On 4.3.2024 5.08, Jonah Janzen wrote:
Hi there! My name is Jonah, and I'm a Canadian engineering student. I
recently found out about Google Summer of Code, and after doing some
more reading about it, it seems like a wonderful opportunity that I
would love to be a part of. As a longtime user of LibreOffice, it's high
on my list of organizations I want to give back to, and hence I'm
reaching out to you today to start a conversation about doing so.
I've been programming since I was 8 doing everything from amateur
gamedev to competitive programming. This past year, I worked as a web
developer building a full-stack application with C#/Blazor, and I've
also made occasional contributions to FOSS like Godot and LMMS.
There are a couple of ideas that I would be most interested in working
on, which I'll list below:
_UNO Rust Bindings
_
I have vague familiarity with the Rust language and the ideas behind it,
but I have little hands-on experience with it.
My initial thoughts about this idea are that it would almost certainly
involve the use of the CXX.RS <http://CXX.RS> utility, and that I would
hope to be able to auto-generate as much of the code as possible, by
using the public API specification.
I have a strong desire to get more familiar with Rust, and I love
working on low-level backend stuff so this would probably be my top choice.
_Forgejo Migration (my own idea)_
From the perspective of a newcomer to the project, between Gitiles,
Gerrit, Bugzilla, Jenkins, etc., the different parts of LibreOffice
development feel disjointed and initially challenging to grasp. I
sincerely don't mean to cause offense, and I don't come across as
abrasive rather than reflective.
What I would propose is to move the LibreOffice repository, issue
tracker, code review process, and CI all onto the Forgejo platform. This
would offer a more centralized experience for all aspects of project
management that I think would make core developers' lives much easier,
and provide another, more superficial benefit: young (and occasionally
foolish) individuals like myself are used to the GitHub style of Git
server, and things like Gitiles tend to feel outdated and
unapproachable. Forgejo would provide a more familiar UX that would ease
the process of onboarding new contributors.
Gitea is another possibility, because it seems to be more active and
it's used by high-profile projects like Blender, although it's owned by
a for-profit now. I've also heard about OneDev, but don't know as much
about it.
Since this is my own idea, there are a couple potential challenges I'm
not sure about that I'd appreciate input on:
- This would require transferring account data, and I understand that
you might not be willing to entrust me with the power to access that.
- I would like for my GSoC project to be 350 hours, and I don't have an
estimate for how long this would take. I guess we could tack on other
stuff under the migration umbrella as well, like a shift from IRC to
Matrix, for example.
_LibreOffice Theme_
Although I'm personally not as interested in this idea, it seems like it
would offer a significant leap forward in LibreOffice's UI capabilities,
and might make the software more appealing to a lot of people. If you
think this would do the most good for the project overall, then I'd be
glad to take it on for that reason. I would want to consider what the
best way to store custom styles is (CSS? XML? and so on), and how this
can be integrated as tightly as possible with the way Mozilla themes are
used, so that the new setup can do all the same things.
---------------------------------
I would really appreciate feedback on what you think the best of those
ideas (or any others) might be for me to work on. I would also be
curious to know how much interest from other GSoC applicants you have
had thus far, and whether I would have a significant chance of being
accepted if I actually were to work on a proposal. If the answer to that
is yes, then I will start working on an easy hack as soon as possible,
and collaborating with potential mentors to shape my proposal.
Thank you so much, and I hope to work with you soon!
I have invited you to an interview.
Ilmari
