[Nix-dev] Google Summer of Code 2017

[Matthew Bauer]

Google Summer of Code applications open on January 19 for organizations[1].
NixOS had previously applied to be an organization in 2014 and 2015 but
neither time was accepted. I think it would be great if we could get an
application in for this year. It's not clear what criteria the GSoC use for
accepting orgs but I'm thinking that the growth the Nix* projects have
experienced over the last 2 years gives us a pretty good shot.

Mentors
The most important thing right now is getting a list of mentors. Lots of
the mentors from 2015 are still active[2] so I'm hoping to get input from
them. New mentors would also be welcome! I think @iElectric organized the
efforts previously, so I'm hoping to see if he is

Students
I am currently eligible to work as a student over this summer if NixOS gets
accepted. I'd really enjoy working on NixOS-stuff and I think it would be
really helpful to the Nix* project.

Ideas
These are some various ideas. Some are new and some are based on the wiki
page[2].

- NixOS graphical installer: Use something like Calamares[3], make it
generate a NixOS config, then run some basic installation commands.
- Nix graphical package manager: Extending on my original efforts in
getting PackageKit[4] working with Nix, this would be a GUI application
that makes managing Nix/NixOS easier.
- Improve Nix build output: This would either be reporting progress
(NixOS/nix#896) or "Improve nix-build output for post-processing"[5] or
both.
- In-memory representation of derivations: get rid of the .drv files in Nix

Obviously there are lots of other ideas that are worthwhile, hopefully
potential mentors can contribute more.

[1]: https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/timeline
[2]: https://nixos.org/wiki/GSOC_2015_ideas_list
[3]: https://calamares.io
[4]: https://github.com/hughsie/PackageKit
[5]:
https://nixos.org/wiki/GSOC_2015_ideas_list#Improve_nix-build_output_for_post-processing

Gist URL:
https://gist.github.com/matthewbauer/109f4b7d1c7ab0eeffbe9448e049a254
-- 
Matthew Bauer <mjbauer95 at gmail.com>
University of Kansas
https://matthewbauer.us/
(913) 671-0636
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