[FFmpeg-devel] [RFC] Google Summer of Code 2013

[Stefano Sabatini]

On date Thursday 2013-03-21 15:36:39 -0800, Lou Logan encoded:
> On Sun, 17 Mar 2013 18:43:24 +0100, Stefano Sabatini wrote:
> 
> > Interested parties are welcome to read and review the application text
> > draft in attachment, based on the text used for the GSoC 2012
> > application with a few edits.
> 
> Attached:
> 
> * application.org.llogan.txt - my mostly trivial changes based on your
>   file so you can diff if desired.
> 
> * application.org.formatted.txt - same answers above, but I re-organized
>   the questions based on [1]. Most obvious addition is the largely
>   redundant question #17. I simply split the answer from question #14.
> 
> My next step to add some sort of introduction for students on the ideas
> page.
> 
> [1]
> <http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/document/show/gsoc_program/google/gsoc2013/help_page#2._What_should_a_mentoring_organization>

>   1. Describe your organization
> 
> FFmpeg is a complete, cross-platform solution to record, convert,
> filter and stream audio and video. It includes libavcodec - the
> leading audio/video codec library.
> 
> FFmpeg is possibly the most ubiquitous multimedia framework in the
> world, is used as the multimedia engine by a significant part of FLOSS
> multimedia applications, and provides the back-end of most transcoding
> services.
> 
> FFmpeg strives at being the *universal* multimedia tool, implementing
> all possible multimedia formats (even the most obscure fringe formats),
> and at being *complete*; providing full fledged support for all
> multimedia operations, and relying on external projects when it makes
> sense.
> 
>   2. Why is your organization applying to participate in Google Summer
>      of Code 2013? What do you hope to gain by participating?
> 
> We hope to involve more contributors in the community, gain
> visibility, improve and extend our codebase, and have an opportunity to
> meet and discuss with other project developers thanks to the events
> and the channels related to the program.
> 
>   3. Has your organization participated in past Google Summer of Codes?
> 
> Yes.
> 
>   4. Please summarize your involvement and the successes and challenges
>      of your participation. Please also list your pass/fail rate for
>      each year.
> 
> FFmpeg participated to the Google Summer of Code editions of 2007,
> 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011.

And 2006 as well.

I don't know if we should mention the fail/pass rate for each year,
especially considering that sometimes it is very hard to find that
information on the wiki.

> 
> A comprehensive list of all the past applications and tasks can be
> found at:
> 
> http://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php?title=FFmpeg_Summer_Of_Code
> 
>   5. If your organization has not previously participated in Google
>      Summer of Code, have you applied in the past? If so, for what
>      year(s)?
> 
> N/A
> 
>   6. What Open Source Initiative approved license(s) does your project
>      use?
> 
> GNU LGPL v2
> 
>   7. What is the URL for your Ideas list?
> 
> http://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php?title=FFmpeg_Summer_of_Code_2013
> 
>   8. What is the main development mailing list for your organization?
> 
> The main development list is: ffmpeg-devel at ffmpeg.org 
> 
> You can find contact information for this and other mailing lists at:
> http://ffmpeg.org/contact.html
> 
>   9. What is the main IRC channel for your organization?
> 
> #ffmpeg-devel on irc.freenode.net
> 
>   10. Who will be your backup organization administrator?
> 
> Lou Logan
> lou at lrcd.com
> llogan in #ffmpeg-devel IRC
> 
>   11. What criteria did you use to select the mentors?
> 
> Availability and qualification.
> 
> Mentors propose themselves based on their expertise in the domain area
> for the mentored tasks, and on their skill and will to deal with
> potential contributors.
> 
> Mentors are usually veteran developers who delivered significant
> contributions to the project and who deeply know the codebase, the
> community and the resources around the project.
> 
>   12. What is your plan for dealing with disappearing students?
> 
> We will try to keep scheduled contacts with students during
> qualification tasks to make sure they are reliable before they are
> accepted. We'll also urge the student to provide periodical reports
> in order to track their progress.
> 
> In case of a disappearing student, we'll try to get in touch with
> him/her using all the possible channels at our disposal, and in case
> the student can't be reached within a reasonable amount of time we'll
> declare his/her task failed.
> 
>   13. What is your plan for dealing with disappearing mentors?
> 
> We assign a backup mentor to each task. The GSoC admin will take the
> responsibility to act as backup mentor in case the appointed mentors
> will disappear during the project.
> 
> Also, we rely on the whole developers community to help the student to
> accomplish the given task in addition to the help provided by the
> appointed mentors.
> 
> Since students will be urged to join IRC, they will likely get live,
> interactive help from other developers; even if the mentor is not
> available.
> 
>   14. What steps will you take to encourage students to interact with
>       your project's community before, during and after the program?
> 
> We'll recommend students to idle on IRC and we'll request them to read
> and possibly participate in discussions on the main development
> mailing-list.
> 
> We will also try to create a friendly environment where the students
> can freely participate and where they can find support from the
> community. We rely on personal communication between student and
> mentor in order to make the student acquainted with the community
> "culture".
> 
> We expect the accepted students to be future contributors, thus we will
> try to create an environment where the student is encouraged to assume
> responsibility for the code that s/he will write during the task.
> 
> We hope the students will stay around after the task termination on
> the ground that they will feel comfortable with the project community
> and will have genuine interest in continuing their effort with it.
> 
>   15. Are you a new organization who has a Googler or other
>       organization to vouch for you? If so, please list their name(s)
>       here.
> 
> N/A
> 
>   16. Are you an established or larger organization who would like to
>       vouch for a new organization applying this year? If so, please
>       list their name(s) here.
> 
> We are not aware of any at this time.
> 
>   17. What will you do to encourage that your accepted students stick
>       with the project after Google Summer of Code concludes?
> 
> We expect the accepted students to be future contributors, thus we will
> try to create an environment where the student is encouraged to assume
> responsibility for the code that s/he will write during the task.
> 
> We hope the students will stay around after the task termination on
> the ground that they will feel comfortable with the project community
> and will have genuine interest in continuing their effort with it.

No more comments from me, thanks.

I'll send the application tomorrow. It should be possible to edit the
text after the application is done in case.

We're still lacking backup mentors for the following tasks:
* H.264 Multiview Video Coding (MVC)
* Animated Portable Network Graphics (APNG)
* Postproc optimizations
* MPEG-4 ALS encoder
* Hardware Acceleration (hwaccel) API v2

Please let us know as soon as possible if you want to co-mentor these
tasks.
I'll be the default backup mentor in case no one shows up.
-- 
FFmpeg = Free and Fiendish Mean Programmable Exploitable Game