Community:SummerOfCode13:Brainstorming

Mozilla community members - submit proposals here for 2013 Google Summer of Code projects with Mozilla. (If this page looks empty, it's because accepted ideas have already been transferred to the official list.) The absolute last deadline for submitting ideas in time to help us get accepted by Google is March 29th.

Are you a students looking to apply to SoC with Mozilla? Your first stop should be the official list of ideas. This page is full of weird and whacky ideas, some of which are still on here for a reason - it could be that they are not properly defined, the wrong size, or don't have a mentor. That makes them less likely to get accepted. You can, of course, also submit your own ideas - you don't have to put an idea on this page and get it 'made official' in order to send in a proposal for it.

How To Write A Good Project Proposal

Before adding an proposal to this list, please consider the following:

• Be specific. It's hard to understand the impact of, or the size of, vague proposals.
• Consider size. The student has eight weeks to design, code, test and document the proposal. It needs to fill, but not overfill, that time.
• Do your research. Support the idea with well-researched links.
• Don't morph other people's ideas. If you have a related idea, place it next to the existing one, or add a comment.
• Insert only your own name into the Mentor column, and then only if you are willing to take on the responsibility. If you think the SoC admins won't know who you are, leave contact details.
• Check back regularly. The administrators may have questions about your idea that you will need to answer.
• Know when to give up. If you've added the same idea for the last three years and it hasn't made it to the official page, perhaps you can predict what will happen this time.

Suggestion List

Here are the ideas lists from previous years.

Proposals can be in almost any part of the Mozilla project - don't be fooled by the "Code" in "Summer of Code". If there is no category below for your part of Mozilla, add one!

Mozilla Platform (Gecko)

Title	Details	Skills Needed	Reporter	Mentor(s)	Comments

Firefox

Title	Details	Skills Needed	Reporter	Mentor(s)	Comments

Firefox for Android

Title	Details	Skills Needed	Reporter	Mentor(s)	Comments

Firefox OS / Boot2Gecko

Title	Details	Skills Needed	Reporter	Mentor(s)	Comments

Mozilla Open Badges

Title	Details	Skills Needed	Reporter	Mentor(s)	Comments

Calendar

Title	Details	Skills Needed	Reporter	Mentor(s)	Comments

Thunderbird

Title	Details	Skills Needed	Reporter	Mentor(s)	Comments
Utilize capability attributes of nsIMsgIncomingServer and nsIMsgFolder	Remove hard-coded checks through-out the comm-central codebase where a simple check of the server (nsIMsgIncomingServer) capability can be used. Example: if (server.type == "nntp" || server.type == "rss") { enableSubscribe(); } Change to: if (server.canSubscribe) { enableSubscribe(); } For this to work, the student has to see if the server types return the proper value for the capability (some may be unimplemented yet) and may have to add some new attributes where needed. Hard-coded checks are bad because they do not pick up new server types automatically even if they would have the capability. Extension authors have a hard time plugging into these hard-coded spots. Often they have to duplicate the whole function from TB to add their new server type to it. The same can be done with folders, i.e. nsIMsgFolder. Starting point: bug 63369.	C++, Javascript	aceman
Rewrite our database code to be asynchronous when database if huge.	This would help us in improving the start-up time of Thunderbird. Main idea is splitting the database in chunks and then loading it, if the database is quite big. I guess related bug would be: bug 588952. Difficulty: Medium to hard depending on how far we go.	C++ mainly	atuljangra	?anyone?	jcranmer - Mork database async opening needs to be completed, and we would probably also need nsIMsgDBHdr instances to become "dead" (cached copies of the database or newer changes).
Open ended project to solve several critical bugs	My idea for this project is that we can have a student solve various bugs that are arising in Thunderbird which are makin users unhappy. For example Bug 516222, Bug 803921, Bug 618553 and many others. We can utilize this to solve such critical bugs. This would be some kind of open ended bug. Main area of concern would be Mailnews core.	C/C++ mostly, Js for testing	atuljangra	?anyone from Mailnews core?	atuljangra- Do we need to prioritise the ideas?
Make OS X users happier	Something from Bug 728438 to integrate Thunderbird better into OS X would be good. This includes interesting Bugs like the Quickloock integration Bug 457546, which was already a student project, but needs to be finished, integrated into Thunderbird and some tests. The same is true for Bug 465257 to support multi-touch gestures. It also includes Bugs to improve the addressbook behaviour for OS X users (write support, Bug 391057 and picture support, Bug 496789).	You need to know about C++, JS and OS X APIs.	?	?

SeaMonkey

Title	Details	Skills Needed	Reporter	Mentor(s)	Comments

NSS (Network Security Services)

Title	Details	Skills Needed	Reporter	Mentor(s)	Comments

Bugzilla

Title	Details	Skills Needed	Reporter	Mentor(s)	Comments

Firefox Support (SUMO)

Title	Details	Skills Needed	Reporter	Mentor(s)	Comments

QA

Title	Details	Skills Needed	Reporter	Mentor(s)	Comments

Automation & Tools

Title	Details	Skills Needed	Reporter	Mentor(s)	Comments

Documentation

Title	Details	Skills Needed	Reporter	Mentor(s)	Comments
MDN Developer Tools	Realize 6 visual and interactive tools to be added into the MDN Web Site (wiki part) that allow people to generate CSS with complex effects in an easy way: gradients (linear and radius), border-radius, border-image, color picker, &-code finder, ...	You need to know about JS (good), CSS (basic), HTML (basic)	Jean-Yves Perrier	Jean-Yves Perrier	The list and details of the tools are to be listed in the application. 8 ideas of tools should be submitted in the application, the final list of tools will be discussed at the beginning of the project and success will be measured if 6 of these tools are implemented, reviewed and live in the MDN. Example of such tool (rough): https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/CSS/Tools/Cubic_Bezier_Generator

Mozilla IT and Infrastructure

Title	Details	Skills Needed	Reporter	Mentor(s)	Comments

Persona / BrowserID

Title	Details	Skills Needed	Reporter	Mentor(s)	Comments

Sync / Services

Title	Details	Skills Needed	Reporter	Mentor(s)	Comments

Developer Tools

Title	Details	Skills Needed	Reporter	Mentor(s)	Comments

Add-on SDK

Title	Details	Skills Needed	Reporter	Mentor(s)	Comments

Foundation

Title	Details	Skills Needed	Reporter	Mentor(s)	Comments

Release Engineering

Title	Details	Skills Needed	Reporter	Mentor(s)	Comments

Instantbird

Title	Details	Skills Needed	Reporter	Mentor(s)	Comments

Emscripten

Title	Details	Skills Needed	Reporter	Mentor(s)	Comments

Rust

Title	Details	Skills Needed	Reporter	Mentor(s)	Comments

Security Engineering

Title	Details	Skills Needed	Reporter	Mentor(s)	Comments

Open(Art)

Title	Details	Skills Needed	Reporter	Mentor(s)	Comments
Hacktivity design	http://meemoo.org/ is browser-based data flow coding environment. The goal is to bring more people, including children, to the world of open source creative coding with instantly-hackable creative apps that run in the browser. "Hacktivies" are activities that encourage playful exploration with images and code. For this project, you should prototype and design ways to bridge the digital/analog high/low tech code/craft divide. http://meemoo.org/hack-our-apps/ for some examples. A successful proposal will include some creative output made with Meemoo to show understanding of the system.	JavaScript, craft, activity design, graphic design, writing		Forrest Oliphant, in relation to the meemoo.org project.