FOSSASIA 2015 : Summary

FOSSASIA 2015

Recently I visited Singapore and attended FOSSASIA 2015 talks and workshops. It was a really nice experience and I learnt a lot !

What I did?

I was selected as a speaker and presented a talk on KDE regarding the open source contribution made by +The KDE Community with respect to my journey as a Season of KDE student to Google Code In co-administrator. 

I discussed about the recent trends in our community outreach program (SoK) as well as how vast KDE is. 

I also discussed about the plasma development in KDE and how I ported the plasmoids to plasma2. 

I also discussed about the tasks created by KDE in +Google Code-in , thanks to the admin team and constructive mentors. I also discussed a bit about +KDE-Edu game pairs.

I also organised a GSoC session ( thanks to +Mario Behling for suggesting the idea :) ) .

 It went a success as it was proceeded with how GSoC works, how KDE contributes to GSoC, the attendees presented their views as well and discussed about their open source contributions during the session. 

It was nice to see so many mentors, students and new contributors during the session.

How it helps KDE?

My talk helped to spread an information about the programs and projects KDE is involved with. New contributors were keen to get involved with KDE as well.

 I also discussed about Season of KDE to spread information about the same.

Some twitter follow ups:

Learning about the journey from KDE Summer of Code to #gsoc org admin from Heena Mahour! Impressive. #fossasia pic.twitter.com/tLkfqdMlUK

— Duke Leto (@dukeleto) March 15, 2015

Hey @comprock, It was really nice meeting you. See you soon again. #fossasia pic.twitter.com/2ZhuJG49Qh

— Nikunj Thakkar (@nikunjness) March 15, 2015

Nice as hoc Google Summer of Code Singapore meetup at #FOSSASIA #GSoC pic.twitter.com/vpZ3crifgC

— Michael Downey (@downey) March 14, 2015

Awesome #gsoc meetup at #fossasia with@beaglebord @OpenMRS @kde @libreoffice thanks! pic.twitter.com/A5VsNpfeaE

— Mario Behling (@mariobehling) March 14, 2015

@1011011011011 and @akshay_ratan at #gsoc meetup @fossasia #fossasia pic.twitter.com/vGV07CduGV

— Nikunj Thakkar (@nikunjness) March 14, 2015

What I learnt?

I realized a team work, that is, contribution in collaboration could provide magical outcomes. One has to be precise while presenting a talk as time is a constraint. 

Moreover, I also met some great contributors like +Handoko Suwono , +Dhruv Goel , +Nikunj Thakkar and many others across the globe and hopefully I will stay connected to them in the long run .I also got to learn about the vast projects developers are getting involved with in different organizations and it helps one to stay motivated to open source and KDE ofcourse ! :) 

GSoC meetup 2015, Delhi, India

Google Summer of Code meetup 2015 was organized by +Heena Mahour  , +Ayush Gupta in association with +GDG DTU  and +WomenWhoCode at +Delhi Technological University (Formerly DCE) on 31st January, 2015. 

GSoC MeetUp 2015 was an opportunity to learn from past and present GSoC students who have actively contributed to open source projects all over the world. The meetup also provided great information for budding developers who are ready to get their hands dirty and contribute to real world projects.

It all started when +Heena Mahour  and +Ayush Gupta decided its time to give back and help others by providing a platform about the open source projects, organizations and get an exposure by other speakers as well.

So, with the help of our team members like +Minhaz A V , +Jigyasa Grover, +Garvit Khatri, +Ekta Goel and others, we made a website : http://fossdtu.github.io/ to let the attendees know about the details of GSoC meetup. We also created a speakers form for letting us know about the interested speakers.

The Google Open Source Programs Office graciously provided pens, diaries and stickers for the event. To make the speaker sessions more interactive, we distributed the goodies based on participation in a Q&A session after each talk. This also ensured that attendees listened intently to each speaker. The attendees were quite energetic as well ! 

For the meetup, we had over 8 speakers. 

As you can see in my tweet, we provided a meetup itinerary : 

#meetup Yay! Good luck to the speakers and attendees @planetkde @google @nightrose @AleixPol @fossygrl @valoriez pic.twitter.com/3PIcwfTObk

— Heena (@1011011011011) January 28, 2015

GSoC students and mentors presented a talk about their experience so far with their organizations. 

It all started with a introductory session about the open source technologies and about version control. 

It was followed by talks about +Mifos Initiative , +The KDE Community , i.e., +Heena Mahour 's experience with porting plasmoids with +Marco Martin during GSoC 2013, as a mentor and administrator in +Google Code-in  and Season of KDE ( Thanks to +Aleix Pol  and +Lydia Pintscher for being the source of inspiration ! ) . It was followed by a talk about +OWASP , IDI by +Minhaz A V , +Ayush Gupta  and +dhruv jagetiya , about +jMonkeyEngine by +Mayank Sharma and crystal space by +Naman Gupta 

We would like to pay special thanks to +Indus Valley Partners, +Gurvinder Singh and +Mohanish Singh for taking time from their busy schedule and provide a talk on stratus by +Manjinder Singh  and +Sahil Singla .

At the end, there will be a Q&A round for an interactive session. 

The main purpose for holding this event is to gather present and past gsocers at a single location along with other open source enthusiasts and offer an opportunity to share our experiences with each other.

We hope that the meetup will attract many new students to GSoC and the world of open source coding. A big thanks to all of our speakers and attendees!

-By Heena Mahour

Google Code In KDE admin team | Season of KDE admin team | Google Summer of code developer | Google Code In mentor | Season of KDE developer | Women who code delhi co-founder and organizer ( heena@womenwhocode.com ) 

Call for application in Pairs : A final reminder

If you are planning to start contributing to open source or a GSoC 2015 aspirant , you are at the right place ! Season of KDE is now accepting applications !

Student application deadline: 5 November 2014, 12pm UTC.
To head, start from season.kde.org . 

Season of KDE is an outreach program hosted by the KDE community.
To learn how to apply, see the announcement article.

Pairs is a relatively new educational application of KDE Edu family. Pairs stimulates your memory and logic skills. It aims to help the learning for pre-school kids. The student should download, install this application and use it and also improve documentation describing the main elements of the interface, such as how to open a theme, create a new one and add all the needed information to have it ready for usage, apart from developing new creative themes that could be available as add-ons.

Expected results: New creative and witty themes for Pairs, improved documentation and proper white space indentation of the code

Knowledge Prerequisite: Qt, QML, XML would work

What you can do :

1. Register as a student on season.kde.org

2. Read more about Pairs, kde educational game.

3. Build Pairs, explore the code and see how it is implemented.

4. Propose the project with the following format:

Name:Country:

TimeZone: (in UTC)

About Me:

Project Title:

Detailed Project Description:

Technical Requirements:

Final expected outcome:

Timeline:

My availability and other commitments during period:

Why me ?

5. If you get stuck at any of the above steps, feel free to either comment here .

Good Luck :)

Season of KDE 2014

Season of KDE 2014

Season of KDE is now officially open for applications.

To apply head to season.kde.org register as a student and click "Submit a proposal"

What is Season of KDE?

Season of KDE is a community outreach program, much like Google Summer of Code that has been hosted by the KDE community for six years straight.

It is meant for people who could not get into Google Summer of Code for various reasons, or people who simply prefer a differently structured, somewhat less constrained program. Season of KDE is managed by the same team of admins and mentors that takes care of Google Summer of Code and Google Code-in matters for KDE, with the same level of quality and care.

Who can take part?

Everyone can apply for Season of KDE. We give preference to those who have applied for Google Summer of Code and to students, but we will gladly consider applications from anybody interested to contribute to KDE.

What do I get out of this ?

A great season working on a really cool KDE projects and gaining valuable experience. If you complete your project successfully you also get a T-shirt, a certificate, and maybe a few other goodies.Also, one of a great project to boost your resume too! (greedy enough? ;) )

What is the timeline ?

Season of KDE is a flexible project to fit around school terms, work, and other commitments, and start and end dates can be discussed with your mentor. Projects should be completed before the end the year, a typical Season of KDE project should take around 2 months. This year, we are planing to host it in fall,i.e.,  Oct 17, 2014 to Jan 31, 2015.

Student application deadline: Oct 31 2014, 12:00 am UTC

Mentor application deadline: Nov 05 2014, 12:00 am UTC

How do I apply?

First get in touch with a mentor about your ideas, and what projects they want to run.

Then head to season.kde.org and follow the instructions provided there.

Do I need to have a mentor before applying?

It is preferred. Ideally, you should contact a KDE subproject well before applying, ask for feedback on your idea if you have one, and request a mentor directly. A list of KDE subproject contacts is available on the Google Summer of Code 2014 ideas page. You can also apply without a mentor and we will try to find one for you.

Do I need to have a project idea before applying? 

It is preferred. If you do not have one, we will try to find one for you!But generally for a successful project completion proposal helps a lot! This way you can actually get to know a lot more about how your idea is going to be implemented.

Keep in mind that KDE is huge, so you should have an idea of which KDE subproject you wish to work on.
You should visit Sok 2014 ideas page too.

Do I need to write a proposal like in Google Summer of Code?

No, but we would like to see a brief project plan describing what you will be working on.

Is it only for coders like Google Summer of Code?

We are willing to consider non-coding projects as well including artwork and promotion, but you should definitely get in touch to figure out the details beforehand. The KDE Community Wiki describes ways to get involved with KDE that do not require coding.

I applied for a project in Google Summer of Code but another student got selected for it. Can I still work on it?

Maybe, but likely not. You should ask the mentor that was assigned to your idea. We can try to find something related for you if you want, or something completely different. Let us know what you wish and we will do our best to accommodate your request.

Is this an extension of Google Summer of Code or connected to Google

No. While Season of KDE is in many ways modeled after Google Summer of Code and administered by the same members of the KDE community, it is completely independent from Google Summer of Code and has no connection to Google whatsoever.

What if I do not get a reply from a mentor within some days or have some other queries about SoK ?

Feel free to join our IRC channel #kde-soc on freenode or email the admin team at kde-soc-mentor-owner@kde.org

-----------

Good luck, see you soon !
(Heena Mahour)

Google code in 2013 is on !

After my last summer's work in plasma ,here I am  mentoring Google code in 2013 .My tasks will be more of related to plasma though . And,I woud be glad to have a few suggestions and new ideas too! So if you are under 17 make sure to apply and contribute to KDE !

For now,I have three tasks that are related to QML,cmake and a brief knowledge of Qt would be great too .Documentation is always welcomed ! As I not only wish to have a working code but an optimised code ,so one of the tasks involves optimising a part of gsoc's work -window list which will involve making sure it follows white space indentation and the code is optimised . Other tasks too ,requires the basic knowledge of QML and cmake .And yes,students can always mail me or comment here for further queries ! 

Good luck to all the kids !

Making of the layout for the editor

Initial layout.

Final layout of the editor.

Final layout of the editor

Everything disappeared at first

The making of the editor required some logic apart from some smart work .Initially I faced some difficulties in make and make install.But I soon over come it then I initially made a .ui file for it .

After that the corresponding .cpp files . Then I was soon able to resize the mainwindow as a whole but not the widgets independently .

So,I used splitters .When I firstly used then initially I was able to use them but the content in the widgets disappeared (It was due to the fact that I have not declared the function defination of readsettings() :P).But soon, these worked and I was able to make it.

Cheers!

Changing themes with pairs

Pairs is a Kde edu game project in which I am working as a part of the game developer  and as a theme editor for this game .


It basically tests the logical and IQ skills of kids and helps to boost their confidence.Well,changing the themes is quite a good experiance for me .


I got to know abt how a theme works ,how to generate a theme and to implement it.


So,overall I like it.

Cheers!

Kbuntu 12.04 and Windows -7

snapshot of my kde plasma desktop

Well,the development of linux is one of the most prominent example of free and open source software collaboration . Typically,linux is packaged in a format known as a linux diistribution for desktop and server use.Some popular mainstream Linux distribution includes Debian and its derivative such as Ubuntu,fedora,suse.It include the linux kernel,supporting utilities and libraries and usually a large amount of application software to fulfill the distribution's intended use.

A distribution oriented toward desktop and an accompanying desktop environment such as gnome or kde plasma. 

I recently installed Kbuntu 12.04 .And I like it though windows is also great .Actually both are great in their own way .I would say I would like to have both of them.Windows is highly user-friendly and kbuntu is highly systemic .

So,now I have both window-7 and Kbuntu 12.04 on my Acer AspiThe development of Linux is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software collaboration: the underlying source code may be used, modified, and distributed—commercially or non-commercially—by anyone under licenses such as the GNU General Public License. Typically Linux is packaged in a format known as a Linux distribution for desktop and server use. Some popular mainstream Linux distributions include Debian (and its derivatives such as Ubuntu), Fedora and openSUSE. Linux distributions include the Linux kernel, supporting utilities and libraries and usually a large amount of application software to fulfill the distribution's intended use.

A distribution oriented toward desktop use will typically include the X Window System and an accompanying desktop environment such as GNOME or KDE Plasma. re 5750 laptop.


And I feel great about it!

Cheers!