyle "Good progress update. May not be in current scope, but adding output that can be used to trigger CHDK external cameras is a "nice to have." Would ..." | Read more » about 10 years ago
btbonval "I suppose I could go read the source code. I suppose I should go read the source code. All the math is right there. Maybe there will be comments! " | Read more » about 10 years ago
btbonval "Thanks Anish. This was a bit outside the scope of your project, but I'm glad you learned from it. Sharing this might help some other Google Summer ..." | Read more » about 10 years ago
lot "Thanks for the work. This weekend we will make some experiments with the sky-cam flying a flone (quadcopter with android onboard) over some mounta..." | Read more » about 10 years ago
warren "Check http://publiclab.org/wiki/sky-cam " | Read more » about 10 years ago
mercyorangi "Hello Warren, I haven't been able to get the 2.3.x version.. The code base provided on github points to min API of 11 (version 3.x.x). I did see 2...." | Read more » about 10 years ago
warren "Hi mercy! Thanks for the update. Did you see there is an android 2.3.x version of sky can too? And mohit who wrote it was mentioning some feature o..." | Read more » about 10 years ago
xvidun "for interfaces, think minimalist! The current interface is based on Blueimp's demo. I just wanted to get everything working. Now that everything ..." | Read more » about 10 years ago
warren "Feel free to make your own issues to help you manage your time and planning! " | Read more » about 10 years ago
warren "https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues?labels=gsoc&page=1&state=open " | Read more » about 10 years ago
warren "Yeah very nice -- for interfaces, think minimalist! Can we have the upload begin automatically, and not require a "start" button? Also, perhaps you..." | Read more » about 10 years ago
mathew "Nice Vidun! I'm glad to see that the majority of the functionality is in there. " | Read more » about 10 years ago
warren "The existing peak detection code, and notes on its shortcomings, is here: https://github.com/jywarren/spectral-workbench/blob/master/webserver/publ..." | Read more » about 10 years ago
Sreyanth "Hi Vidhun! Great going. All the best for your project too! :) " | Read more » about 10 years ago
warren "Oh, one more thing - if you tag each of your posts with "response:10139" as I just did, it'll always link back to your original GSoC proposal, whic..." | Read more » about 10 years ago
warren "Hi, Vidhun - can you add your profile links and github fork link here: http://publiclab.org/wiki/gsoc-2014 Thanks! I'd love the codebase to be at..." | Read more » about 10 years ago
mercyorangi "Hi Jeff, yes it does make sense, been looking a little bit deeper into it to get a better grip. Thank you! " | Read more » over 10 years ago
warren "So the db is only 8.7mb when bz2 compressed. I'll mail a link. " | Read more » over 10 years ago
gonzoearth "I currently have 2 big MapKnitter feature requests that are not part of this proposal that I would like to just state for the record (not to distra..." | Read more » over 10 years ago
gonzoearth "Exciting, it is a great demo! " | Read more » over 10 years ago
btbonval "I also really liked the demo. Jeff, how big is the MapKnitter database? Can we duplicate it easily? It'd be great for Anish to be able to have acce..." | Read more » over 10 years ago
warren "Oh, https://twitter.com/SpectralWB " | Read more » over 10 years ago