[isf-wifidog] summer of code request

Michael Lenczner mlenczner at gmail.com
Lun 12 Mar 22:04:25 EDT 2007


This is *not* the final version of the application that went in.  Max
has that.   This has a lot of others stuff that Jake and I were
working on.  But I thought it would be a good idea to send this here
just in case someone wanted to copy-paste stuff from it in the future.

It's not perfect - kinda rushed.  But it's not bad.  And we weren't
joking about Bubba.

----------------------
Google Summer of Code Application

1.  Describe your organization.

The Wifidog project is a complete and embeddable captive portal
solution for communities and for businesses.  It allows for low-cost
deployment and light maintenance of a network of WiFi hotspots.  It
has been built as to allow for location-based content aggregation and
managment (managing RSS feeds, Flicker intergration, etc.). The
Wifidog project was started by the Montreal community wireless
organization Ile Sans Fil (Wireless Island) with the goal of creating
a free wireless infrastructure that supported vibrant and engaged
public spaces.

Ile Sans Fil is a non-profit organization dedicated to the development
of a free communication infrastructure to strengthen local communities
in the greater Montreal region. Ile Sans Fil is both a technical
development project and a grassroots community group, involving
professionals and students from diverse fields. The vision of the
group is to use new technology, in particular wireless technology, to
empower individuals and to foster a sense of community.  We currently
operated 110 hotspots in the Montreal area and service over 700 users
each day. Over 33,000 users have opened accounts on our system, an
amount that grows by 1500 users per month.

The Wifidog project has been adopted by over 30 communities across 4
continents.  It is used by groups ranging in needs from NYCWireless
CWN to cover urban parks to government projects in rural areas of the
Philippines to commercial ISP's in West Africa (Cotonou, Bénin).

Articles about Wifidog have appeared in Linux Journal:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8352 and O3: Open Source
Enterprise Data Networking -
http://www.o3magazine.com/pastissues/issue1/

2. Why is your organization applying to participate in GSoC 2007? What
do you hope to gain by participating?
The reason that we are applying to participate in GSoC 2007 is that we
are determined through Wifidog, to realize the potential for using
wireless technology to make public spaces richer and more convivial.
Specifically, speaking as Ile Sans Fil, an unfunded, grassroots
organization,  we have come a long way in achieving those goals.  But
there are still many features that we need to implement for our
infrastructure to have the impact that we want it to have on our city.
 GSoC is an opportunity for us to have a productive summer advancing
towards our goals.  And because Wifidog has grown in popularity
internationally over the last 3 years, those added features will be
used by communities and business around the world.

GSoC is especially attractive to us because so much thought and
discussion has already gone in to our architecture and roadmap.  All
this hard work means that we can more easily benefit from the input of
a new developer.

3. Did your organization participate in GSoC 2005 or 2006? If so,
please summarize your involvement and the successes and failures of
your student projects.
No.

4. If your organization has not previously participated in GSoC, have
you applied in the past? If so, for what year(s)?
We have never applied.

5. Who will your organization administrator be? Please include Google
Account information.
Max Horváth

6. What license does your project use?
The Wifidog gateway and authentication server are both licensed under
the GPL v2.

7. What is the URL for your ideas page?
There is not a single idea page.  Instead we use roadmaps and tickets.
At the moment we would encourage projects ideas based on the following
resources:
Implement auth server XML RPC API: http://dev.wifidog.org/ticket/272
Implement OpenID: http://dev.wifidog.org/wiki/doc/developer/OpenID
Implement new user permission architecture:
http://dev.wifidog.org/wiki/doc/developer/UserRolesArchitecture
Implement User Profiles: http://dev.wifidog.org/wiki/doc/developer/UserProfiles
In the unlikely circumstance that all these things will be completed
before the end of the internship, there are many "social software"
aspects of Wifidog (such as social chatting, being able to search for
friends within the network based on their current locations, etc.)
that remain to be explored.

8. What is the main development mailing list for your organization?
wifidog at listes.ilesansfil.org

9. What is the main IRC channel for your organization?
#wifidog at irc.freenode.org

10. Does your organization have an application template you would like
to see students use? If so, please provide it now.
We would encourage each participating student to send us their CV as
well as a cover letter which addresses their project idea.

11. Who will be your backup organization administrator? Please include
Google Account information.
Michael Lenczner - mlenczner at gmail.com

12. Who will your mentors be? Please include Google Account Information.
Max Horváth, max.horvath at freenet.de
Michael Lenczner, mlenczner at gmail.com - Ile Sans Fil
François Proulx, fproulx at edito.qc.ca

13. What criteria did you use to select these individuals as mentors?
Please be as specific as possible.
Max Horváth and Francois Proulx are two of the head developers of the
Wifidog authentication server. François Proulx is also the current
head of R+D for Ile Sans Fil
Michael Lenczner is the co-founder of Ile Sans Fil and is involved in
interface designer of WifiDog auth server.

14. What is your plan for dealing with disappearing students?
Wifidog is a healthy, international open source project.  We have no
culture of drama or flamewars and we will ensure that it remains a
fun, helpful and straightforward environment for less experienced
developers.  In addition, all three mentors are all available in their
local cities (Montreal, Berlin and Boston ) to meet weekly with
students from the local geographic area.

15. What is your plan for dealing with disappearing mentors?
Max Horváth, Michael Lenczner and François Proulx have each been
working with the Wifidog project for over 2 years.

16. What steps will you take to encourage students to interact with
your project's community before, during and after the program?
The Wifidog project encourages collaboration via Trac, IRC, and a
developer's mailing list. As an international open source project,
maintaining a clear communicative channel is essential. We will
encourage our student participants to actively participate via all of
these channels; to take advantage of the resources provided by his or
her mentor, as well as the Wifidog community at large.

We do not adhere to a strict software development methodology,
however, we do place great value on community and one-to-one peer
review. We expect the student participant and mentor to meet weekly
(either online or in person) in order to assess project status, as
well as set goals and benchmarks for further development. In this way,
development goals will remain on track, and the student will be
integrated into our community.

When the project is complete, the student will have the opportunity to
continue to contribute to the project using the skills, resources, and
particular knowledge regarding the Wifidog project that the GSoC
experience has provided.

17. What will you do to ensure that your accepted students stick with
the project after GSoC concludes?
We believe that the best way to encourage student participants to
continue contributing to Wifidog is to ensure that they have had a fun
and productive experience working with us over the summer. In order to
do this, we will, simply put, help them to succeed at the the goals
which they set, by encouraging a steady dialog between mentors and
student developers.  If that doesn't work, however, we have the phone
number of a guy named Bubba.


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