Meet Your Mentors: Women in Open Source

Prompted by an off-hand remark during an IRC conversation about how many women were mentoring for the Google Highly Open Participation Contest, we decided it would be great to chat with several of our women mentors and find out more about how GHOP is going for their communities. During our latest podcast, you'll hear from:

• Noirin Plunkett from the Apache Software Foundation
  
• Addison Berry and Angela Byron from Drupal
• Amy Stephen and Elin Waring from Joomla!
  

You'll likely recognize several of these names as mentors for Summer of Code. Among the many topics we covered, the phenomenal contributions of our GHOP contestants made up the better part of our conversation. You'll also hear more about best practices for encouraging women to participate in open source and some thoughts on women and community management.

Many thanks to Addison, Amy, Angela, Elin and Noirin for joining us.

You can download the podcast in mp3 or ogg formats. Alternatively, you can subscribe to it.

We always love to hear from you, so if you have thoughts on the podcast or tips for helping communities be most welcoming to female contributors, post a comment and share your thoughts with us.

All Things GCC

For our latest podcast, we had a chance to catch up with Ian Lance Taylor, one of GCC's organization administrators, and Laurynas Biveinis, one of their 2006 students. You'll hear some highlights of GCC's Summer of Code successes from Ian, as well as learn more about ways to contribute to GCC development. Laurynas shares a bit with us about his experiences in the program, and even treats us to a sneak peak at life as a Google intern.

If you're a would-be Summer of Code student, you might also want to check out Laurynas' blog, which gives some additional great advice on writing an effective program application and more.

Many thanks to Ian and Laurynas for joining us!

You can download the podcast in mp3 or ogg formats. Alternatively, you can subscribe to it.

We always love to hear from the community, so post a comment and let us know your thoughts on the podcast.

Updates from Eclipse

For our latest podcast, we had a chance to get an overview of all things Summer of Code and Eclipse from Philippe Ombredanne, one of the project's organization administrators and mentors for both 2006 and 2007. Philippe shares with us a bit about the Eclipse Foundation and how the various projects under its umbrella are structured. You'll also get the opportunity to learn about how Eclipse structures its participation in Summer of Code, as well as some of the ongoing contributions of some their 2006 GSoC students. Additionally, Philippe shares some insights into effective cross-project mentoring, discussing some collaborative work done this year which was born from discussions started at last year's mentor summit.

Many thanks to Philippe for joining us!

You can download the podcast in mp3 or ogg formats. Alternatively, you can subscribe to it.

If you have a cross-project mentoring success story or any other thoughts to share, post a comment and let us know.

Enjoy the show!

For Your Weekend Listening Pleasure

We've now got all of our Summer of Code podcasts available in ogg format!

For all those of you preparing for final evaluations on Monday, take a break and enjoy the dulcet tones of these audio offerings from your fellow mentors and students.

You can directly download the podcasts from each link.

• Episode 1 - Drupal
• Episode 2 - The Umit Project
• Episode 3 - The Mono Project
• Episode 4 - Joomla!
• Episode 5 - OpenMRS
• Episode 6 - Desmond Elliott
• Epsiode 7 - Pawel Solyga
• Episode 8 - Adium
• Episode 9 - Ed Baskerville
• Episode 10 - The Toronto Connection
• Episode 11 - Fyodor Vaskovich

Keep your eye out for our next episode, featuring Philippe Ombredanne, mentor and organization administrator for the Eclipse project.

We'll be releasing ogg and mp3 formats concurrently for all future editions.

Enjoy the shows!

Summer of Coders at Google: Fyodor Vaskovich

While you may know him as the developer behind the Nmap Security Scanner, we refer to Fyodor as "the one who took on ten students by himself in Summer of Code 2005 and 2006." For our latest podcast, we had a chance to catch up with Fyodor about life as a third time Summer of Code mentor, as well as some highlights of the accomplishments of Nmap's SoC students, past and present. We also got a chance to hear about some of his work with Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, a new organization in Summer of Code this year, as well as a bit about the Umit Project, which came about under his tutelage in Summer of Code 2005 & 2006.

Many thanks to Fyodor for joining us!

You can directly download the podcast or you can subscribe to it. Have some thoughts on the podcast or a Summer of Coder you'd like to see featured? Post a comment and let us know.

Enjoy the show!

The Toronto Connection

For our latest podcast, we spoke with four students who are working together on their Summer of Code projects. Three of the students attend the University of Toronto, but Jeff Balogh visited the university at the start of the program to do some project planning with David Cooper, so he's an honorary UT alumni; both David and Jeff are working with mentors from the Python Software Foundation.

Along with David and Jeff, Xiaoyang Guan is also working to improve Dr. Project, focusing on creating a Mylyn plugin (formerly Mylar) for the Eclipse IDE, while David and Jeff are providing enhancements to the ticketing system. Florian Shkurti, working with the Eclipse project along with Xiaoyang, discussed a bit about his project to create a web-based code review tool. Rounding out the crew, we were joined by Greg Wilson, who in addition to work as an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto is mentor for both David and Xiaoyang, and a repeat mentor for Summer of Code.

David, Florian and Xiaoyang all share space in Greg's lab at UT, and the effects of having a "live" mentor along with real-time conversation and teamwork with fellow students have proved fruitful for collaboration and mutual inspiration. In addition to hearing more about their work for Summer of Code, David, Florian, Jeff and Xiaoyang share some insights into life as a Summer of Coder working shoulder to shoulder with fellow SoCers and the changes this introduces into the typical, online-only dynamic of open source development. David and Jeff also give us more detail about the trials and successes of working together on the same SoC project.

And finally, a special bonus, a few glimpses at some cool stuff that happenned last week at OSCON 2007.

Thanks to David, Jeff, Florian, Greg and Xiaoyang for joining us!

You can download the podcast or subscribe to it. Post a comment and let us know your thoughts on the podcast or the effect of in person collaboration on open source development - we would love to hear from you!

Summer of Coders at Google: Ed Baskerville

Now in his second year of working on GridSweeper for Summer of Code, Ed Baskerville recently joined us to talk more about his project and his burgeoning career as a cellist. That's right, cellist. Summer of Coders are people of many talents.

In addition to hearing about Ed's recent and upcoming gigs in San Francisco, you'll also get a chance to learn about life as an SoCer working directly with a mentor rather than through a specific mentoring organization, some good advice for software project time management, and a bit more about Ed's mentoring organization, the Center for the Study of Complex Systems at the University of Michigan. To top it off, we get to hear about Ed's adventures working on GridSweeper last year aboard a house boat in Paris. That's right, a house boat in Paris.

Many thanks to Ed for joining us.

You can directly download the podcast or you can subscribe to it. We always love to hear what you think, so post a comment and let us know.

Enjoy the show!

The Adium Project

In our latest podcast episode, we were joined by three mentors for the Adium project: Colin Barrett, David Smith and Peter Hosey. You'll get a chance to hear about their current students' progress and changes Adium has made to its processes for participating in Summer of Code. You'll also hear more about their plans to add IRC support to Adium, and about the trials of being an SoCer smacked with a deprecated Cocoa-Java bridge.

Many thanks to Colin, David and Peter for joining us.

You can directly download the podcast or you can subscribe to it. We love feedback, so post a comment and let us know what you think.

Enjoy the show!

Summer of Coders at Google: Pawel Solyga

During his recent visit to Google HQ, Pawel Solyga was kind enough to treat us to a presentation and record a podcast. You can learn more about Pawel's Summer of Code projects, past and present, and the WinLibre project from the video of his talk: Introduction to MacLibre and OpenTouch.

You can check out the podcast to hear Pawel discuss more about his Summer of Code work. You'll also get an early taste of cool things he wants to do with MacFUSE.

You can directly download the podcast or subscribe to the podcast.

Enjoy the show!

Summer of Coders at Google: Desmond Elliott

You've probably already heard about all the cool stuff you can do if you visit our Mountain View, California USA Headquarters: help yourself to a delicious free lunch, check out our replica of SpaceShipOne or take a look at our corporate solar panel installation. If you're a Summer of Coder, though, you're likely to be talked into a recording a podcast.

Desmond Elliott visited a few weeks ago and I got to catch up with him about his work on the Camino project for SoC 2006 and his plans for working with OpenMRS this year. Desmond also has the usual sage advice for would-be Summer of Code students and some thoughts on our first SoC podcast with Angie Byron from the Drupal project.


You can directly download the podcast or subscribe to the podcast.

Enjoy the show!

The OpenMRS Project

In our latest podcast episode, we got the chance to chat with Paul Biondich, mentor and organization administrator for the OpenMRS project. You'll get a chance to learn from Paul about the history of OpenMRS, life as a brand new organization in Summer of Code, and the social change uses of open source in developing nations. You can also learn ways the project could use more help from the open source community.

Many thanks to Paul for joining us.

You can directly download the podcast or you can subscribe to the podcast. We love feedback, so post a comment and let us know what you think.

Enjoy the show!

The Joomla! Project

The entire Joomla! core team visited Google a few weeks ago, and I got the chance to catch up with them about all things Summer of Code. For episode four, we were joined by Jan "Wilco" Jansen, Johan Janssens, Mateusz Krzeszowiec, Louis Landry, Rob Schley, and Sam Moffatt. Joomla! is participating in SoC for the third time this year, so you'll hear tons of great advice from veteran mentors, in addition to learning more about Joomla!'s SoC 2007 projects. Both Mat and Sam joined the Joomla! project as SoC students in 2005 and went on to become core developers, and it was great to hear more from them about life in the inaugural Summer of Code.

Thanks to Johan, Mat, Louis, Rob, Sam and Wilco for joining us, and special thanks to Mat and Sam, both of whom have gone on to become mentors for Joomla! this year.

You can directly download the podcast or you can subscribe to the podcast. We love feedback, so post a comment and let us know what you think.

Enjoy the show!

The Mono Project

For our latest podcast, we caught up with some folks from the Mono Project. Miguel de Icaza, who among his many claims to fame is founder of the Mono Project and a Summer of Code mentor and organization administrator for 2005, 2006 & 2007, was joined by three former students for Mono: Aaron Tomb, Alan McGovern and Michael Hutchinson. Check out the podcast to learn more about Mono and the project's plans for SoC this year, as well as news on other Mono Summer of Code projects from 2005 & 2006. You'll also learn more about Aaron's work on defect detection for CIL bytecode, Alan's BitTorrent libraries, and Michael's creation of an ASP.NET project type for MonoDevelop.

Thanks to Aaron, Alan, Michael and Miguel for joining us, and a special thanks to Alan and Michael, both of whom are now mentors for Mono this year!

You can directly download the podcast or you can subscribe to the podcast. We always love to hear what you think, so post a comment and let us know your thoughts on this podcast or others you'd like to see in the future.

Enjoy the show!

The Umit Project

It's awesome when a Summer of Code student goes on to become a mentor for others. Adriano Monteiro Marques, SoCer in 2005 and 2006 working with the Nmap Security Scanner project, has done even better; his student project, Umit, has been chosen as the official Nmap frontend. Adriano has even come back for round three of Summer of Code this year. This time he's mentoring students for Umit, which was chosen as a new mentoring organization for Summer of Code 2007.

For our second podcast, we had a chance to catch up with Adriano about life as a Summer of Coder, as well as Umit and other free software in Brazil.

You can directly download the second episode, or you can subscribe to the podcast. Post a comment and let us know what you think.

Enjoy the show!

Summer Sweetness x 2

Sure, getting accepted into Summer of Code is cool. Hammering on that keyboard until those last few lines of code are checked in, even cooler. Gaining committer status with your project, truly sweet. IMHO, though, the coolest thing about participating in Summer of Code is the chance to get deeply involved with your project community, so much so that you end up on the other side of the table, mentoring students for your project. After all, who knows the trials and tribulations of SoCer student life better than a former participant?

Our first Summer of Code podcast features one such SoCer student turned mentor, Angie Byron with the Drupal project. In addition to hearing more about her experiences as an SoCer, I also had a chance to catch up with her about her presentation on Women in floss at the recent Flourish conference. She also has some great suggestions for this year's students.

We're really excited to be bringing the podcast to the community, and we're even more excited to hear what you think. Leave a comment about the podcast and tell us what you'd like to see in future editions.

You can directly download the first episode, or you can subscribe to the podcast.

Enjoy the show!