Re: GSoC student introduction

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

Hi Armin -

Thanks for being interested in Mutter and putting forward this proposal!

One thing you need to realize is that this is a really hard development task. Without really working through 
the details, my guess is that getting GNOME to the point where it can start without an Xwayland server 
running is 3-6 months of full time work for an experienced GNOME Shell developer - someone who has been 
working on this code for years.

There are several major challenges:

 1. The GTK+ backend challenge. Mutter and GNOME Shell use various GTK+ APIs. They use the X11 backend of 
GTK+ - which requires an X connection. Using the Wayland backend to GTK+ would make no sense. So you'd either 
have to remove all usage of GTK+ or add some sort of custom GNOME-private backend to GTK+. 
 2. The code reorganization challenge. You'll simply need to move a lot of stuff around.
 3. Lots of different types of residual X usage within Mutter, GNOME Shell and GNOME more broadly that need 
to be addressed one by one 

I think that a successful SOC project could be done around this subject, but you need to be pretty realistic 
about what you can accomplish - you should think of the outputs being:

 A) Documentation of the challenges
 B) Documentation of possible approaches to each challenge, what works and what doesn't work
 C) A successful prototype that shows Mutter starting up.

I would consider having a branch of Mutter code that is ready to be merged very much a stretch goal.

I like that you are focusing initially on just Mutter - while there are additional challenges within GNOME 
Shell and the GNOME Desktop environment that will affect how work on Mutter is done starting with just Mutter 
definitely keeps things more doable.

You'll also need to line up a possible mentor - probably one of Florian, Jonas, Rui, or Carlos Garnacho (or 
Jasper, but he doesn't have much time for Mutter work these days.)

- Owen

----- Original Message -----
> Hello everyone,
>
> I am Armin Krezović, and I've decided to apply to Google Summer
> of Code to work on Mutter.
>
> I have completed all the necessary steps outlined in [1], and
> also written a proposal (can be still considered as a draft),
> which can be found at [2]. The proposal was written trying to
> answer as many questions outlined in [1], but not all of them
> could be answered (at this point, or at all).
>
> I'd like to know if that would pose a problem, and if it could
> be improved somehow. I would be thankful to anyone who could
> take the time to quickly review the proposal.
>
> Looking forward to working with you.
>
> TIA, Armin.
>
> [1] https://wiki.gnome.org/Outreach/SummerOfCode/Students
> [2]
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1C7iCqTdCZR4aLSHfACfleRFqfKRzojBHKI8C30XHs9k/edit?usp=sharing
> _______________________________________________
> gnome-shell-list mailing list
> gnome-shell-list gnome org
> https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list