GSoC 2013 - Introduction

[Mark Doliner]

Hi!

On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 1:40 AM, N B Prashanth <nbprash.mit at gmail.com> wrote:
> In the first project, I have seen the mockups shown in the ideas page. The
> "better one" looks a lot better and a lot less cluttered compared to the
> current UI. From what I understand for this project, the need is to write a
> library to store chat logs and make a UI to display them.

Just to be clear, I think we would want you to extend libpurple rather
than write a standalone library.

> However, I would
> like to know the language and frameworks that have to be used. Qt? GTK?
> Python? - I am sorry, I have not checked the source code yet, though i would
> guess its c/c++.

libpurple is written in C and uses glib.  Pidgin is written in C and
uses glib and gtk.  You would probably need to use the same language
and libraries for this project.

> And finally, for project 3, I am quite unclear on how it works.
>
> mobile client registers to user's "server" and ......
>
> I am not sure what the user's server here is meant to be. I would like some
> clarification of this if possible.

The user's "server" would probably be something like their home
computer.  So the user's phone connects to the user's computer
somewhere, and then the user's computer logs into the IM networks.

> Also, If possible, I would like to know who the mentors for these projects
> would be so that I can find out more.

We generally match mentors to students in the latter stages of the
application review process.  We try to match mentors with projects
that they have some familiarity with.  We also try to spread out
students so that a single mentor is mentoring as few people as
possible.  This decision kinda depends on which projects are accepted.
 If you happen to talk to a Pidgin developer and he's interested in
mentoring you, feel free to mention that in your application.