Re: Google Summer of Code

[Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>]

On Sat, 2008-03-29 at 03:08 +0100, Marius-Quintus Stuebs wrote:
> Hello :)
> 
> I'd like to participate on GSOC with a project improving networkmanager.
> I've attached the first version of my proposal. It would be nice if I 
> got some feedback, if at all my project is reasonable.
> I am still searching for a Mentor.

Great to hear of the interest!  However...

> Thanks, ;)
> Marius
> plain text document attachment (synopsis.txt)
> Proposal for GNOME "network-manager improvements"
> =================================================
> 
> Dear application commitee, :)
> 
> About me
> --------
> 
> I am a computer science student in my 8th semester in Hamburg, Germany, so development isn't new to me, even though I've never participated to an open source project or a community based project before. I'm very disciplined with myself. At the moment I have various different projects of all kinds to work on, such as the leadership of a boyscouts group, playing drums in a band, singing in a choir, working for an internet development office, studying computer science, and some more. I think it's very fascinating to put some power into this work, even if I have to cut down my other activities (what I have to). 
> I'm very excited of community based and open source programming, and I like to do spend the summer on useful features of GNOME (which I prefer, specially because it has such a usability). It's strange that you have to use a terminal to establish a pppoe connection even in Ubuntu, which should be for human beings ;) 
> 
> Synopsis of my project
> ----------------------
> 
> network manager applet
> * doesn't show properties of ethernet interfaces

Depends on what you mean here...  What sort of properties were you
thinking of?  Right after a 0.7 release, we're going to do an applet
rewrite to better support multiple active devices, with a target for a
0.7.1 release.

> * doesn't support pppoe-Connections

Tambet implemented basic PPPoE support in early March.

> * doesn't support a shared internet connection

I've already committed the basic support for this to the active
connection D-Bus interface, and hope to have it done in the next few
weeks.  While NM itself would support sharing any connection to any
other connection, the applet will initially support sharing wired/mobile
broadband to wireless only until the applet rewrite gets kicked off.

> The project I want to get selected for is about some network-manager improvements.
> I want to change both, network manager and network manager applet.
> First I will improve nm-applet by adding some network status and monitoring features. Therefore I will merge the code of gnome-netstatus-applet into nm-applet, so by clicking on the nm-applet icon you can see the ethernet addresses and activities. 

I'm not sure I want this in the current applet, it would be much better
to see where it might fit into the applet rewrite later this spring.
People have proposed adding the bits of netstatus that aren't in
nm-applet yet (traffic totals, link activity) but for various reasons
link activity is not something that I feel is appropriate for the
current iteration of the applet.

So unfortunately I think most of the stuff you've proposed is already
going to be implemented by the time SoC would start.  There are a few
other things that would be quite useful to do as a SoC project though,
including looking into how to support bridging for virtualization-type
situations.

Dan

> By that, I will get into the code of nm-applet. There are two greater tasks that I want to finish. So second I will realize support of pppoe internet connections. You will be able to store different pppoe accounts dynamically chose one. The first part of my work will allow to supervise this kind of connection as well.Third I am going to implement connection-sharing. This is especially useful in combination with the broadband internet connection mentioned before. There are some possibilities how to control access of other computers to specific connections such as the pppoe internet connection. Imaginably you'd just have to set a password, or there is need of Account and Identity Management.
> 
> Timeline
> --------
> 
> I'm planning to finish the first (smaller) task in two weeks, and implement the other two - bigger - tasks in respectively three weeks, and each one week for debugging. Therefore I plan to finish the project in ten weeks.
> Actually, because of my engagement with the boyscouts, I go on "holidays" in August. I have a trip to Ireland from the 4th to the 24th August. This means, that I have to spend 20hrs/week on my SoC project, to finish my work 2 weeks before the deadline. I know that this makes my application less appealing, but I'd better mention it now, than being dropped later.
> 
> --
> First Part: merge gnome-netstatus-applet into nm-applet
> (May 26) 
> 1. week: Getting into nm, nm-applet and gnome-netstatus-applet
> 2. week: Adding analyze functionality to nm-applet, debug
> --
> Second Part: the "pppoe" part
> 3. week: Analyze requirements. Adding pppoe functionality to nm 
> 4. week: Adding pppoe functionality and menu to nm-applet 
> 5. week: Storage of different pppoe accounts
> 6. week: Debugging
> (July 7: mid-term evaluations)
> --
> Third Part: the "shared connection" part
> 7. week: Analyze requirements. Design the shared connection specifications.
> 8. week: Adding "shared connection" functionality to nm
> 9. week: Adding "shared connection" functionality to nm-applet
> 10. week: Debugging
> (August 4: Get on the airplane) 
> --
> 
> Summary
> -------
> 
> The most important goals of software for me are usability, easyness of understanding, deployability and compatibility. Therefore I approve that nm uses dbus and hal.
> I am used to SVN, because I univerity projects as well as at my job we use it, so I am conversant with that type of VCS.
> By successfully accomplishing many past projects I know that I am able to manage myself to finish a given task. I have built my timetable in a less strict manner, to not overload myself with tasks I can hardly finish.
> I am currently not very much involved in the GNOME community. I just subscribed to the network manager mailing list, but I personally know some GNOME developers and I'm looking forward to get involved fast and proper.
> 
> I hope you like my proposal as much as I do, because I'm really willing to get this done.
> 
> Please contact me for personal contact at 4stuebs informatik uni-hamburg de
> 
> With best regards,
> Marius Stuebs
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