How is TYPO3 handling things in Summer of Code?
As last year, chief TYPO3 Summer of Code administrator is Ingo Renner. He's the primary contact in case there are problems or other situations where you think his help is needed. Michael Stucki is there as a backup Summer of Code administrator, when contacting Ingo, please also set him CC.
What we expect from students
We ask students working on TYPO3 GSoC projects to keep us updated by regularly reporting to their mentors and the TYPO3 community in general. We think that a small bi-weekly report of what is going on and what problems you are facing should do. We also suggest that students put their project code in SVN and provide a public place where the community can test the projects. This makes it possible for the community to also get in contact with you and give suggestions or report bugs. Also please do not see your mentor as the sole source for information, there's a great community that is willing to help you out.
However, you do not have to worry about infrastructure. Things like SVN, bugtracker and such are in place already.
After accepting a student to work on TYPO3 projects we kindly ask students to provide their mentors with information like contact details or planned vacations so that mentors can consider these times in the project's schedule.
We all know that conflicts may appear, in such situation we'd like students to contact the TYPO3 GSoC administrators or any other mentor they feel comfortable with. Students can expect that there's always someone to talk to.
Benefits: After being accepted students will receive a free one year subscription of t3n magazine - the first and only print magazine made with TYPO3. This will help you to get a first overview of TYPO3's fantastic community.
What we expect from mentors
As we are new to Google Summer of Code we can not say yet how much time is needed to support a student during GSoC. However from the experience of other projects Google suggests five hours of commitment per student and week for a mentor.
However, it is important that mentors keep communicating with their students about their projects' progress and to point students to resources provided by the community when it fits. GNOME's guide to mentoring SoC students is worth reading.
We also ask mentors to keep the TYPO3 GSoC administrators updated on their students' projects and notify the administration in case any problems arise. Mentors are also in the role to evaluate the students' projects and to decide whether a student is successful within his project or not. To better coordinate all things GSoC, we will have a mailing list for our mentors.
Citing Leslie Hawthorn (Google):
"If your student hasn't checked in code by the mid-term evaluation or if your student can't make themselves available to discuss the review, fail them. If you're not 85% certain that the student will continue with the project, fail them!"
Mentors must understand that Summer of Code of course is about the fun in programming, but also about getting things done.
Our mentors are hand selected from our core development team and other community members who volunteered and showed that they have proficient skills to support a student during GSoC. They all know TYPO3's inner workings and are active members of the community.
How we hope to get things managed
When ever possible and needed we are going to help and encourage our students and mentors during Summer of Code. Be it helping students to find the information they need or supporting mentors in organizational questions.
We are going to get the students involved with the community by providing the infrastructure needed to work on the projects they choose and making the TYPO3 community recognize and appreciate the students' projects.
When Summer of Code ends we are going to review the whole process and check what worked and what didn't to make following Summer of Code events even better.
