[Tux4kids-tuxtype-dev] Tux4Kids in GSoC 2011 - anyone interested?

[David Bruce]

Hi,

The application period for projects interested in GSoC opens Feb 28.
Are any of the previous mentors interested in being GSoC admin for
Tux4Kids this year?  I've done it the last two years, and would be
more than happy if someone else wants to take over.  I love working on
this stuff, but it is an increasing source of unhappiness for those
around me, who view all this as me "playing on the computer again".
So, I really don't want to be GSoC admin anymore.

Also, speaking to the Tux Math and Tux Typing side, we have a ton of
unfinished business up in the air.  I'm not sure it even makes sense
to participate in GSoC this year.  It seems we start all these
ambitious projects which get partially done, but never quite come to
fruition.

Tux4Kids-admin?
Tux History?
Tux Typing has basically ground to a halt because we were waiting to
get the t4k_common library shaped up (actually, that might be a GSoC
project that would make sense - "port" tuxtype to use t4k_common).

We haven't released a build of TuxMath for the Mac in almost 2 years.
We haven't released a build of TuxType for Mac in over 3 years!

The current version of tuxmath that uses t4k_common isn't packaged for
any distro, AFAIK.

We added a ton of cool features to tuxmath during Google Code-In
(which, I may add, was massively time-consuming and got my family
really mad at me), but most of them left various loose ends which need
to be finished before a public release can be made.  We haven't even
gotten that out the door, and folks are clamoring to do more big
changes to the program ("I'm going to rewrite mathcards from scratch".
 "I'm going to put in a new event architecture that will completely
break the existing LAN game".  "Let's remove all the network code and
rewrite everything from scratch."  "Let's move the entire program to
C++").  I think these are the last things we should be considering at
this point.

Sorry about the rant, but I'm getting more and more convinced that the
project is suffering from GSoC-induced bloat.  If we are going to take
part again, we should tightly restrict the number of participants, and
make certain that the projects don't lead to even more unfinished
business.

David