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

[Julien Gilli]

Index: gnomejournal/SoC/SoCInterviews.txt
diff -u gnomejournal/SoC/SoCInterviews.txt:1.9 
gnomejournal/SoC/SoCInterviews.txt:1.10
--- gnomejournal/SoC/SoCInterviews.txt:1.9      Mon Aug 29 23:12:32 2005
+++ gnomejournal/SoC/SoCInterviews.txt  Tue Aug 30 22:48:21 2005
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@
 research-oriented.
 
 Then, Students submitted applications to Google. By the middle of
-June, mentors and projects were assigned to the ones that were judjed
+June, mentors and projects were assigned to the ones that were judged
 to have the best potential. 
 
 Summer of code is over, it's now time for us to unveil the GNOME
@@ -22,16 +22,16 @@
 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.
+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 !
+encrypting folders in one click from nautilus o using your web cam and
+your head as an input device.
 
 h3. Music integration 
 
-Ttwo projects gh the Google application process :
+Two projects were dedicated to music integration into the GNOME desktop :
 shared music spaces in Gaim and play lists sharing with RhythmBox.
 
 The first one, called gShrooms, was carried on by Raphael Slinckx. His
@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@
 As for now, "The application has reached a point where it works when
 the situation is perfect."
 
-FIXME 
+FIXME add screenshots that Raphael might send me later.
 
 gShrooms is not finished yet.  Raphael "plans to move to a better
 streaming protocol when Gstreamer will be ready, and [to] improve
@@ -53,11 +53,13 @@
 "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
+an existing project he started 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
+network".  
+
+FIXME: add one representative screenshot of the app running.
+
+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
@@ -68,8 +70,6 @@
 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
@@ -82,16 +82,16 @@
 
 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.
-
+before. 
 FIXME 
 
 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
+says Travis. 
+
+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
@@ -123,6 +123,22 @@
 meantime, Travis offers a tutorial about bundles.
 http://www.gnome.org/~tvachon/ .
 
+Lorenzo Colitti, mentored by Owen Taylor, worked on improving the
+GNOME desktop's startup time. The project's focus has a bit shifted
+from the initial proposal, since Lorenzo's mentor was more interested
+in "producing solid methodology and results than getting patches in".
+
+Lorenzo thinks "Owen has been a great mentor". They were able able to
+meet : "he even put me up at his place, and we hacked together a couple
+of days !", says Lorenzo. He learned that "Performance monitoring is
+hard" and that "performance and flexibility can be conflicting goals".
+
+"most of the ideas put forward in [his] proposal and in [his] first
+couple of discussions with [his] mentor actually happened." However, the
+project is not done yet "because it's so broad", and Lorenzo
+"definitely hope to continue hacking on it in the future.".
+
+
 FIXME.
 
 h3. Sharing of Google searches 
@@ -135,14 +151,16 @@
 IRC-like server, being notified of other people's successful attempts
 at searching similar information.
 
+FIXME: add reference to search_party_thumb_0.png and search_party_thumb_1.png.
+
 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.
+various firewalls". He then chose XML-RPC, which uses the firewall-compliant 
HTTP
+protocol as a transport medium.
 
 One of the main difficulty was to "teach the extension to speak
 XML-RPC", because "Firefox's included implementation is broken". As a
@@ -156,10 +174,32 @@
 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.
+Finally Adam McCullough and his mentor Johnathan Blanford worked
+together to make GNOME more accessible. Their work was aimed at
+allowing any GNOME user to use a web cam and her facial motions as an
+input device. 
+
+The system has been divided in two components : the tracker and the
+input method. The tracker tries to recognize and match facial motions
+with events (maximizing a window for example). The input
+device is in charge of forwarding the events to the X Window system
+and GNOME.
+
+Though his "original proposal was mainly concerned with the details
+and capabilities of the tracker itself", Adam needed to create a
+simple and usable system. This lead to "both a reduction in complexity
+and a broadening in scope." 
+
+In his opinion, "the attention paid to accessibility in GNOME is more
+noticeable than in any other environment". He goes on saying that
+"It's been surprisingly simple to add a completely new interface to
+the GUI". Overall, he has been very impressed by GOK.
+
+Adam likes to think that he's "contributing to technology and widening
+access" and "intend to keep developing it for some time". Adam points
+out that "the system is usable", but he would like to make "a long
+list of improvements, as well as a lot of tidying up needed and
+probably some bug squashing".
 
 FIXME.
 
@@ -167,33 +207,36 @@
 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. 
+Mentored by Christian Kellner, John Manning hacked the GNOME
+VFS layer to bring it encrypted folder support out of the box. 
+He has posted the mockups below to his weblog on
+July the 13th. 
+
+FIXME : add references to "mockup_encrypted_folder_thumb_0.png" and
+"mockup_encrypted_folder2.png".
 
-However, one can see that although the UI changes might be quite
+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
+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".
+We didn't find any more information to tell you about
+this project. 
 
 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
+it on the fly. 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
+http://live.gnome.org/LiveDocumentationEditing), we know that 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.
+of the steps necessary to accomplish his work.
 
 This list mentions some exciting features, such as "support
 authentication and user privilege management", "establishing direct
@@ -203,7 +246,6 @@
 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
@@ -214,5 +256,5 @@
 
 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!"
+enthusiastic", says Travis. As Raphael puts it: "GNOME rocks!"