[GSoC 2017] Everything you need to know and FAQ

[mr.matthias.mueller]

Q: What are the first steps to contribute to Catrobat?
A: First of all we would recommend visiting our special developer’s website http://developer.catrobat.org, where you can find all information about the project and how to be part of it. Furthermore you should get our free app “Pocket Code” (http://catrob.at/pc) and create your own programs or games with it.

To get to know our code please look up http://github.com/catrobat

Q: Where can I find the ideas page?
A: Here you go: http://catrob.at/gsoc17 . If you have other ideas which would be cool for Pocket Code don’t hesitate to write us! However, please note that we will not accept ideas that have nothing in common with Catrobat - e.g. personal projects that should be mentored.

Q: Can I contact the mentors directly?
A: Unfortunately our mentors would get overwhelmed with messages if we would to it that way. Furthermore most questions can also be answered by other mentors and/or are of general interest. So please use this mailing list as communication channel. Thanks! Please also note that requests on social media just can get answered slowly and the answer will probably refer to this group - so you're fine here ;)

Q: Is there a special template for the proposal?
A: For your proposal please use this template: http://catrob.at/gsoc17instructions . Please do not request access to the document - just copy and paste it into a new one that you use for your proposal.

Q: Can I submit my proposal to you directly e.g. via E-Mail?
A: No. Please be aware of the official GSoC Timeline and rules. All proposals have to be submitted via the official timeline during the Student Application Period. Further information on: https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/faq . We will not and can not accept or regard any applications that get mailed to us not via the official website.


Q: What do I have to keep in mind for my proposal?
A: Please take a closer look on our template and answer all questions. We also ask you to get familiar with some principles (like test driven development or extreme programming) and do some research on it. It's not an examination, we just want to see if you understand how we're working and what contributing to Catrobat would look like ;)


Q: What skills do I need to contribute?
A: Actually this is depending on the project you want to work on. Most projects are in some kind Android related, but there are also HTML5 and iOS projects. So we prefer if students have previous and advanced experience in this field and can show us some projects they’ve already worked on (nevertheless, this is not a must-have, we also take other aspects into consideration for choosing students for GSoC). 

Q: Do you prefer any projects for GSoC?
A: No. Since we suggest them on our ideas page we like all of them. Choose one you feel comfortable with!


Q: Do you require students to have contributed to Catrobat before?
A: Of course it's a benefit, especially for you. But since GSoC is about getting students into FOSS projects we do not require any previous contribution (but we're happy if you want to contribute on to FOSS projects after GSoC!). If you understand what our project is about, what our vision is and you have programming experience (in some related fields) we're totally happy with it.

Q: If I'm interested in several projects/ideas - how many proposals should I submit?
A: Just one. Mention in this one in which ideas/fields you're interested in and we will consider all projects you reference there.

Q: How should I submit the proposal and coding examples?
A: Please only submit your proposal on the official GSoC website! Provide references or examples there (e.g. Copy-Paste or a link to Github, etc.). Due to the organizational overhead (and we want that all our mentors can see every proposal) we won't consider/review any documents, examples or proposals that we receive via E-mail or other channels! We just want to see if you know what you're doing and you do have some coding experience/knowledge - that's what this question is about.

Q: Will you give feedback to proposals?
A: Please be aware that we usually receive many proposals at the same time. So it's hard for us to review proposals before the student application deadline (also since we would have to re-review them every time they change). If you use our template and follow the instructions you're totally fine. We want to get to know you and your work, so it wouldn't make any sense to propose you any answers either ;)

Q: How the proposals will be reviewed and how students get selected?
A: Our team of mentors, Org admins and senior contributors will take a look on the proposals and review them. We take several aspects into consideration - e.g. skills, interest in FOSS, understanding our vision/project, passion and so on. It's more of a feeling how a certain student will do on a project and how passionate (s)he will be within our org.  

Q: When/How the selected students will get notified

A:   Students will get notified as stated on the official timeline. We will not give any information to you before this date stated on the website (so even if you ask as via mail we can't say anything ;) ). You will get notified via Mail and the GSoC website.

Another good resource for information are previous postings here - so it's worth to look them up ;)

We will also update this thread if there are recurring questions.

Have fun with our project and we're looking forward to your proposals!

Best,

Matthias

- Catrobat Org Admin

[mr.matthias.mueller]

Q: How to contribute to get prepared for GSoC?
A: We would prefer if the suggested ideas get implemented during the coding period by one student (since the tasks are mostly connected to each other) and not as part of the preparation. But, please look up http://jira.catrob.at - for each project (Android, HTML5, iOS,...) there are open tickets which need to be resolved. Probably it's better to take smaller ones, you know you can solve and that help you to get into the project. If you do so, please also note that in your proposal - since we ask for code examples, linking your implementations to these tickets is of your interest ;)

Q: What skills to you require from GSoC students?
A: We do not require you to be an expert developer (that's not what FOSS is about). However, we require that you have basic skills in the programming language you'll be working in (e.g. Java,..) - mentoring is not about teaching how to code, it's more about advising how to design a solution that fits to the existing code. 

Furthermore, we would like to see that you're passionate about FOSS and especially that you can work independently (of course there is mentoring, however, we want you to work on the idea, not the mentor - he's just backing you ;) ).

[mr.matthias.mueller]

Q: How to work with tickets on Jira? What's the workflow?

Let me quote Annemarie therefore:

You should only take issues which are "ready for development", not issues which are in any other state of the workflow. Move them to "in development" and then to "ready for code review" when you are done, and create a pull request.

Only issues in "ready for development" are selected to be implemented and defined well enough so you can work on ist. If you don't follow these procedure you are probably implementing something we don't need or not the way we want it to be implemented and therefore you code will probably not merged.

Also please only take one issue after another. Once your PR is reviewed you will probably have to make some changes before it can be merged. If you have too many open issues you will have a hard time to keep track of everything.

Q: Do I have to work on tickets as Code example?

We're aware that not all "Read for development" tickets will fit your personal interests. However, please follow the workflow as mentioned above!

For the code example or your proposal in general we do not request solved tickets. It's totally ok if you work locally on our code, get to know it and add some features (e.g. copy it into your proposal).

However, if you want to contribute to our repo you have to follow the workflow and to use tickets (as stated in the workflow). Locally you can do and prove us whatever you want ;)