Re: Google Summer of Code / Mentorship Opportunity

On Fri, 2024-03-01 at 17:33, Isaac Cilia Attard <iciliaat@gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear hackers,

> I am a second year student of computer science at the *University of London*.
> I've seen that the *FreeBSD* project is participating in the *Google Summer
> of Code 2024*, and would be interested in contributing through the
> programme. My main interests lie in kernel development, however, I am open
> to other areas as well. I have tried some basic operating system
> development before, however, I am still quite new to this. Regardless of
> whether I am chosen or not, I would be interested in participating in the
> community. My ultimate goal is to deepen my understanding of operating
> systems, and make meaningful contributions to this field. I would therefore
> appreciate it if somebody could guide me on which projects to choose, or
> provide mentorship to help get me up to speed.

> Thanks for considering my request. I look forward to the opportunity of
> working with you.

> Sincerely,
> Isaac Cilia Attard

Hi Isaac,

It's nice to hear that you are interested in contributing to FreeBSD
through GSoC 2024.

Since you are posting here, you probably know we have resources
available to help you explore project ideas and connect with potential
mentors.  There is the 'FreeBSD and Google Summer of Code' page [0] and
our 'FreeBSD Google Summer of Code Ideas' wiki page [1].  The wiki page
is a good place to start on your search for a project.

If a project listed on the wiki piques your interest, start by
contacting the potential mentor to discuss key aspects of the project,
such as required skills, project difficulty, and duration.  You can also
assess whether you can work well with the mentor.  If the mentor isn't
responsive, that may indicate they won't be attentive during the coding
phase, so it's best to try a different project/mentor.  That said, most
of the people listed on the wiki page have recently confirmed they are
interested in mentoring this year, so I expect them to be responsive.

You should also start exploring a project to confirm you really are
interested.  You could install FreeBSD [2] (on spare hardware or in a
VM) and clone the appropriate repository [3] and read the applicable
code.  You can also search for relevant bugs [4] and see if you can
reproduce or gain more insight into the bug.  Again, the mentor can help
with details here.

Concerning your ultimate goal, you may find this book helpful.

M. McKusick, G. Neville-Neil, R. Watson, The Design and Implementation
of the FreeBSD Operating System, Second Edition, Pearson Education,
Boston, MA September 2014, ISBN-13: 978-0-321-96897-5, ISBN-10:
0-321-96897-2.

I hope this helps you get started.  If you have any other questions,
please let me know, and I'll do my best to steer you in the right
direction.

Regards,

Joe

[0] https://www.freebsd.org/projects/summerofcode/
[1] https://wiki.freebsd.org/SummerOfCodeIdeas
[2] https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/bsdinstall/
[3] https://docs.freebsd.org/en/articles/committers-guide/#git-primer
[4] https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/