Revision as of 21:48, 1 October 2013

Welcome to coreboot Google Summer of Code, 2013.

coreboot has many Project Ideas for various firmware ability levels. The coreboot project also hosts flashrom and SerialICE projects.

coreboot contact

If you are interested in becoming a GSoC student, please contact the coreboot mailing list or visit our IRC channel #coreboot on irc.freenode.net.

If you need to contact someone directly, Marc Jones is the GSoC admin for coreboot.

Why work on coreboot for GSoC 2013?

• coreboot has a worldwide developer and user base.

• We have a large, helpful community. coreboot has some extremely talented and helpful experts in firmware involved in the project. They are ready to assist and mentor students participating in GSoC 2013.
• One of the last areas where open source software is not common is firmware. Running proprietary firmware can have severe effects on user's freedom and security. coreboot changes that by providing a common framework for initial hardware initialization and you can help us succeed.

GSoC Student requirements

What will be required of you to be a coreboot GSoC student?

Google Summer of Code is a full (day)time job. This means we expect roughly 40 hours per week on your project, during the three months of coding. Obviously we have flexibility, but if your schedule (exams, courses) does not give you this amount of spare time, then maybe you should not apply.

1. Prior to project acceptance, you have demonstrated that you can work with the coreboot codebase.
   • By the time you have submitted your application, you should have downloaded, built and booted coreboot in QEMU, SimNow, or on real hardware. Please, email your serial output results to the mailing list.
   • Send a patch to Gerrit for review. Check Easy projects or ask for simple tasks on the mailing list or on IRC.
2. To pass and to be paid by Google requires that you meet certain milestones.
   • First, you must be in good standing with the community before the official start of the program. We suggest you post some design emails to the mailing list, and get feedback on them, both before applying, and during the "community bonding period" between acceptance and official start.
   • You must have made progress and committed significant code before the mid-term point and by the final.
3. We require that accepted students to maintain a blog, where you will write about your project weekly. This is a way to measure progress and for the community at large to be able to help you. SoC is not a private contract between your mentor and you. http://blogs.coreboot.org/
4. Student must be active on IRC and the mailing list.

We don't expect our students to be experts in our problem domain, but we don't want you to fail because some basic misunderstanding was in your way of completing the task.

Projects

There are many development tasks available in coreboot. Please visit the following pages for some ideas or come up with your own idea.

• coreboot project ideas
• flashrom project ideas
• SerialICE project ideas

We keep a list of previous GSoC Projects which might be of interest to you to see what others have accomplished. Similarly the blog posts related to previous GSoC projects might give some insights to what it is like to be a coreboot GSoC student.

Your own Project Ideas

We have come up with some ideas for cool Summer of Code projects. These are projects that we think can be managed in the short period of GSoC, and they cover areas where coreboot is trying to reach new users and new use cases.

But of course your application does not need to be based on any of the ideas listed. The opposite: Maybe you have a great idea that we just didn't think of yet. Please let us know!

Mentors

The following coreboot developers have volunteered to be GSoC mentors. Please stop by IRC and say hi to them and ask them questions about coreboot.

Note to mentors: Each accepted project will have a lead mentor and a backup mentor. We will match mentors and students based on the project, experience level, and geographic location (native language, culture and time zone).

coreboot Summer of Code Application

Please complete the standard Google SoC application and project proposal. Prospective coreboot GSoC student should provide the following information as part of their application. If you are applying for a flashrom or SerialICE project use common sense when using the template below, this is part of the test. ;)

Name:

Email:

IM/IRC/Skype/other contact:

Country/Timezone:

School:

Degree Program:

Expected graduation date:

Most students have some time off planned during GSoC. Do you have any vacations? When and how long?

coreboot welcomes students from all backgrounds and levels of experience. To be seriously considered for coreboot GSoC, we recommend joining the mailing list and IRC channel. Introduce yourself and mention that you are a prospective GSoC student. Ask questions and discuss the project that you are considering. Community involvement is a key component of coreboot development. By the time you have submitted your application, you should have downloaded, built a and booted coreboot in QEMU, SimNow, or on real hardware. Please, email your serial output results to the mailing list.

The following information will help coreboot match students with mentors and projects.

Please comment on your software and firmware experience.

Have you participated in the coreboot community before?

Have you contributed to an open source project? Which one? What was your experience?

Have you built and run coreboot? Did you have problems?

Did you find and fix a coreboot bug? Did you send a patch to Gerrit? Please provide a link to the Gerrit page.

Please provide an overview of your project and a break down of your project in small specific goals. Think about the potential timeline. Explain what risks or potential problems your project might experience. What would you expect as a minimum level of success? Do you have a stretch goal?

Advice on how to apply

Your application should include a complete project proposal. You should document that you have the knowledge and the ability to complete your proposed project. This may require a little research and understanding of coreboot prior to sending your application. Mentors are your best resource in flushing out your project ideas and helping with a project timeline. We recommend that you get feedback and recommendations on your proposal before the application deadline.

The Drupal project has a great page on how to write an SOC application.

Please also read Google's Advice for Students.

Important dates

The official timetable can be found here.

All deadlines end at 19:00 UTC.

Past deadlines (2013)

• March 29: Mentoring organization application deadline.

• April 8: List of accepted mentoring organizations published on the Google Summer of Code 2013 site.

• April 22: Student application period opens.
• May 3: Student application deadline.
• May 8: Organization slot allocations published.
• May 27: Accepted student proposals announced.
• June 17: Coding starts.
• July 29: Mid-term deadline.
• September 23: Firm 'pencils down' date.