GSOC Questions

Describe your organization.

The RIOT community gathers open source developers world-wide, who develop and maintain RIOT, an open source operating system that can run on tiny communicating devices typically found in the Internet of Things (IoT). Such tiny IoT devices often have CPU and memory resources so constrained (e.g. a few kilobytes of RAM and ROM), that Linux cannot even hope to run on them. In this case: consider running RIOT.

RIOT enables a programmer to develop applications on IoT devices with zero learning curve, with basic knowledge of C and Linux system programming. The long term goal of the project is to simplify the programming of constrained IoT devices by providing a de facto standard development environment for these devices - similarly to Linux on PCs and Android/iOS on mobile devices.

The RIOT community gathers 50+ contributors from all over the world, from both academic and industrial backgrounds. We put great emphasis on transparent processes and open development. The development processes are built around git, GitHub and open forums (mailing lists discussions). Through these open processes, newcomers are welcomed, guided, and actively encouraged to get involved.

Why is your organization applying to participate in Google Summer of Code 2014? What do you hope to gain by participating?

As RIOT is still a young project, we want our community to grow - because only then are our long term goals archievable. We believe that the GSOC 2015 is a perfect way to attract some of the best students from all over the world. By offering them to get involved with state-of-the-art IoT technology we hope to not only provide them with a lively experience while the project lasts, but to draw their long-term interest in the project.

Has your organization participated in past Google Summer of Codes?

No.

Have you applied in the past? If so, for what year(s)?

No.

What Open Source Initiative approved license(s) does your project use?

LGPLv2.

What is the URL for your Ideas list?

https://github.com/RIOT-OS/RIOT/wiki/GSOC-Idea-List

What is the main development mailing list for your organization?

http://lists.riot-os.org/mailman/listinfo/devel

What is the main IRC channel for your organization?

#riot-os at irc.freenode.net: irc://irc.freenode.net/#riot-os

Who will be your backup organization administrator?

Hauke Petersen <hauke.petersen AT fu-berlin.de>

How many potential mentors do you have for this year's program? What criteria did you use to select them?*

All of our potential mentors are chosen among the most active developers in the RIOT community. All candidates have several years of experience working in various software projects with open source, academic, and industry backgrounds. Additionally do all them have experience with mentoring students.

Depending on the projects that are chosen, we will chose the final mentors based on their technical expertise to ensure the best possible support to the participating students. We believe that this way we can speed up the introductionary phase for participating students ant that we can make them fastly 'feel at home' in the community - leading to great overall experience.

What is your plan for dealing with disappearing students?*

From experience, we see two main reasons for students disappearing: (i) students under-estimate the workload and drop out of the program due to insufficient time or (ii) students feel that they are not up to the task, that they are left alone, or that they lack technical knowledge, all leading to a lack of motivation.

The first reason for dropping our we plan to counter by forcing students to state an explicit commitment of hours he/she is planning to spend for the project. This way we can make sure that students do not start with wrong expectations into the project that subsequently lead to frustration.

Our approach to mitigate the effects of the second reason integrates multiple aspects. First we do not only encourage students to interact with the RIOT community - but we see the continuous interaction as mandatory. For this we ask students to discus their project ideas with the RIOT community prior prior to the programs start as part of their application. During the program we ask of students to share their implementations in small parts as pull requests on github.

To prevent frustration fused by missing technical knowledge, we make sure that the assigned mentors have a deep understanding of the technical foundations of the mentored projects. We believe that experience for participating students can be even more increased by giving them the oppurtunity to gain a deep understanding of their projects backgrounds.

Regarding the feeling that students are 'left alone' we mandate weekly status calls between students and mentors. This way organizational and technical problems can be addressed before they get in the way of having fun coding and enjoying the program.

What is your plan for dealing with disappearing mentors?*

Our strategy for disappearing mentors is two-fold: we (i) will provide a "backup mentor" for each project and by (ii) involving the community to explicitly support the projects. In case of a (temporarily) disappearing mentor the backup mentor can take over any time. By explicitly involving the community, students are further supported by community members.

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

We use GitHub, and one advantage of this platform is that the current activity of the RIOT community (a relatively 'young' community) on this platform is clearly visible and may thus be attractive for students. This attraction should lead students to start interacting with the community even before the GSOC program, and certainly during the program. We also use IRC, which should also help the inclusive process and the sense of real-time interaction that can be quite motivating.

In order to bootstrap the process, we have also designed an application template that asks for a sketch of approach, work plan, for the project that is applied for (see https://github.com/RIOT-OS/RIOT/wiki/GSOC-2014-Application-for-a-RIOT-Project ). This requirement should also encourage applicants to involve with the community before the program.

We hope we can make students feel that they're an important part of our community; be open for creative contributions and make them realize that their contributions are really making a difference towards the goals of RIOT. We will make sure they understand how important community building is for the ongoing health of this type of open source project, and they are welcome to continue to contribute to the RIOT community even after the GSOC 2014 is over.

Are you a new organization who has a Googler or other organization to vouch for you? If so, please list their name(s) here.

The veteran organization ns3 (http://www.nsnam.org) vouches for RIOT.

What will you do to encourage your accepted students to stick with the project after Google Summer of Code concludes?*

Many of the projects we propose are explicitly the first phases of longer terms projects that the students may choose to contribute to after GSOC is over. This in itself should be a motivation for students to continue to contribute outside of the context of GSOC 2014. We will encourage them to consider this not just as a mere "summer job", but as first steps in an actual developer community that is ready to welcome them. We will highlight that doing something that is not only interesting for them personally but also useful for others. Moreover, the procedure to contribute to RIOT is designed to be as transparent and inclusive as possible.