[FFmpeg-devel] [RFC] Google Summer of Code 2014 application

[Stefano Sabatini]

On date Saturday 2014-02-08 13:55:27 +1100, Peter Ross encoded:
> On Sat, Feb 08, 2014 at 12:59:21AM +0100, Stefano Sabatini wrote:
[...]
> Otherwise looks good.

Updated with all the remarks from various commentors fixed, thanks.
-- 
FFmpeg = Faithful and Free Multimedia Portable Easy Guru
-------------- next part --------------
  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 (for example: chromium), 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 2014? 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
program-related events and channels.

  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 2006,
2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011.

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_2014

  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?

Stefano Sabatini
stefasab at gmail.com
saste in #ffmpeg-devel IRC

  11. What criteria did you use to select the mentors?

Availability, qualification, and mentoring/teaching skills.

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?

Prevention by not accepting students who appear to not fit well with
their mentor or the community, or who show signs of poor
communication.
 
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 admins will take the
responsibility to act as a further backup in case both mentor and
backup disappear during the project. Also in case a mentor or backup
disappears we will try to find a replacement to maintain full
redundancy.

Also, we rely on the whole developer 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".

  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.