Hi! Per the Google Summer of Code 2014 Program Timeline, <http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/events/google/gsoc2014>, on Monday, 2014-03-10, the student application period will open. This will last until Friday, 2014-03-21. I thought, we might want to add some fresh project proposals as well as we also might want to reach out to other mentoring organizations about Hurd projects in their context. No comments yet on my recent email; let's try again: On Tue, 25 Feb 2014 09:53:57 +0100, I wrote: > A few random ideas that I had re project ideas, in addition to > <http://darnassus.sceen.net/~hurd-web/community/gsoc/project_ideas/>. By > no means have I thought a lot about these, so you may easily convince me > if they're not suitable. By the way, do we also want to remove some items from <http://darnassus.sceen.net/~hurd-web/community/gsoc/project_ideas/>? > Are there any Debian projects? Maybe something to expand on Justus' > continuous integration buildbot instance? (I'd still envision a system > where you can drop in a patch, and then everything on top of that is > rebuilt and tested, so that you can, say, change something in MIG, and be > sure that nothing breaks in glibc, GDB, and so on.) Not a GSoC task, but Gabriele, Justus, Petter have recently been working on such stuff, <http://darnassus.sceen.net/~hurd-web/open_issues/nightly_builds_deb_packages/>. And, we might be getting something similar via Guix, <http://www.gnu.org/software/soc-projects/ideas-2014.html#guix_hurd>. Nevertheless still suitable to propose as a Debian project? <https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects/DebianContinuousIntegration> for Debian GNU/Hurd? I'm somewhat interested in seeing Hurd running in "the cloud", à la <https://wiki.debian.org/Cloud>, <https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B00AA27RK4/ref=portal_asin_url>, and similar. I can't really tell what it takes on the Hurd side to do that -- as I once read, Amazon EC2 is based on Xen, so maybe that's "just working already". Then, a pile of infrastructure on top of that. Would that be a suitable project for Debian, <https://wiki.debian.org/Cloud>? This project seems of a similar style: <https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects/bootstrap-vz>? And/or here: <http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/org2/google/gsoc2014/openstack>, <http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/org2/google/gsoc2014/ovirt>? > GCC: Front end for MIG RPC files. We have MIG, and it works, but this > may be an interesting project for someone who wants to dive into the > compiler, creating a rather simple front end. Too much of a toy to be a suitable project? Or, given that MIG has a simple grammar, it'd indeed be a useful project for a beginner? > GDB: »catch syscall«; pretty-printing of mach_msg. > <https://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/open_issues/gdb_catch_syscall.html>, > <https://sourceware.org/gdb/onlinedocs/gdb/Set-Catchpoints.html>. That > translates to us to »break mach_msg« with suitable RPC name matching. > Pretty printing of mach_msg arguments à la rpctrace. Might these days be > implemented as a Python pretty-printer in GDB. Or, some tracing thingy with LTTng, <http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/org2/google/gsoc2014/lttng>, or SystemTap? Brush up on <http://darnassus.sceen.net/~hurd-web/community/gsoc/project_ideas/dtrace/>? > glibc: implement interfaces that we are currently missing. Is this a > suitable task; can we identify a set of missing implementations that a > student could work on implementing? See > <http://darnassus.sceen.net/~hurd-web/open_issues/glibc/#missing> for a > list, or at the end of > <http://darnassus.sceen.net/~hurd-web/open_issues/systemd/>, »Required > Interfaces«. Filed: <http://www.gnu.org/software/soc-projects/ideas-2014.html#glibc_hurd_missing_interfaces>. > Ada (GNAT) and Google Go "porting" tasks. I'd again suggest to keep > these in: the porting part should be rather easy to resolve now; the > important part then is to get the changes integrated upstream. And then, > focus on proper interfacing with the Hurd: RPC interface, properly > integrated into the language. Language bindings, RPC interface for GNU Guile? Language bindings, RPC interface for Steel Bank Common Lisp, <http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/org2/google/gsoc2014/sbcl>? Samba, <http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/org2/google/gsoc2014/samba>: smbfs translator? Ceph, <http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/org2/google/gsoc2014/ceph>: ceph translator? Xen, <http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/org2/google/gsoc2014/xen_project>: any GNU Mach things, virtio, or something else? Anything with rump kernels, <http://www.netbsd.org/docs/rump/>? Or, do we first have to get a clearer picture ourselves what will be possible to do there? > On IRC it has been raised the idea about »implement[ing] Hurd specific > features in GNU utilities«. This would be primarily support for > translators, I presume, and primarily for passive one, so that ls lists > them à la symlinks on Unix, and tar archives them, etc.? Certainly a > valid task, but I'd rather have us focus on > <http://darnassus.sceen.net/~hurd-web/community/gsoc/project_ideas/xattr/> > first. > Are the X.org items once listed on their wiki, > <https://secure.freedesktop.org/cgit/xorg/commit/SummerOfCodeIdeas.moin?id=792453a17fac345e1a0298114467dab3afe1864c>, > still valid, and should thus be reinstated on > <http://www.x.org/wiki/SummerOfCodeIdeas/>? (X.org indeed are participating, <http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/org2/google/gsoc2014/xorg>, but we're not currently present on their project ideas list.) > LLVM: I have once been working on fixing some things upstream re Hurd > support, but don't currently have the bandwidth for continuing that -- > worth adding as a project? This is basically open ended -- culminating > in porting the sanitizers, a big task, > <http://darnassus.sceen.net/~hurd-web/open_issues/_san/>, which then GCC > also will benefit from. (LLVM indeed are participating, <http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/org2/google/gsoc2014/llvm>, but we're not currently present on their project ideas list.) We once had the idead that we'd like a userspace version of GRUB for booting subhurds. Is this an idea worth following as a GSoC project? And finally, a bit of an "obscure" one: implement for GNU Hurd something like the Eudyptula Challenge, <http://eudyptula-challenge.org/>, or Matasano Crypto Challenges, <http://www.matasano.com/articles/crypto-challenges/>, that is, a remote "teaching" system. The GSoC student would indentify a suitable set of features to showcase the Hurd's unique as well as general concepts, and implement a learning system for others to use. > Anything else? Grüße, Thomas
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