LibreOffice @ Google Summer of Code
So, it is here again! The wonderful time of spring. Projects that were lucky enough to be selected by Google look for talented students. And students that care enough about open source try to find a matching project. LibreOffice was selected as a mentoring organization for Google Summer of Code again this year. And today, it is the first day when students can submit their applications. We would like you to convince you that LibreOffice is indeed the best choice for you if you are a student looking to impact the open source scene in a permanent way.
LibreOffice empowers you!
LibreOffice is a project of many volunteers and paid developers. Whether you are employee of one of the many companies that contribute to LibreOffice, or volunteer representing yourself only, you are handled in the same way and only your capacities dictate what you can and cannot do. It is not unusual to find a volunteer contributor being part of decisions about technical directions of the project.
The code you will produce during the summer will be going directly to the LibreOffice git repository. We always do our best in order to see student’s work integrated in the next big release.
Participation in Google Summer of Code with LibreOffice is good for your career!
Some of you might remember that last year we had several extremely successful Google Summer of Code projects. Two of our successful students are currently employed working on free and opensource software as a direct consequence of their participation in the program. Eilidh McAdam implemented a Visio import filter that is one of the flagship features of LibreOffice 3.5. Eilidh has been employed by Lanedo before she even was able to complete her PhD degree. Miklos Vajna worked in 2010 on RTF export filter and in 2011 on RTF import. As soon as he finished his studies, he was hired by SUSE to work on LibreOffice.
This is not always the case of course, but they were neither the first nor last to find paid opportunities in the project.
Wide choice of projects and mentors
Our GSoC Ideas wiki page is containing more then 40 different proposals in each and every corner of LibreOffice code-base. From import filter for Microsoft Publisher file-format to support of sqlite in LibreOffice Base, from hacking on collaborative feature to performance improvements in Calc, everybody can find the shoe for her feet.
LibreOffice project is full of dedicated mentors that know how to work with people that don’t share with them the room next door or even the same timezone. The community is friendly and welcoming.
How to apply
Convinced? We hope so. So, here is how to proceed.
- Present yourself. Since we don’t know you we want to know some bits like your name, education, email, nickname on the LibreOffice IRC channel.
- Prove that you want to get involved into LibreOffice. In order to check this we require students to complete one of the Easy programming tasks on the Easy_Hacks page (or part of one if that EasyHack is a selection of separate tasks), though the dead-line for this isn’t hard but needs to be somewhere before the end of the selection process. This means that each student who wants to have chances to be picked for a LibreOffice project will need to build the whole application, fix a bug and submit the patch to the development mailing list. See the Development page for more infos on this.
- Explain what you want to achieve. Provide detailed informations on the project you want to work on and the use cases. The better you described it the better it is for us. It is best to base your project on one of our Ideas that come complete with friendly mentors to help you.
- How do you plan to achieve it?Provide us the following:
- An estimated schedule for the summer (including any potential conflicts you could have like courses, exams…)
- Technical details on how you want to implement it. The more sensible details you provide the easier it will be for us to check that you understood the problem and difficulty.
- Why should we choose you? Give us all the reasons for choosing you. Any past open source hacking is interesting us as well as your hacking and socializing skills.
LibreOffice community is looking forward to an enjoyable and productive summer with you.
And today is the first day when students can submit their applications. We would like to convince you that LibreOffice is indeed the best choice for you, if you are a student looking to impact the open source scene in a permanent way.” In the 2 foregoing sentences, I’ve deleted “, it” from the first sentence and “you” from the second sentence. These appear in the first paragraph on the blog web pg. There are more corrections that could be made elswhere in the text, but I think you get the hint… 🙂 I’m just a natural proof reader, or as the wife says, “anal as the devil”.
However, on another note, regarding this web page (& any others): PLEASE darken the ALL light-blue & pale-grey lines & text. Some of us older folk need more contrast between the text/features & the background. Also, as a hint, leave 2 spaces between sentences to emphasize you’re not looking at 2 words of the same sentence (this was taught to us in grammar school English class.
Regarding LibreOffice Writer (minimum): Please allow the Date Field, when inserted into any document, to auto-update. I insert the Filename, Page x of xx, & Date fields into my Template as being the Footer text. Sure would be nice to have the Date field update automatically when the file is opened for editing.
Thank you for tolerating this anal ol’ critter.
‘Date’ is the field you want rather than ‘Date (fixed)’. Available from insert>fields>other… then on the ‘document’ tab, chose ‘Date’ for the type and ‘Date’ for the select columns. You can also edit an inserted ‘Date (fixed)’ field by placing the cursor at the start of it and choosing edit>fields… (or right click>fields…). You may prefer to manually update fields (with F9 on my system) so that it is not always different; as an example, an electronic book should not have its copyright date updated if not being edited.
I agree about darkening the light text though changing color is generally good too.
Two spaces may be taught in typing and English classes, but professional typography used in publication has had a single space after punctuation focus for more years than I have been alive. Libreoffice has autocorrect options so that writers can filter out double (an more) spaces. In any case, its even more important to be consistent, which is something I often find lacking.