Google Summer of Code 2010/Organisation Application

• Organization Name: openZIM
• Description:

  The openZIM project has two different targets:

  • the ZIM file format, an open, standardized file format to store Wiki content efficiently for offline usage
  • an open source implementation of the ZIM file format consisting of the zimlib, zimwriter and zimreader

  The openZIM project is sponsored by Wikimedia CH and supported by the Wikimedia Foundation.

  Currently we support MediaWiki and are working on having creation of ZIM files for all Wikimedia projects.

• Home page: http://openzim.org/
• Main Organization License: GNU General Public License (GPL)
• Why is your organization applying to participate in GSoC 2010? What do you hope to gain by participating?

  With our participation at GSoC we hope to speed up our development in line with the Wikimedia Strategy as outlined on our ideas page. We have put both ideas in the context of the offline strategy.

  We hope also that a student picking up tasks from our projects has some interest in the topic. As he or she will be a full member of the project team it is completely up to the student to stay with the project for a longer time which is what we support.

  Due to our presentation at GSoC we hope also to gain more publicity, until now we mainly worked in the shadow of the Wikimedia Foundation, trying to get the things done.

• Did your organization participate in past GSoCs? If so, please summarize your involvement and the successes and challenges of your participation.

  no

• If your organization participated in past GSoCs, please let us know the ratio of students passing to students allocated, e.g. 2006: 3/6 for 3 out of 6 students passed in 2006.

  n/a

• If your organization has not previously participated in GSoC, have you applied in the past? If so, for what year(s)?

  no

• What is the URL for your ideas page? http://openzim.org/Google_Sommer_of_Code_2010
• What is the main development mailing list for your organization? This question will be shown to students who would like to get more information about applying to your organization for GSoC 2010. If your organization uses more than one list, please make sure to include a description of the list so students know which to use.

  dev-l@openzim.org

• What is the main IRC channel for your organization? irc://irc.freenode.net/openzim
• Does your organization have an application template you would like to see students use? If so, please provide it now. Please note that it is a very good idea to ask students to provide you with their contact information as part of your template. Their contact details will not be shared with you automatically via the GSoC 2010 site.

  • name
  • location (city, country, timezone)
  • age
  • personal website
  • mail address
  • IRC nickname
  • Wikipedia username
  • your experience with mediawiki (usage, coding)
  • why did you choose this project for GSoC (motivation, expectations)?
  • would you be able to present your project at Wikimania Conference, June 9 - 11 2010?

• What criteria did you use to select the individuals who will act as mentors for your organization? Please be as specific as possible:

  • technical competence in order to support the students to get their job done
  • time left to be available for the students to answer their questions
  • willingness to deal with students and provide the above

• What is your plan for dealing with disappearing students?

  • trying to maintain contact
  • informing them about consequences of their absence
  • if possible discuss if they come back or if we cancel the project
  • if the above gives no results note the situation in the evaluation

• What is your plan for dealing with disappearing mentors?

  very unlikely case as the main developer is part of the mentoring team

  • trying to maintain contact
  • if neccessary there is at least one fall-back available that will take over the responsibility

• What steps will you take to encourage students to interact with your project's community before, during and after the program?

  they will be a full member of the development team, so they are involved in all processes with the project at least through the mailinglist

  they are free to participate on any developers meeting or other event of the openZIM such as ehibitions which are all sponsored by the project team (at least accommodation)

• What will you do to ensure that your accepted students stick with the project after GSoC concludes?

  as written above they are a full member of the project team and have all rights and privileges within that. If they like the project - which we hope, but cannot influence - we think that they will stick with it.

• Is there anything else you would like to tell the Google Summer of Code program administration team?

  We like the idea of GSoC and thank you very much for this opportunity for us to find skilled developers!

• Backup Admin (Link ID): tntnet