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

[Julien Gilli]

Index: gnomejournal/SoC/SoCInterviews.txt
diff -u gnomejournal/SoC/SoCInterviews.txt:1.10 
gnomejournal/SoC/SoCInterviews.txt:1.11
--- gnomejournal/SoC/SoCInterviews.txt:1.10     Tue Aug 30 22:48:21 2005
+++ gnomejournal/SoC/SoCInterviews.txt  Thu Sep  1 00:07:51 2005
@@ -1,79 +1,87 @@
-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.
+It already accounted for one this year's major surprises, when
+"Google":http://www.google.com announced that it would spend US$4500
+for 400 developer students to work on open source projects.
+
+Google worked with around forty OpenSource organizations (among them,
+"The Perl Foundation":http://www.perlfoundation.org/ ,
+"KDE":http://www.kde.org/, "Samba":http://www.samba.org/ and others)
+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 more research-oriented.
 
-Then, Students submitted applications to Google. By the middle of
+Then, students submitted applications to Google. By the middle of
 June, mentors and projects were assigned to the ones that were judged
-to have the best potential. 
+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. 
+goodies that came out of 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 o using your web cam and
-your head as an input device.
+on. The "GNOME Foundation":http://foundation.gnome.org/ has mentored
+eleven students. They all worked on new features and most of them have
+a working implementation of their initial plan.  The projects' topics
+range from music "sharing integrated to the
+desktop":http://ishamael.tunkeymicket.com/software/daap.html to a "Firefox
+extension":http://live.gnome.org/SearchParty that will help you to
+share tips for mastering Google searches.
+
+In this article, you'll also learn about "streaming music to your GAIM
+buddies":http://raphael.slinckx.net/gshrooms.php, "encrypting folders
+in one click with nautilus":http://www.ids.org.au/~jam6/?m=200508 or
+"using your web cam and your head as keyboard and
+mice":http://live.gnome.org/CamTrack.
 
 h3. Music integration 
 
-Two projects were dedicated to music integration into the GNOME desktop :
-shared music spaces in Gaim and play lists sharing with RhythmBox.
+Two projects were dedicated to music integration into the GNOME
+desktop : "music rooms in
+Gaim":http://raphael.slinckx.net/gshrooms.php and "playlist sharing
+with Rhythmbox":http://ishamael.tunkeymicket.com/software/daap.html .
+
+The first one, called
+"gShrooms":http://raphael.slinckx.net/gshrooms.php, was carried out 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."
 
-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."
-
-FIXME add screenshots that Raphael might send me later.
+FIXME add references to gshrooms_thumb_{1,2}.png
 
 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
+streaming protocol when Gstreamer will be ready, and 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 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".  
-
-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
-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".
+Charles Schmidt applied to the summer of code with the idea to
+continue an existing project he started on October 2004. As he says,
+"It's not just "Rhythmbox":http://www.gnome.org/projects/rhythmbox/
+being able to share playlists with
+"iTunes":http://www.apple.com/itunes/ , but also Rhythmbox sharing its
+music to other Rhythmbox clients on the network".
+
+FIXME: add reference to "daap_shot_thumb.png"
+
+At first, he "had suggested doing this using a
+"DAAP":http://daap.sourceforge.net/ 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 soon 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 "the GNOME VFS API is not
+easy to grasp".
 
 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
+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.
@@ -81,21 +89,19 @@
 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. 
-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. 
-
-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.  
+too. 
+
+Every GNOME user has applets on his desktop. 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.
+
+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":http://www.python.org/ 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
@@ -104,63 +110,91 @@
 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
+Bundles can already be used without any modification 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".  
+Travis has been "particularly impressed by
+"PyGTK":http://www.pygtk.org/, 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/ .
+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
+Lorenzo says that "Owen has been a great mentor". They were 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".
+
+Using measurement tools such as "bootchart":http://www.bootchart.org/
+and custom kernel modules, Lorenzo has been able find bottlenecks and
+modify the GNOME desktop so it starts almost 50% faster. However, he
+says that "some of these changes are hacks and it will take time to
+integrate them properly into the main code base".  However, the
 project is not done yet "because it's so broad", and Lorenzo
 "definitely hope to continue hacking on it in the future.".
 
+Mentored by Christian Kellner, Jon Manning hacked the GNOME VFS layer
+to bring it "encrypted folder support out of the
+box":http://www.ids.org.au/~jam6/?m=200508 . His original plan changed
+significantly, since "loopback-mounting an encrypted filesystem"
+supposed "mucking around a bit too much with permissions" and "there
+wasn't any way to access the data over a network as easily as you
+could locally". So they decided to encrypt the files individually with
+"OpenSSL":http://www.openssl.org/. This "new archive format means that
+we can get Nautilus to detect its type with more ease than we could if
+it was a filesystem", says Jon.
+
+He "was pretty impressed with both how thorough the GObject system
+[is] and how easy it was to get going". He also found that "the
+interfaces nautils provides made developing [his] plugin nice and
+simple".
+
+One can see that although the UI changes might be quite small, the
+feature provided is exciting. "There's a bunch of things we want to
+implement, including integrating with with GNOME-VFS, allowing
+on-the-fly browsing and decryption, and making the archives appear as
+regular folders.", says Jon. For sure, "there are good times ahead for
+this project!"
 
-FIXME.
+#FIXME insert references to encrypted_folder_thumb{1,2,3,4}.png
 
 h3. Sharing of Google searches 
 
 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.
+now able to offer a way to overcome this situation. Not only his
+"Search Party Firefox extension":http://live.gnome.org/SearchParty
+allows you to share search tips with people from all over the world,
+it also create communities around similar interests. Type your search
+on the Google web site, click on the "Join Search Party" toolbar
+button, and you are connected to a chat room, 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 firewall-compliant 
HTTP
-protocol as a transport medium.
+Client side, the project takes the form of a Firefox extension. As for
+the server, 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":http://www.xmlrpc.com/, 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
@@ -171,19 +205,17 @@
 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!". 
+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 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.
+together to make GNOME more accessible.
+
+"The system":http://live.gnome.org/CamTrack, named "CamTrack", 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
@@ -193,58 +225,21 @@
 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.
+the GUI". Overall, he has been very impressed by
+"GOK":http://www.gok.ca/.
 
-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.
+Adam likes to think that he's "contributing to widening access" and
+"intend to keep developing [CamTrack] for some time". He points out
+that "the system is usable", but would like to make "a long list of
+improvements, as well as a lot of tidying up needed and probably some
+bug squashing".
 
 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. 
-
-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".
-
-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.
-
-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 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), we know that Danilo has 
chosen to
-use the Python programming language. He has also already set up a list
-of the steps necessary 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.
+questions early enough for us to write about their project. Danilo
+Segan tried to find a way to "provide live editing to the GNOME
+documentation":http://live.gnome.org/LiveDocumentationEditing and
+David Morrison worked on "implementing GMail-style conversation view
+for evolution":http://blogs.gnome.org/dmorr. 
 
 h3. Conclusion 
 
@@ -258,3 +253,15 @@
 pleasent experience: "Everyone has been very helpful, friendly, and
 enthusiastic", says Travis. As Raphael puts it: "GNOME rocks!"
 
+Resources :
+
+Google Summer of Code : http://code.google.com/summerofcode.html
+GNOME summer of code : http://live.gnome.org/SummerOfCode
+gShrooms : http://raphael.slinckx.net/gshrooms.php
+Search Party : http://live.gnome.org/SearchParty
+Live Documentation Editing : http://live.gnome.org/LiveDocumentationEditing
+CamTrack : http://live.gnome.org/CamTrack
+Conglomerate : http://www.conglomerate.org/
+bootchart : http://www.bootchart.org/
+Rhythmbox playlist sharing : 
http://ishamael.tunkeymicket.com/software/daap.html
+GMail style view for Evolution : http://blogs.gnome.org/dmorr
\ No newline at end of file