They would state disappointment with past performance was the reason if it actually was.
The whole point of GSoC is to give students some real world programming experience (and probably give Google a big tax break). I really don’t think they care about improving the projects as much as people assume they do. I mean if their aim was really at improving Blender, hiring an army of students is a really dumb way to go about it, given Google’s resources. Likewise I don’t think they expect students to necessarily have mergeable code; if they do, excellent, but it isn’t a requirement for students to pass.
I think Blender’s name simply didn’t get drawn out of the hat this year is all. Nothing personal. Blender has just been really fortunate to get picked for 10 in a row. I don’t think being picked or not being picked is necessarily an indicator of Google being pleased with the organization in question.
Anyway, I’d rather Blender did get picked, but I do think there is quite a bit of merit in having a break from GSoC too.
It is free software. You may do with it roughly what you like, except prevent others from doing the same if you give them your version. It says so in the license.
While everybody is entitled to their own opinion, everybody else is thankfully entitled to ignore it.
It was not proposal formatting, it was BF abysmal record w.r.t. bringing into trunk GSOC projects. Google has better things to do than fund dead code rotting in some repository.
I am sure that, if in this year BF gives priority to cleaning up GSOC code trunking queue, Google will be more open in 2016.
When you get money from somebody for doing somethig, you are not the boss, your funder is. Welcome to Real World™.
Uhm, that’s not what the e-mail was about? We could all read the e-mail? And Google is not as passive aggresive as you people think it is: If they only stated formatting as a reason while they actually meant unfinished projects, they’d be giving off false signals and in general wasting their time.
I laugh it was, if a client gives you a list of very simple requirements on a task and you fail to meet them it raises huge doubts in their minds. That list of things that Google wanted to see in an ideas page was simple and if you look on the Blender page the where several things missing.
But the ideas page was a bit weak, not many potential mentors/module owners added ideas for areas they own. (check the history~ most edits from Ton and me) This speaks to some lack of interest on the mentors part too.
At least Ton may spend time on something nice for Blender still. Maybe turns out is even a positive break.
As for me, instead of GSoC coordination I will spend time with the module teams on streamlining our organization to make it easier for more developers to come on board. Bug tracker duties and patch reviewing seem to eat up our energy and lust-for-coding too much as well. Too few people do too much now…
Pretty sure the response from google was a form letter. Here is what google told Godot Engine when they asked why they did not get in:
"Unfortunately we really wanted your ideas page to be more fleshed out and to follow the guidelines from our mentor manual: http://en.flossmanuals.net/GSoCMe…/making-your-ideas-page/. This is the primary reason you were rejected. I hope you’ll consider applying again next year! "
As for me, instead of GSoC coordination I will spend time with the module teams on streamlining our organization to make it easier for more developers to come on board. Bug tracker duties and patch reviewing seem to eat up our energy and lust-for-coding too much as well. Too few people do too much now…
I think overall, this would be the better option, the GSoC program overall has produced a relatively small number of new active year-round developers at best (many of them leave the scene once the program is over) and this will ultimately give a better long term benefit.
I’m not really certain why Google would suddenly mandate that an ideas page follows their recommended template almost exactly for an organization to even get in, but if they start doing stingy things like this, then it might be the beginning of the end of the GSoC program.
@ace,
Maybe they just have to do that, because there are so many candidates, and to give them all an equally fair chance to aply.
Or to threat al candidates equally, there still might be some projects in the list that may someday improve blender too in some way
(git, buildbot, FFmpeg,…).
I think the reply to Godot kills the suggestion Google was just giving Blender “the facts” about their rejection. It looks like those replying to emails asking why were given the same song sheet to sing from (Digital Mars compiler project got a similar “it was your ideas page” rejection).
Clearly, there are exceptions for this “rule” and, from those I’ve seen get accepted, those exceptions are for projects that have seen far greater success in GSoC in the past than Blender has. Like crowd-funding campaigns, if you want to succeed in future attempts, you have to take an honest look at why you failed the last one.
Given Godot got a similar flimsy boilerplate response, it’s pretty clear nether project actually did anything specifically wrong. They just didn’t find a golden ticket in their candy bar this year is all. There are limited seats and a lot of applicants; sometimes your number isn’t going to get drawn.
And that FAQ (thanks xrg!) is what people really should read before speculating about rejection reasons. Also, see here about the goals of GSOC:
Google Summer of Code has several goals:
Create and release open source code for the benefit of all
Inspire young developers to begin participating in open source development
Help open source projects identify and bring in new developers and committers
Provide students the opportunity to do work related to their academic pursuits (think “flip bits, not burgers”)
Give students more exposure to real-world software development scenarios (e.g., distributed development, software licensing questions, mailing-list etiquette)
This together with the point xrg linked to should put you all to rest that is was not any failure to merge GSOC code that lead to rejection.
Find intriguing (if not funny) part of the statement where Ton ‘demands’ that ‘has very few doing much …’
I wonder if when offered the chance to participate in the development of Blender suite is also offered to the applicant to dev a chance to say in which areas of interest he wants to work without a pre-defined list of exclusive options.
I ask this because, as they say the most influential of the BA Forum, it is a free software. But it is a free software where their own community has NO power of choice nor taken seriously opinion.
I am not against anyone, I’m just trying to understand the reason why the BF can not clearly explain what are your concrete plans for the future of Blender. For what we have seen is the disclosure of a list covering version x to version ye just, no routine update is provided later. This strikes me as private applications work.
I think that’s what really affect the community feedback towards BF: lack of transparency, even as a non-profit organization and says he respects its user community.
Is it because the Gooseberry project has a public blog (http://gooseberry.blender.org/) with weekly reports of what is happening?
Is it Blender Cloud https://cloud.blender.org/ where you can access all files being created for the Goosebery project?
Maybe it’s the blog at http://code.blender.org/ with 3 lengthy posts in the last week that show the upcoming improvements and plans for the future of animation in Blender?
Let’s not mention http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Doc/Projects that, surprisingly, shows all the projects that are going into 2.74 as well as saying which projects you can look forward to in the following releases.
Now please tell me where in these links can you not find the information about what are the concrete plans for the future of Blender?
That is usually the case. When a FLOSS developer comes into a project, he will usually work on his area of interest, even more so if he isn’t payed, which he usually isn’t. It’s a hobby/passion for most. Existing developers and/or project lead decide if his area of interest fits into the project as a whole and if the code is acceptable.
I ask this because, as they say the most influential of the BA Forum, it is a free software. But it is a free software where their own community has NO power of choice nor taken seriously opinion.
Free software doesn’t mean that all opinions have equal weight. Free software basically means: there are people who like to code and develop software, often in their spare time, and like to give their time and knowledge away so others can use the software too. They even let you use the source code as you want, provided you respect their wishes (i.e. license).
That’s about it. Community involvement is handled differently from project to project. In Blender dev you can have input as a user, but you should familiarize yourself with how things are done (see Lamoots post) and get to know the developers. Demanding involvement in a user forum isn’t the right way.
You can also talk to the devs live and in person anytime in IRC.
So in the end I do not need to opine on the Blender development only because they do not encode but’m just a mere postulant the artist? I have to accept silent others do for me?
This is not freedom, it is tyranny.
I’m sorry, but I keep saying that the community is NOT taken into account as the drastic decisions with regard to the development of the tool. Let us be realistic.
And talk to the devs leads nowhere, when the only final and valid decision is in the hands of a single person. That’s what I mean.
I think it’s past time the BF have a real board who actually listen and discuss cordially with all stakeholders user (whether devs or just artists) development tool.
The lack of transparency I mentioned did refer to the fact that the BF chairman devs and NOT communicate with the community more adequately, but atravé of edicts published in the official channels of BD (ops, sorry, I mistook the BA with official channel of communication). It’s easy to escsonder behind things like IRC, blogs, pages on the interne, etc. What we want is Qua interaction via forums and others. You can not without at least an hour to respond or listen to the community in a forum or something.
After all not everyone who feels comfortable with the usual communication tools used by the Devs and the BF. Now, if these are the only kennels by which we can communicate, patience.
In the end, it all comes down to personal egos being satisfied anyway.
And from what I realized in this segment of the Forum, it is no use trying to be reasonable as the most influential group, including some said ‘moderators’ not admit opinions contrary to yours.
Maybe that’s why there have been many discussions about the future of Blender.