Six impossible things

Just a quick update to let you know how the Debian bid for the Google Summer of Code is going.

We’re doing great right now. Our application is sent out, you can consult the public part here.

This year, we’re committed to doing a great Summer of Code performance, starting first by improving communication with the Debian community.

We opened a Twitter feed for you Twitter freaks: http://twitter.com/DebianGSoC. It will be updated with live information relevant to students and devs alike during the whole summer.

UPDATE: We’re now also on identi.ca : http://identi.ca/debiangsoc

We now have 12 applications on our wiki. Come, add your ideas and discuss them on our IRC channel (#debian-soc on irc.debian.org) and mailing-list.

Packaging

• Large dataset manager: download and update local copies of public datasets, and integrate them in Debian with the tools we packaged.
• Mergemaster: perform 3-way merge of config files on upgrades by keeping a copy of original config files.
• Aptitude packages query UI and language: improve the GTK+ search UI and language for complex packages queries
• Aptitude search ranking and presentation: improve the presentation of search results with substring highlighting, relevancy ranking…
• Aptitude history tracking: extend and build on the packages actions history tracking features of Aptitude

Debian Installer

• MTD support in d-i: add MTD installation support to the Debian Installer
• Debian-Installer support for GNU/kFreeBSD: replace the currently used FreeBSD sysinstall with Debian-Installer running possibly under a FreeBSD kernel

Blends

• blends webtools: enhancing DebianPureBlends webtools by using UltimateDebianDatabase

Bug tracking

• Debbugs Read/Write Soap Interface: overhaul the existing read-only SOAP Debbugs interface with submission and manipulation capabilities
• Debbugs Web UI: Modern web interface for submitting and manipulating bugs.debian.org’s bugs
• Mylyn plugin for debbugs: Plugin for Mylyn to support debbugs, allowing the management of Debian bug reports from the inside of Eclipse.

Building infrastructure

• Building a new interface for Wanna-build using PostgreSQL: replace the existing setup of multiple MLDBM databases with an extensible and flexible relational database for use both by wanna-build and other tools such as web CGI scripts