[Dms-commit] Changes to gnomejournal/SoC/SoCInterviews.txt

[Julien Gilli]

Index: gnomejournal/SoC/SoCInterviews.txt
diff -u gnomejournal/SoC/SoCInterviews.txt:1.8 
gnomejournal/SoC/SoCInterviews.txt:1.9
--- gnomejournal/SoC/SoCInterviews.txt:1.8      Sun Aug 28 20:57:14 2005
+++ gnomejournal/SoC/SoCInterviews.txt  Mon Aug 29 23:12:32 2005
@@ -1,50 +1,218 @@
-Google Summer of Code is over. It's time for us to unveil all the GNOME 
goodies that came out from it. In this article, you'll learn about streaming 
and sharing some music with your GAIM buddies, hiding your personal data from 
others  by encrypting folders in one click from nautilus, using your web cam 
and your head as an input device and much more !
+It already accounted for one this year's major surprises, when Google
+announced that it will spend US$4500 for 400 developer students to
+work on open source projects.
+
+Google worked with around fourty OpenSource organizations (among them,
+The Perl Foundation, KDE, Samba, etc.) to set up a list of available
+projects. Some were focused on implementing a particular new feature
+that would make the project shine even more, some were a lot more
+research-oriented.
+
+Then, Students submitted applications to Google. By the middle of
+June, mentors and projects were assigned to the ones that were judjed
+to have the best potential. 
+
+Summer of code is over, it's now time for us to unveil the GNOME
+goodies that came out from it. 
+
+Of course, GNOME fans and mentors had some ideas for students to work
+on. The GNOME Foundation has mentored eleven students. They all worked
+on new features that, for the most part, have not been worked on
+before. By now, most of them have a working implementation of their
+initial plan.  The projects' topics range from music sharing
+integrated to the desktop to live edition and version control of
+developer documentation.  There's even a Firefox extension that will
+help you to share tips for mastering google searches.
+
+In this article, you'll also learn about streaming and sharing some
+music with your GAIM buddies, hiding your personal data from others by
+encrypting folders in one click from nautilus, using your web cam and
+your head as an input device and much more !
+
+h3. Music integration 
+
+Ttwo projects gh the Google application process :
+shared music spaces in Gaim and play lists sharing with RhythmBox.
+
+The first one, called gShrooms, was carried on by Raphael Slinckx. His
+initial plan was to allow people to stream music from and to their
+GAIM buddies in one click. But, "the project is a bit different from
+the submitted application proposal, especially concerning RhythmBox
+integration which was not planned initially.", says Raphael.  
+As for now, "The application has reached a point where it works when
+the situation is perfect."
 
-During this summer,  Google sponsored four hundred students to work on 
OpenSource projects like GNOME, Apache, PERL, and KDE. Students submitted 
applications to Google by the middle of June. Then mentors from the most active 
Open Source-friendly organizations (Red Hat, The Perl Foundation, etc.) 
selected and mentored the ones that had the best potential. Of course, GNOME 
fans and mentors had a lot of ideas for students to work on.
-
-The GNOME Foundation has mentored eleven students. They all worked on new 
features that, for the most part, have not been worked on before. By now, most 
of them have a working implementation of what was planned at the beginning of 
the summer. The projects' topics range from music sharing integrated to the 
desktop to live edition and version control of developer documentation. There's 
even a Firefox extension that will help you to share tips for mastering google 
searches. 
-
-Be sure to read on to know all about the new GNOME bits offered by this summer 
of code.
-
-As for music integration to the GNOME desktop, two projects made their way 
through the Google application process : shared music spaces in Gaim and play 
lists sharing with RhythmBox. 
-
-The first one, called gShrooms, was carried on by Raphael Slinckx. The initial 
plan was to allow people to stream music from and to their GAIM buddies in one 
click. As if it would not be enough to make it a must-have, "the project is a 
bit different from the submitted application proposal, especially concerning 
RhythmBox integration which was not planned initially.", says Raphael. As for 
now, "The application has reached a point where it works when the situation is 
perfect" You can see the result from Raphael's work with the following 
screenshots :
-FIXME : screenshots
-The project is not finished yet. Raphael "plans to move to a better streaming 
protocol when Gstreamer will be ready, and  [to] improve aspects such as 
firewall/nat bypassing.". Indeed, the feature will only work "if you have a PC 
directly connected to
-Internet or a UPNP capable router, and no firewall.". He has been "astonished 
by the GNOME community", but found that "lacking, or even missing 
documentation", was one of the biggest problems he faced. Connect, push up the 
volume and share the music, it's as simple as it gets !
-
-Charles Schmidt has been responsible for giving the love needed to the birth 
of the second music related project. As he says, "It's not just RhythmBox being 
able to share playlists with iTunes, but also RB sharing its music to other RB 
clients on the network". At first,  he "had suggested doing this using a DAAP 
module for GNOME VFS.  So that you could hand GnomeVFS a URI like 
"daap://Lyndsey's music" and it would return a directory full of music.". But 
quickly enough, he "was convinced by others that the DAAP code should live 
inside RhythmBox, not in a GnomeVFS module.".
-So far, it "has definitely paid off", and he was able to "push out a patch 
last night that other people were able to get working". Charles doesn't want to 
stop here, he "definitely see himself continuing to work with the RhythmBox 
community to improve DAAP" and he's "thinking to tackle equalizer support 
next". Even if he says that "Time management is a skill [he is] still lacking", 
great things should be coming from him in the next weeks. Stay tuned !
+FIXME 
 
-The core of the GNOME desktop has received a lot of attention too. Our 
students pushed it to places where it hasn't been before. Mentored by Christian 
Kellner, John Manning hacked the GNOME VFS layer to bring you encrypted folder 
support out of the box.
+gShrooms is not finished yet.  Raphael "plans to move to a better
+streaming protocol when Gstreamer will be ready, and [to] improve
+aspects such as firewall/nat bypassing.". For the moment, the feature
+will only work "if you have a PC directly connected to Internet or a
+UPNP capable router, and no firewall.". One of the biggest problems he
+faced was "lacking, or even missing documentation", but he has been
+"astonished by the GNOME community."
+
+Charles Schmidt applied to the summer of code with the idea to go on
+an existing project he start on October 2004.
+
+As he says, "It's not just RhythmBox being able to share playlists
+with iTunes, but also RB sharing its music to other RB clients on the
+network".  At first, he "had suggested doing this using a DAAP module
+for GNOME VFS.  So that you could hand GnomeVFS a URI like
+"daap://Lyndsey's music" and it would return a directory full of
+music.". But quickly enough, he "was convinced by others that the DAAP
+code should live inside RhythmBox, not in a GnomeVFS module.". Indeed,
+he "imagined that one [benefit] would be able to browse DAAP hosts in
+Nautilus.", but over time, he wondered why a user would want
+to. Moreover, "several Rhythmbox developers suggested that core
+changes to Rhythmbox were not out of the question." and finally, he
+points out that "GnomeVFS is a pain in the ass to program".
+
+FIXME : add why it is so (waiting for an answer to this from Charles).
+
+So far, this move "has definitely paid off", and he was able to "push
+out a patch last night that other people were able to get
+working". Charles doesn't want to stop here, he "definitely see
+himself continuing to work with the RhythmBox community to improve
+DAAP" and he's "thinking to tackle equalizer support next".  Even if
+he says that "Time management is a skill [he is] still lacking", great
+things should be coming from him in the next weeks.
+
+h3. GNOME core projects
+
+The core of the GNOME desktop has received a lot of attention
+too. Three students pushed it to places where it hasn't been
+before. Mentored by Christian Kellner, John Manning hacked the GNOME
+VFS layer to bring you encrypted folder support out of the box.
 
 FIXME 
 
-Every GNOME user uses applets. Travis Vachon and Havoc Pennington (well known 
for trying to put some simplicity into the GNOME desktop) worked on a easy way 
to setup and publish panel applets : the panel bundles. "Eliminating the need 
to build tools and package maintainers was one of the main goals behind this 
project", says Travis.  So, even if he had "originally thought of the 
extensions as written in either C or Python. The major problem [with C] is that 
this would make it necessary to have build tools installed". Luckily, "Python 
is a whole lot more fun to write, and allows a developer to really focus on the 
neat stuff", says Travis.
-At first, he "thought [he] would be creating a system to bundle up current 
panel applets for distribution.". However 
-"while many aspects of developing panel applets have carried over to the 
extension system, it is, indeed, a new system.". Nevertheless, "converting a 
current Python-coded applet to an extension is pretty simple, and will actually 
simplify the code". 
-Bundles can already be used without any addition to the GNOME desktop because 
they "are currently being implemented through a container applet". However, 
proper integration into the panel is, according to him, "a decent distance 
away".
-Travis has been "particularly impressed by PyGTK, and all of the related GNOME 
Python bindings". On the opposite, he says that "it would be nice to see [the 
panel] improved". Indeed, "one original idea for the project was to be able to 
click on a link to a bundle on the web site and have it appear somewhere on the 
panel immediately.". When he tried to accomplish this, "it turned out this 
wouldn't be possible with the current implementation of the panel".
-From now on, "there's a ton of work still to be done, from improving the 
panel_extension Python module to integrating things into the panel and 
translating things from Python to C to make them faster!".
-In the meantime, if you want to know more about bundles, you can check out the 
tutorial Travis has wrote here : http://www.gnome.org/~tvachon/ .
+Every GNOME user uses applets. Mentored by Havoc Pennington, Travis
+Vachon worked on a easy way to setup and publish panel applets : the
+so called panel bundles. "Eliminating the need to build tools and
+package maintainers was one of the main goals behind this project",
+says Travis. So, even if he had "originally thought of the extensions
+as written in either C or Python. The major problem [with C] is that
+this would make it necessary to have build tools installed". Luckily,
+"Python is a whole lot more fun to write, and allows a developer to
+really focus on the neat stuff", says Travis.  
+
+At first, he "thought [he] would be creating a system to bundle up
+current panel applets for distribution.".  However "while many aspects
+of developing panel applets have carried over to the extension system,
+it is, indeed, a new system.". Nevertheless, "converting a current
+Python-coded applet to an extension is pretty simple, and will
+actually simplify the code".  
+
+Bundles can already be used without any addition to the GNOME desktop
+because they "are currently being implemented through a container
+applet". However, proper integration into the panel is, according to
+him, "a decent distance away".  
+
+Travis has been "particularly impressed by PyGTK, and all of the
+related GNOME Python bindings". On the opposite, he says that "it
+would be nice to see [the panel] improved". Indeed, "one original idea
+for the project was to be able to click on a link to a bundle on the
+web site and have it appear somewhere on the panel immediately.".
+When he tried to accomplish this, "it turned out this wouldn't be
+possible with the current implementation of the panel".  
+
+From now on, "there's a ton of work still to be done, from improving
+the panel_extension Python module to integrating things into the panel
+and translating things from Python to C to make them faster!".  In the
+meantime, Travis offers a tutorial about bundles.
+http://www.gnome.org/~tvachon/ .
 
 FIXME.
 
-And now for something completely different, the usual suspects strike again 
with the sharing of Google searches thanks to a Firefox plug-in. 
-
-People often get stuck into unsuccessful Google searches. Sanford is now able 
to offer a way to overcome this situation. His Search Party Firefox extension 
allows you to share search tips with people from all over the world. Type your 
search on the Google web site, click on the "Join Search Party" toolbar button, 
and you are connected to an IRC-like server, being notified of other people's 
successful attempts at searching similar information. 
-The project takes the form of a Firefox extension on the client side. On the 
server side, Sanford had "initially intended to write the Search Party Protocol 
directly over TCP, and have a Java server somewhere that took care of matching 
up users with the proper chat room, ". However, he changed his plans when Seth 
Nickell "pointed out early on that this might make the extension unusable for 
those behind various firewalls", and chose XML-RPC. 
-One of the main difficulty was to "teach the extension to speak XML-RPC", 
because "Firefox's included implementation is broken". As a consequence, he 
hasn't had "that much time to focus on the trickiest part of the project: 
deciding what exactly makes two search queries similar."
-He plans to "continue working on it for quite awhile" and thinks that "the 
server will go through a lot of performance tuning and other re-factoring" 
apart from "the work he would like to do on the query matching algorithms.".  
He can't wait "for people to download it from the wiki, try it out, and tell 
[him] what they think!". So be sure to check it out, and give him your feedback 
!
+h3. Sharing of Google searches 
 
-Finally, Adam McCullough and his mentor Johnathan Blanford, worked together to 
make GNOME more accessible. Their work is aimed at allowing any GNOME user to 
use a web cam and her facial motions as an input device.
+People often get stuck into unsuccessful Google searches. Sanford is
+now able to offer a way to overcome this situation. His Search Party
+Firefox extension allows you to share search tips with people from all
+over the world. Type your search on the Google web site, click on the
+"Join Search Party" toolbar button, and you are connected to an
+IRC-like server, being notified of other people's successful attempts
+at searching similar information.
+
+The project takes the form of a Firefox extension on the client
+side. On the server side, Sanford had "initially intended to write the
+Search Party Protocol directly over TCP, and have a Java server
+somewhere that took care of matching up users with the proper chat
+room, ". However, he changed his plans when Seth Nickell "pointed out
+early on that this might make the extension unusable for those behind
+various firewalls". He then chose XML-RPC, which uses the HTTP
+protocol as a transport medium, which makes it firewall-compliant.
+
+One of the main difficulty was to "teach the extension to speak
+XML-RPC", because "Firefox's included implementation is broken". As a
+consequence, he hasn't had "that much time to focus on the trickiest
+part of the project: deciding what exactly makes two search queries
+similar."
+
+He plans to "continue working on it for quite awhile" and thinks that
+"the server will go through a lot of performance tuning and other
+re-factoring" apart from "the work he would like to do on the query
+matching algorithms.".  He can't wait "for people to download it from
+the wiki, try it out, and tell [him] what they think!". 
+
+Finally,  Adam McCullough  and his  mentor Johnathan  Blanford, worked
+together  to  make GNOME  more  accessible.  Their  work is  aimed  at
+allowing any GNOME user to use a  web cam and her facial motions as an
+input device.
 
 FIXME.
 
-Overall, it seems that both students and mentors had a very good time hacking 
during this Google Summer of Code. As Raphael says, "every hacker would enjoy a 
summer of code !". The GNOME project has successfully managed to gather 
brilliant students and mentors together to bring new features to the GNOME 
desktop. Once again, the GNOME project has proven highly reactive and, together 
with Google and the OpenSource community as a whole, made education, fun, and 
innovation into a perfect match. Congratulations to everybody that has been 
involved. "Everyone has been very helpful, friendly, and enthusiastic", says 
Travis. Congratulations to everyone that has helped in a way or the other 
during this summer.
-
-It's now up to you to make good use from this effort. 
-
-Let Raphael have the final word : "Source code is your friend" and "GNOME 
rocks !".
+Unfortunately, some students haven't had the time to respond our
+questions yet. However, it doesn't make their work less valuable in
+any way. 
+
+John Manning has worked on getting the folder encryption feature
+closer to the user. He has posted the mockups below to his weblog on
+July the 13th. We didn't find any more information to tell you about
+this project. 
+
+However, one can see that although the UI changes might be quite
+small, the feature provided is exciting. It also leaves many
+unanswered questions regarding its integration into the GNOME
+desktop. Among them, we might be able to know, in the near future, how
+it will use the GNOME keyring and if it will be able to decrypt
+folders on the fly.
+
+FIXME : add references to "mockup_encrypted_folder1.png" and
+"mockup_encrypted_folder2.png".
+
+Something that GNOME developers and users should appreciate, Danilo
+Segan tried to find a way to provide live editing to the GNOME
+documentation. For instance, it would be possible to read the
+evolution manual, find some content that is not up to date, and modify
+it in the same graphical interface. It wouldn't be necessary to go
+through the tedious process of editing the documentation source code
+stored on the GNOME CVS server.
+
+By reading the wiki page dedicated to his project (see
+http://live.gnome.org/LiveDocumentationEditing), Danilo has chosen to
+use the Python programming language. He has also already set up a list
+of the steps to fo through to accomplish his work.
+
+This list mentions some exciting features, such as "support
+authentication and user privilege management", "establishing direct
+relations with documents managed in CVS, SVN, arch and other source
+version control systems" or "integrating Conglomerate with it".
+
+Unfortunately, one can't say what has been done so far and can only
+hope for the best.
+
+
+h3. Conclusion 
+
+Overall, it seems that both students  and mentors had a very good time
+hacking during  this Google  Summer of Code.  As Raphael  says, "every
+hacker  would  enjoy  a summer  of  code  !".  The GNOME  project  has
+successfully managed to gather brilliant students and mentors together
+to  bring new features  to the  GNOME desktop.  
+
+For students, working with the GNOME community revealed to be a
+pleasent experience: "Everyone has been very helpful, friendly, and
+enthusiastic", says Travis. As Raphael put it: "GNOME rocks!"
 
-