Summer of Code rejection feedback (or lack thereof) from Carol

[stefano franchi]

Dear devs,

I am appending below the log of the very brief exchange I had on
freenode with Google´s 2011 Summer of Code´s Carol.
Bottom line: our application was great, our ideas page was great, we
made it to the final round, and then they had to cut some more. And we
were axed.
Nothing more we could have done, according to her.

Cheers,

Stefano




(12:30:45 PM) kai: next is sfranchi with LyX
(12:30:55 PM) carols: thanks for your continued help, kai :-)
(12:31:03 PM) mode (-v+v erlend_sh sfranchi) by kai
(12:31:06 PM) sfranchi: Hi Carol, thx for your time
(12:31:29 PM) carols: hi sfranchi. i can already tell i have bad news for you
(12:31:37 PM) sfranchi: How do?
(12:31:44 PM) sfranchi: How so*
(12:31:49 PM) carols: we loved your application and your ideas page
(12:32:04 PM) sfranchi: ok
(12:32:05 PM) carols: and im looking at the spreadsheet and your org
was cut in the final round of decisions
(12:32:14 PM) carols: we really liked you and wanted to accept you
(12:32:22 PM) sfranchi: but?
(12:32:34 PM) carols: but we could only accept a certain number of
orgs this year. :-(
(12:32:45 PM) carols: i realize this is not very satisfying
(12:32:58 PM) sfranchi: I see. Anything we can do to improve our
chances in the future?
(12:33:30 PM) carols: actually, your chances were great this year. get
KDE to vouch for you again and i'd love to try to accept you in the
future.
(12:33:51 PM) sfranchi: OK. So it was just a number issue?
(12:33:55 PM) carols: i've got nothing substantial to offer you, this
wasn't really about your app at all
(12:33:57 PM) carols: yeah
(12:33:59 PM) carols: i'm sorry :-(
(12:34:11 PM) sfranchi: ok, thanks for your time all the same
(12:34:19 PM) carols: please do apply in the future
(12:34:29 PM) sfranchi: we will
(12:35:07 PM) carols: thanks sfranchi

[Vincent van Ravesteijn]

Post by stefano franchi
Dear devs,
I am appending below the log of the very brief exchange I had on
freenode with Google´s 2011 Summer of Code´s Carol.
Bottom line: our application was great, our ideas page was great, we
made it to the final round, and then they had to cut some more. And we
were axed.
Nothing more we could have done, according to her.
Cheers,
Stefano

Hi Stefano,

Thanks for the effort.

At least, now I can sleep well, knowing I could not have done more.

Vincent

[Liviu Andronic]

Post by Vincent van Ravesteijn
At least, now I can sleep well, knowing I could not have done more.

As frustrating as it is, to me it is still comforting to know that the
application was top-notch and exactly as Google expected it to be.

For GSoC 2012 we will be using our 2011 application and list of ideas
as a backbone. However, I would much prefer that we avoid the
seven-days-before-the-deadline rush, so I plan to create a GSoC 2012
draft page as soon as this week in which we will invite everyone to
submit ideas all year long (preferably in Google-expected format, but
acceptably in an itemized form). This way we could cherry-pick seven
days before the deadline and get more sleep during that week. :)

Let me know if you have different ideas. Cheers
Liviu

[stefano franchi]

Post by Liviu Andronic

Post by Vincent van Ravesteijn
At least, now I can sleep well, knowing I could not have done more.

As frustrating as it is, to me it is still comforting to know that the
application was top-notch and exactly as Google expected it to be.
For GSoC 2012 we will be using our 2011 application and list of ideas
as a backbone. However, I would much prefer that we avoid the
seven-days-before-the-deadline rush, so I plan to create a GSoC 2012
draft page as soon as this week in which we will invite everyone to
submit ideas all year long (preferably in Google-expected format, but
acceptably in an itemized form). This way we could cherry-pick seven
days before the deadline and get more sleep during that week. :)

Excellent idea.

The ideas page could be even richer in information. For instance, it
could have stuff about the project, personal info about the mentors,
etcetera. For reference, here are the links to two ideas pages that
were highly praised during the chat:
(first one is Sage an algebra system, the second opne is the Semantic
Media Wiki)

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1v91UmkDvgEInzPFT_g0osid5g69oKKmyx0NclwcyqI4&pli=1

http://semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/GSoC_2011

The few lines in yellow at the beginning of the Sage Ideas page were
actually added after the chat and reflect Carol's suggestions.
and here is one that was criticized as being too skimpy:

http://jmonkeyengine.org/gsoc-2011/ideas-page/

Cheers,

S.

Post by Liviu Andronic
Let me know if you have different ideas. Cheers
Liviu

[stefano franchi]

In case you guys are interested in reading through the whole, long
discussion on the gsoc channel, the complete log should eventually
made its way to this page:

http://ibot.rikers.org/%23gsoc/

Right now the list stops at yesterday's log, so I guess it's updated once a day.

Cheers,

S.


On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 2:14 PM, stefano franchi

Post by stefano franchi

Post by Liviu Andronic

Post by Vincent van Ravesteijn
At least, now I can sleep well, knowing I could not have done more.

As frustrating as it is, to me it is still comforting to know that the
application was top-notch and exactly as Google expected it to be.
For GSoC 2012 we will be using our 2011 application and list of ideas
as a backbone. However, I would much prefer that we avoid the
seven-days-before-the-deadline rush, so I plan to create a GSoC 2012
draft page as soon as this week in which we will invite everyone to
submit ideas all year long (preferably in Google-expected format, but
acceptably in an itemized form). This way we could cherry-pick seven
days before the deadline and get more sleep during that week. :)

Excellent idea.
The ideas page could  be even richer in information. For instance, it
could have stuff about the project, personal info about the mentors,
etcetera. For reference, here are the links to two ideas pages that
(first one is Sage an algebra system, the second opne is the Semantic
Media Wiki)
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1v91UmkDvgEInzPFT_g0osid5g69oKKmyx0NclwcyqI4&pli=1
http://semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/GSoC_2011
The few lines in yellow at the beginning of the Sage Ideas page were
actually added after the chat and reflect Carol's suggestions.
http://jmonkeyengine.org/gsoc-2011/ideas-page/
Cheers,
S.

Post by Liviu Andronic
Let me know if you have different ideas. Cheers
Liviu

[Rob Oakes]

Hi Stefano,

Thanks for looking into that. I am glad to know that it wasn't the application and they liked the ideas page. It's still frustrating, though and brings me back to my earlier email. I think it would be worthwhile to conduct some LyX marketing and promotion.

There are a lot of very specialized applications on the approved list, some which are much more narrow in scope than LyX. I think the big difference is the "brand" behind the project. While LyX has a stellar brand, I think it would be good to expose it to a larger market of engineers, writers, and publishers.

Just my 0.02, though.

Cheers,

Rob

[Julien Rioux]

Post by stefano franchi
Dear devs,
I am appending below the log of the very brief exchange I had on
freenode with Google´s 2011 Summer of Code´s Carol.
Bottom line: our application was great, our ideas page was great, we
made it to the final round, and then they had to cut some more. And we
were axed.
Nothing more we could have done, according to her.
Cheers,
Stefano

BTW interested students could still do a LyX-related GSoC project under
an umbrella organization. We just need to find such an organization---
perhaps Portland State U., Linux Foundation, Gentoo, KDE...