Google Summer of Code 2007

Ubuntu is once again participating in the Google Summer of Code.

It is a great opportunity to expose new students to the wonderful world of Ubuntu, get some exciting projects off the ground and get good exposure for the projects, students and organisations alike.

SoC 2007 starts early this year, with applications being accepted during the month of March, so there are even better chances to get projects for the second Ubuntu release this year (around October 2007).

Participating

We are looking for both students and mentors. See the appropriate page below for more information.

• [wiki:/Students Information for Students]
• [wiki:/Mentors Information for Mentors]

Participants must be eligible according to the rules of the Summer of Code programme available from Google's Summer of Code [http://code.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=10442 FAQ].

Project Ideas

We need exciting project ideas - preferably with detailed specs. Ideas can be related to the following broad topics:

• Ubuntu
• Edubuntu
• Kubuntu
• Accessibility

If you have a project idea, and would like it to be considered, please add a project headings with a brief description to this page. Selected projects will be tracked on Blueprint.

If you are ready to create a detailed spec please add it to [https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu Blueprint]. We would encourage members of the community who have been thinking of a cool new feature or plan to seize the opportunity to get it into the idea pool, as it might just get selected and implemented.

LDAP out-of-the-box

Ubuntu should give the option during installation to point its auth, address book, etc. at an LDAP server (the network auth spec is doing this already for feisty in the area of authentication). However, if an LDAP server is not available on the network, the local machine should be setup to run one that auth, address books, etc. are pointed at. Then there should be a GUI to setup that local server as a network auth / directory server for other machines on the network to use and/or to migrate the local info to a new LDAP server running elsewhere on the network. This should be cross-platform compatible where possible (i.e. Active Directory, Outlook and OS X address books, etc.). This would make Ubuntu an extremely powerful system for home and small to medium sized business networking applications.

Revision-controlled home directories

Ubuntu should have home directories under revision control so users can go "back in time" to older versions of their documents. This should be easy to point at a central server, but default to the local machine. This would be similar to a feature in Apple's forthcoming OS X 10.5 "Leopard."

Remote accessibility

Ubuntu should have an easily installable and enable-able feature to allow remote access to your desktop, files, and other resources over the Internet. This could be accomplished via IPv6 when available, dynamic DNS (i.e. dyndns.org) and UPnP when not. Ideally everything would be ssh tunneled, with simple clients for Windows, Mac, and Linux distributed on USB keys or CD-R's. The client could rely on public key authentication and present options for VNC (or NX) remote control, drive mapping, or other resource sharing once connected. When appropriate, it should also allow read-only anonymous access if the owner has enabled it (for websites and shared calendars, for example).

Integrated web sharing

Ubuntu should publish an API which applications such as photo management (F-Spot) and calendaring (Evolution) to publish their content on a web server of the user's choosing. By default this would be a local server, but could be easily pointed at a remote server too. Think distributed, free .Mac. Server-side configuration should be kept as simple as possible (i.e. cal/webdav modules loaded into Apache by default).