Dev:GoogleSoC/ApplicationForm

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We missed the SoC so far. Before 2007 we didn't have an application ready in time. We signed up for the 2008 Google SoC, but didn't get accepted. We haven't signed up since then.

Administrators and Mentors

Please read the Summer of Code Mentoring HOWTO.


Draft application

Questions from http://socghop.appspot.com/gsoc/org_app/take/gsoc_program/google/gsoc2010/orgapp (needs registration)

  • Organization's Name:
    • Synfig Studio project team
  • Description:
    • Our team is developing a powerful, industrial-strength vector-based 2D animation software package, called Synfig Studio. It designed from the ground-up for producing feature-film quality animation with fewer people and resources. While there are many other programs currently on the market to aid with the efficient production of 2D animation, we are currently unaware of any other software that can do what our software can. Current team is formed by a small but enthusiastic group of people that are working on the project from a long time ago.
  • Main organization License:
    • GNU GPL v2 or later.
  • Why is your organization applying to participate in GSoC 2008? What do you hope to gain by participating?
    • There are lot of features what needs to be developed to make our software more powerful, stable and user-friendly. We also hope to involve more people into project development.
  • Did your organization participate in past GSoCs? If so, please summarize your involvement and the successes and challenges of your participation.
    • Unfortunately, no.
  • If your organization participated in past GSoCs, please let us know the ratio of students passing to students allocated, e.g. 2006: 3/6 for 3 out of 6 students passed in 2006.
    • Not applicable
  • If your organization has not previously participated in GSoC, have you applied in the past? If so, for what year(s)?
    • Yes in 2007. We missed 2008.
  • Does your organization have an application template you would like to see students use? If so, please provide it now. Please note that it is a very good idea to ask students to provide you with their contact information as part of your template. Their contact details will not be shared with you automatically via the GSoC 2010 site.
    • No we haven't
  • What is your plan for dealing with disappearing students?
    • First of all our mentors will try to clearly define the final target of the project and motivate the student to make the project valuable for him as much as possible. At the beginning of work we must get from student as much alternative contact information as possible (i.e. e-mail, ICQ, Jabber, home and mobile phone, home address, website, etc.). This must minimize the likelyhood of disappearing students. If student disappears from regular contact we'll try to establish contact with him via phone or IM to find out the reason of his absence and also notify Google about disappeared student. If a student actually decides to leave, the project will likely be taken on by somebody from the community in the future (depending on the priority) or be saved for the next season.
  • What is your plan for dealing with disappearing mentors?
    • During the SoC we are planning to have one backup mentor. If existing mentors become unavailable or unresponsive during the project period backup mentor takes place of absence mentor. Most communications are take place on IRC which logs stored on http://dooglus.rincevent.net/synfig/logs/, so the backup mentor always could receive all information about status of student's work.
  • What steps will you take to encourage students to interact with your project's community before, during and after the program?
    • We are require participation on public IRC channels where community discussing the directions of future development, shares their works and examples, motivates each other. There are not only developers there, but also translators and artists who uses Synfig Studio so the bar is low enough for newbie. Our community always open for any contributions, not only matter whether they're funded by SoC or not. For particular guidance, students are welcome to contact any of the IRC members, no matter whether they're funded or not.
    • To involve students to process at early stages the general steps are:
      • preparing a brief plan of project implementation
      • defining milestones
      • defining "need to study" things for each milestone
    • The steps taken during the program depend on the individual projects
    • At the end of program project results must be summarized to provide complete view of done work and encourage students to participate in further development.
  • What will you do to ensure that your accepted students stick with the project after GSoC concludes?
    • The community is inspired by the art produced by Synfig Studio artists. We hope what during the SoC much more animations will be produced and students will be able to see results of their work not only as a piece of code or software package, but also as funny cartoons done with all great new features implemented during the study process. Our developers are always in touch with the people who uses Synfig Studio, paying much attention to their needs and feedback.
  • Is there anything else you would like to tell the Google Summer of Code program administration team?:
    • We strongly believe that Synfig Studio is a software that has not any equivalence in the world of Free Open Source Software. That's our highest motivation and because of that we are putting all our effort to keep Synfig Studio project alive. It would be a great help for the project maturity and to take some inertia for regular development, to be chosen as a Mentor Organization.
  • Backup Admin (Link ID):
    • pixelgeek Link ID here

    • Carlos López González aka genete (genetita AT gmail.com)
    • Gerald Young aka Yoyobuae (supersayoyin AT gmail.com)

Ideas

General

  • UI revamp - see Wish list, #1687557, #1687726
  • Wish list
  • Dev:Sound Layer
  • SWF, SVG, etc import and or export
  • Implement the Palette Browser, which is a stub in the current code
  • Implement icon theming, usage of the Tango and ArtLibreSet naming schemes and draw icons for all the missing actions
  • Implement a parameter system for output targets and the command-line and GUI interfaces for them.

Construction

Animation

  • Keyframe manipulation tool - see #1904463

Misc

  • Most any common bug in bugzilla (if its a large implementation, or several smaller bugs)