Google SoC

[cruonit]

http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2 ... s-now.html

maybe to try ARWINSS this year ...

till 18.03

[fred02]

Actually it was only till 12th.
And I guess that ROS did not apply.

[vicmarcal]

ReactOS applied

[jgwright]

Then that's great news. If accepted, I hope there are some willing & able mentors around. Did ReactOS participate in the first GSoC?

[vicmarcal]

We are applying since 5 years ago and these applies has been refused once and again.We dont lose the faith.But since ChromeOS...our opportunites are quite few.Google supports interesting software but not that interesting software which could become a competitor.This shows the hypocrisy of the Gsoc.Or why ReactOS is the only Sourceforge Finalist project that is refused once and again?How is possible that a finalist project in 3 categories ofSourceforge Awards( and voted for many many users) doesnt seem interesting enough to support it?
Disclaimer: Of course this is just my own opinion and doesnt reflect ReactOS Project opinion.

[fred02]

ReactOS applied

We are applying since 5 years ago and these applies has been refused once and again.We dont lose the faith.

Ah, good. Yes, let see what happens this year.

[Pesho]

I agree with Vic, it would be pretty surprising if it gets accepted this year.

[JPLR]

Hi,

Perhaps Reactos proposals to GSoC are fundamentally flawed: Proposals to work on Reactos, Reactos graphic subsystem or even Reactos/USB are irrelevant. The topic of a GSoC should have some scientific value. By scientific value I mean learning something new and valuable enough to worth share it with the community.
I don't want to be harsh but the interest of this community is obviously driven by cloning another OS, so it's difficult to be attractive as a minegold of scientific topics.
This doesn't mean the Reactos goal is without value, only it's without value for scientists so it's without value for GSoC.
Indeed I can find counter examples but I think the main reason is what I give above.
Remember also that the student should profit from the experience apart from the money reward.

[vicmarcal]

Hi,

By scientific value I mean learning something new and valuable enough to worth share it with the community.
(..)
Remember also that the student should profit from the experience apart from the money reward.

Well, currently ReactOS is one of the best places to understand NT architecture, or how to code an OS.From IT people this could be really valuable,indeed for Universities(who knows?). Haiku is an OS too, and it has GSOC support.
Is cloning the problem?Linux was a Unix Clon.And any Linux Distro project will have Gsoc support.
About the scientific topics, i can point you to "Online Games" which has had GSOC support and which (i think) has less Scientific value.
So the pity is that for Gsoc there are "online games" (and other "Scientific projects") which deserves the slot and not ReactOS.

[cppm]

I think the real reason Google don't support ReactOS is PR. ReactOS, by dint of its fundamental mission aims, can be interpreted as hostile towards MS. Google might not want to seem too much like its encroaching on MS's space.

Counterexample - ChromeOS. Well that operates fundamentally differently to windows; I feel that wont ever replace windows while ReactOS could. Also Google might perceive ReactOS as a non-starter; while they would risk the confrontation with MS over something with which they could take a new approach and control in house, ReactOS they see as not worth it.

Just my theory though. In truth I have no idea.

[JPLR]

@Vic
Yes there are counter examples (I mentioned it in my post) but less than you might think. For example Linux is a clone of UNIX but it was used as an excuse or a commodity by countless universities to test their own ideas. Give me a scientific topic that is adressed at the moment by the Reactos community (please don't take this as aggressive, it's just for the sake of arguing). Also when looking at the 2009 list of students' projects, some are really daunting, for example: http://socghop.appspot.com/gsoc/student ... 4024225501

@Cppm
Google is very aggressive toward Microsoft especially toward the Office family. Chrome OS is a threat to Windows as it push the idea (true or wrong) that native applications doesn't matter any more.

[jgwright]

I'm very interested in GSoC and ReactOS involvement, see a previous thread:
http://reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=7455

I don't think we should bear grudges or instigate conspiracy theories until more details are out in the open. As for the current application, are there any details? Who put it together? How about previous failed (and successful) applications?

As for the earlier round, I think I searched (a while ago - I was more interested in Pidgin) and didn't find much info. From the one or two writeups I came across I seem to remember ReactOS was sort of 'middling' as far as adjudication went. At the time I was looking for stats on Pidgin, which has a kind of 'bad-ass' project management regime (I'm of the generation that uses 'bad-ass' with negative connotations - hope this hasn't changed! ) and recall they didn't do that well at the beginning or much better later on but still continue to be accepted.

But ... to conclude: If applications are being rejected let's first look for issues in the applications rather than jump to conspiracy theories or allegations of hypocrisy.

@JPLR: "The topic of a GSoC should have some scientific value. By scientific value I mean learning something new and valuable enough to worth share it with the community. "

Might not have to be new. I don't think GSoC is meant to push new boundaries; more to give students something useful to do over the summer. Reinventing the wheel doesn't necessarily entail redundancy. BTW does WINE participate? Going further, and drawing from Z98's great newsletters, if trap handling, USB, ACPI and memory management are so challenging for ReactOS - challenges that Microsoft only surmounted with the exposure of the dozens of bugs that they patch every second Tuesday - then surely they're of interest to today's students that are interested in OS architectures.

@vicmarcal: "Well, currently ReactOS is one of the best places to understand NT architecture, or how to code an OS.From IT people this could be really valuable,indeed for Universities" (who knows?). Haiku is an OS too, and it has GSOC support.

Indeed. And isn't Haiku a clone?

Coming back to the beginning of this post - what were the results of the earlier participation? - were the projects productive and were they used? I know in the case of Pidgin that the projects did produce notable submissions but they often weren't used - or in often-cases somewhat belatedly.

[Davy Bartoloni]

ReactOS applied

WOOT? (very strange )

[vicmarcal]

@JPLR:
"Yes there are counter examples (I mentioned it in my post) but less than you might think"
Fireball pointed to almost 5 or 6 (let´s call)odd counter examples.Sure we aren´t the most important project in the world, but we have been choosen each year(since some years ago) in Sourceforge as one of the most interesting projects. Sourceforge is the place of the Opensource,full of Opensource Users.So I´m first asking myself "Why is not ReactOS selected while other Not-Sourceforge-recognized medium projects are selected?".Or indeed worse, "Why ReactOS doesnt have any place and other Odd-not-known-whatever does it have?".

@jgwright:
ALeksey Bragin,project coordinator, is the responsible of sending/filling GSOC application.
About conspiracies theories, I am just sharing my point of view,maybe i am right, maybe i am wrong. But i doubt that we have rejected 5 consecutives years because a formal problem.The form is quite easy to fill.They ask quite specifical questions(as far as i know) and they dont need a Legal Association(something that we have), a legal Paypal(something that we have) or Legal Papers and such things used to reject applications.I really doubt we can not provide something Legal that any other smaller project is asked to present.
I know that he has asked indeed to Gsoc for an explanation(just to be sure that we arent rejected because a formal issue), we didnt have obtained any response.(oh yes,one autogenerated iirc)

[jgwright]

Perhaps there was a problem from 2006. An organization like Google wouldn't hold a grudge for long, or at all, and you'd expect them to consider the application each year on its merits but perhaps they have grounds for thinking 2010 performance would be no better than 2006? Too much 'perhaps' perhaps?

I feel ReactOS needs to be more out in the open. Why did I and the poster above not know that we'd already applied? The announcement should be posted and the interested parties rallied and optimistic expectations should be propagated. Not "wouldn't it be a good idea to apply for GSoC? ... nah, too late ... actually we've applied ... but we'll be rejected".

We should have one of those ... what do you call them ... yes one of those 'webpage' thingies. Here's Wine:
http://wiki.winehq.org/SummerOfCode
http://wiki.winehq.org/SummerOfCode/PreviousProjects
Great info there.

For those prepared to hunt around for 30 minutes, more info can be found re 2006 from here:
http://www.reactos.org/wiki/Summer_of_Code_2006
There you see two projects that went quite well - if commits and a screenshot are any evidence - and a couple that didn't do so well. Several comments like "Google considers the work on this project to be unsatisfactory", "Google considers this project to be abandoned". Of the two mentors, the page for one of them talks about his activities in 2007 in the future tense - from digging around elsewhere you find he left the project - the other is enjoying a long hiatus. Gvg was also mentioned as a mentor of one of the 'successful' projects - also left, apparently. None of the students seemed to hang around long, correct if I'm wrong.

Hopefully the application for 2010 will be successful and hopefully all projects applying do so with their long-term interests at heart - not just thinking Google are prepared to parachute in resources for free. It's probably not too late to get a wiki page going and rally interested parties ... if they're interested.