Google Summer of Code 2012

Welcome to the Google Summer of Code 2012 page for the Rhombus-Tech Project. We recommend reading the following to get a clear picture of what Rhombus-Tech is about:

Deadlines

Make sure you check the official timeline.

Why work with Rhombus-Tech?

Why would you like to work with Rhombus-Tech?

Rhombus-Tech offers you the opportunity to work with modern technology "right on the iron". Your application will be available to users worldwide and promoted along with all other Rhombus-Tech and EOMA68 projects. We are a very passionate team - so you will interact directly with the project initiators and project leaders. We have a large, helpful community. Many experts in hardware and firmware lurk on our mailing list.

Summer of Code Application

Please complete the standard Google SoC 2012 application (a link will be provided shortly when GSoC2012 is open to students). A prospective GSoC student should provide the following information as part of their application.

  • Name:
  • Email:
  • IM/IRC/Skype/other contact:
  • Country/Timezone:
  • School/University:
  • Degree Program:
  • Year:

Most students have some time off planned during GSoC.

  • Do you have any vacations?
  • When and how long?

Rhombus-Tech welcomes students from all backgrounds and levels of experience. To be seriously considered for Rhombus-Tech GSoC, we recommend joining the mailing list and IRC channel. Introduce yourself and mention that you are a prospective GSoC student. Ask questions and discuss the project that you are considering. Community involvement is a key component of Rhombus-Tech development.

The following information will help Rhombus-Tech match students with mentors and projects.

  • Please comment on your software and firmware experience.
  • Have you participated in the Rhombus-Tech community before?
  • Have you contributed to an open source project? Which one? What was your experience?
  • Have you built and run RTEMS, or cross-compiled the Linux Kernel? Did you have problems? How did you deal with them?

Please provide an overview of your project and a break down your project in small specific goals. Explain what risks or potential problems your project might experience. What would you expect as a minimum level of success? Do you have a stretch goal?

Feel free to keep your application short. A 15 page essay is no better than a 2 page summary. If you wish to write 15 pages, you are of course welcome to do so, and we will gladly put your paper up on the web page. But it is not required for the application.

How to apply

The Drupal project has a great page on How to write an SOC application.

Please also read Google's Advice for Students.

Some Caveats

Google Summer-of-Code projects are a full (day-) time job. This means we expect roughly 30-40 hours per week on your project, during the three months of coding. Obviously we have flexibility, but if your schedule (exams, courses) does not give you this amount of spare time, then maybe you should not apply.

Getting paid by Google requires that you meet certain milestones. First, you must be in good standing with the community before the official start of the program. We suggest you post some design emails to the mailing list, and get feedback on them, both before applying, and during the "community bonding period" between acceptance and official start. Also, you must have made progress and committed significant code before the mid-term point.

We require accepted students to have a blog, where you will write about your project on a regular basis. This is so that the community at large can be involved and help you. SoC is not a private contract between your mentor and you.

Note that "regular basis" in the last item does not mean "3 days before evaluation deadlines". You should be "around" all the time (reporting your feedback, sending in partial successes). We don't expect our students to be experts in our problem domain, but we don't want you to fail because some basic misunderstanding was in your way of completing the task.

Time Frame

DEADLINE FOR STUDENT APPLICATIONS: Students who are interested in working on a Rhombus-Tech-related GSoC project must apply between March 26, 2012 and April 6, 2012! If you want to apply, please get in contact with us right away, not just when you send your application!

Student requirements

We will only accept your proposal if you have demonstrated that you can work with our codebase. For that, you have to send a patch to the list which is acceptable. Just ask for simple tasks on the mailing list or on IRC.

Contact

If you are interested in becoming a GSoC student, please contact arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk or visit our IRC channel on irc.freenode.net: #arm-netbook

Rhombus-Tech GSoC Mentors

Please add you name to this list and follow the Rhombus-Tech mentor link (TODO) to apply to be a Rhombus-Tech mentor

  • lkcl (rht project coordinator, free software advocate, gsoc admin)
  • bari (onelabs, hardware engineer, coreboot, backup gsoc admin)

Possible ideas

Please look at our project ideas page community ideas.

We have come up with some ideas for cool Summer of Code projects. These are projects that we think can be managed in the short period of GSoC, and they cover areas where OpenEC-32 is trying to reach new users and new use cases.

But of course your application does not need to be based on any of the ideas listed below. The opposite: Maybe you have a great idea that we just didn't think of yet. Please let us know!

Feel free to contact us at the email address or IRC channel above, and don't hesitate to suggest whatever you have in mind.

List of Ideas

Add a new post titled:

Seriously, I want to buy a tablet. Or are you also like Always Innovating doesn't sell any more to individual consumers as   we have focused our activities to a licensing business model.

Posted Wed 10 Jun 2015 18:29:49 BST

Why don't use Allwinner A20 it's pin compatible with A10 so, no work lost !

Posted Thu 13 Dec 2012 15:10:57 GMT

Note form

this idea is under discussion and expansion

we need to have some linux kernel infrastructure that reflects the interfaces (SATA, USB, I2C) and it would be good to have some sort of structure in place, with a subdirectory hierarchy with the name "eoma68" in it, somewhere. also there will need to be a device-tree file for the LCD and another bunch for the 16 GPIOs. and somewhere is needed some infrastructure for dynamic recognition of LCD screens: EDID support in the arm-linux kernel is missing, because the assumption has always been that ARM embedded devices will never be able to change their LCD.

in the case of EOMA68, all that completely changes: not only does the CPU not have to be only ARM but also the CPU card can be plugged literally into anything, possibly suspended to disk or even hot-swapped and inserted into a completely different chassis.

Posted Fri 09 Mar 2012 22:02:53 GMT

OpenEC-32

Integrate the following to provide embedded support for a ST STM32 or NXP LPCxxxx ARM SOC

  1. libopenstm32

    libopenstm32 IRC channel on Freenode.

  2. openEC

  3. RTEMS

    rtems IRC channel on Freenode.

Provide a library of routines for: Battery Charging, Keyboard Scan, Touchscreen, GPIO, User Interface Buttons, Audio, Lid open/closed, LED's, temperature sensors, etc.

Port the 8bit OpenEC library of routines to 32bit ARM Cortex-M3 and make use of the libopenstm32 libraries.

This codebase will be used in millions of notebooks, netbooks, tablets, carPC's, set-top-boxes in the near future.

Git Repo:

http://git.hands.com/openec-32.git

ssh://git@git.hands.com/openec-32.git

Posted Fri 09 Mar 2012 21:39:29 GMT