[vlc-devel] Summer of Code: why you shouldn't whine/complain...

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Hello,

In about 1 hour and a half, Google might release the list of accepted
students.

Here is the FLASH NEWS: 'some people WILL get disappointed.'
And I would like to not repeat myself ten times about why.

****

This year, we received many good proposal from many of you and we have
received a *LOT* of slots compared to the size of VideoLAN project
(ie 15, when KDE had got 38, and we clearly don't have the same
developers number ! )

x264 proposals were few of them, and quite easy to sort.

VLC proposals were too many focused on the same projects (Qt and ML),
while I told people to be creative and to suggest alternate projects!

So here are some random selection criteria and reasons that were used to
select students:
 - Proposal came early.
 - Qualification task was very good.
 - Student didn't have an internship, (it could have been fine, but with
                              many many proposal, we have to make choices)
 - Student had a good schedule wrt to the timeline. I know it is not
   your fault, but Google SoC timeline is defined and start mid-may,
   and if your univ finishes mid-july, well, I can't do anything about it!
 - I had a free and skilled mentor to mentor you.
   Yeah, VLMC has a slot this year, because they could provide a mentor.
   We lack good developers and great mentors.
 - Student was already developping around VLC community.
   This one is the most unfair one, and there is no bla-bla or PR around
   it. But the fact is that 3 on 11 VLC students have already done some
   work around VLC.
   I hate that. But for the same reason, we don't have enough mentors to
   do it correctly and 3 VLC mentors have 2 students to deal with. And a
   student that knows how VLC works is very less work than everyone
   else.
   So, the decisions were taken for it to be the best for everyone,
   especially students, because it is boring when your mentor doesn't
   answer as fast as he should.
 - Fast answering on the application.
 - Being around on IRC.
 - Luck.
 - Nationality.
 - Being a woman (that didn't occur, but would have been a plus).
 - We (I) liked your project... :D


Some people can tell you that it was very difficult for me to choose,
and it gave me bad times around the deadlines; but well, what is done is
done.

I feel so bad because some rejected students were very close to AWESOME,
but they made an application on something where there was already someone
stonger.


So, if you were rejected, I am really sorry for you. And the only thing
I can propose is to work on some project this summer, with mentoring,
but without the SoC thing (and the money :'( ). We will do it seriously
too. I know it is not much, but I can't do much more so far...

****

Now, what?

We will check that everything is ok with all students and start all the
processes. If some student has an issue, we might change afterwards with
people after on the list (but don't count too much on it).

It is now closer to 1 hour than 1h30 to the release.


All my best to everyone, and let the fun begin.


-- 
Jean-Baptiste Kempf
http://www.jbkempf.com/