Google has just announced the participating mentoring organizations for Google Summer of Code 2013 and Mixxx has been accepted into the program!
Google Summer of Code is a global program that allows students to receive a $5000 USD stipend for writing code for an open source software project over the summer. Students can apply by submitting an application to a mentoring organization (like us) via the GSoC 2013 website. For more information about how GSoC works, please see the program FAQ.
To get prospective students started, we've put up a list of GSoC 2013 Project Ideas for Mixxx on our wiki, but we're always interested in new ideas. We also recommend taking a peek at our page of general advice for students interested in applying. The application period for students begins on April 22nd and ends May 3rd at 19:00 UTC.
Our past summer projects have included rewriting our scrolling waveform widgets, adding Shoutcast broadcasting support to Mixxx, and improving our audio mixer routing code. A full list of our past GSoC projects is available on the front page of our wiki.
Interested? Apply starting April 22nd and come hack on the best free MP3 DJ mixing software for the Summer!
Where is effects? Pleaseeee???? =/////
ReplyDeleteNot meant to be rude, but i really wonder how you got accepted again as mentors despite all the unfinished/unmerged projects from last years GSOC. Your track record gets worse every year - have you really the resources to to mentor? Or are the accepted students this bad?
ReplyDelete2012:
pass-through mode for vinyl-control = unfinished
enhancing AutoDJ feature = unfinished
harmonic mixing features = unfinished
2011:
smarter search feature = not merged
decouple the UI from the audio engine = unknown?
DJ session history = not released/implemented not by GSOC student?
2010:
Effects Units based on existing LADSPA Integration = unfinished
Sad to see so much time, ressources and money got burned. If all these cool features had been implemented as planned, Mixxx really had catched up. Instead, several of the features can be found in paid apps.
This and the last mayor release been nearly 1.5 years ago leads me to the question - is this projects still on track?
Lets hope so.
Anonymous: Allow me to begin by saying that Mixxx is very much still alive, and that adding big new features (like those in 1.11) requires a bigger time commitment from our developers. Our next release has some fairly ambitious new features, but it'll be worth the wait.
ReplyDeleteWhile I understand your frustration as a Mixxx fan that 1.11 isn't released yet, we're trying our best to ensure that this release is rock solid before we get it into the hands of all our DJs out there who depend on Mixxx.
That said, I believe your comments about our track record are misguided and unfair to the many students who've worked very hard on Mixxx through the Google Summer of Code program.
The purpose of Google Summer of Code is to give students a great opportunity to learn about how to contribute to open source, and in the process, actively contribute to a project as well. For Mixxx, it's more about giving these students a good introduction to working with a medium-sized open source development team rather than helping make Mixxx the Next Big Thing for DJs. We love promoting the work that our students do, but it's unrealistic to expect that every project has a high impact on Mixxx. (Of course, it's great when that happens and often more satisfying for the students as well!) Some of these students even find time during their studies after the summer to continue contributing to Mixxx - Several of our past GSoC students have gone on to become mentors, and even our current lead developer was a GSoC student at one point!
With that in mind, Mixxx provides an unequaled opportunity for students to learn about C++ programming in a multithreaded, real-time environment, and at the same time be able to ship code that reaches millions of DJs every year. Students who participate in GSoC also learn how to work with an open source project of this size, which is a great career skill for any type of programmer.
Lastly, to keep development as flexible as possible, Google Summer of Code projects are never on the critical path for a Mixxx release. We hope and plan for success, but our contingency plans ensure that if these projects aren't finished, the next Mixxx release will not be delayed. This is normal - We do this when planning most of Mixxx's features. (Since we're all volunteering our time, our team sometimes get unexpectedly busy with real life and so we have to plan for an extremely volatile number of available manhours within a Mixxx release cycle. Aside from mentoring, development of the agreed-upon high priority features tends to get the most developer time devoted to it.) Additionally, the timing of Google Summer of Code projects often does not coincide with our existing release schedule in a way that makes it possible to prioritize and merge GSoC projects into the next immediate release. For example, DJ session history and smart search features didn't fit into the 1.10 schedule, but they're already shipping in the 1.11 betas. This wise release planning also gives us a bit of flexibility to take on students with more experimental projects.
Decoupling the UI from the audio engine is a good example of an experimental project. The student got to dive into some of the most difficult parts of Mixxx's codebase and learn quite a bit about the sublties of realtime audio programming from that experience. For us, even just knowing precisely the obstacles and challenges that Bill had to overcome was valuable to us, both for future project planning and for making design decisions about the future software architecture of Mixxx. To call projects failures because they weren't merged by the end of the summer is shortsighted and ignores both the stated goals of Google Summer of Code as well as our own internal development goals.
With that, I will give you an unequivocal yes, Mixxx is still on track! We're working diligently towards the 1.11 release and we're very much looking forward to mentoring another round of eager students this year.
Thank you for your concern,
Albert
Thank you so much, Albert, Mixxx developers and all the other contributors for all your hard work on Mixxx. Mixxx is awesome. I can't wait for version 1.11 to be released when it is ready.
ReplyDeleteBest Regards.
Guys, please add the beatjump feature to the list of this GSoC
ReplyDeleteHi Anonymous #2,
ReplyDeleteFeatures don't get added to Mixxx solely through GSoC. We have a non-GSoC team who are working on adding features all the time :). A beat-jump feature is too small of a project for GSoC, anyway. If you want to see it added, go to http://bugs.launchpad.net/mixxx and a file a feature request bug :).
Thank you so much
ReplyDelete