GSOC 2013/Student Application purezen ImageBuilding

• Your name: Aditya Bhardwaj
• FAS Account: purezen
• Fedora userpage: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Purezen

Contact Information

• Email Address: aditya2204@gmail.com
• Blog URL: limitlessexpanse.wordpress.com
• Twitter: twitter.com/_purezen
• Freenode IRC Nick: purezen

Why do you want to work with the Fedora Project?

It is a distribution which believes in the core principles of FLOSS and is very comforting and accommodating to newcomers.

Do you have any past involvement with the Fedora project or any other open source project as a contributor?

Yes. With Mozilla.

Ref: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=784387

Did you participate with the past GSoC programs, if so which years, which organizations?

No.

Will you continue contributing/ supporting the Fedora project after the GSoC 2013 program, if yes, which team(s), you are interested with?

Yes. I will hopefully keep contributing to the Fedora project after the GSoC 2013 program. I would like to contribute primarily to the Infrastructure team (Python and Ruby-based). Also, to the ARM team (Beginning by testing for my ARM chromebook).

Why should we choose you over other applicants?

I am a very passionate and persistent individual and very keen to learn about what I am pursuing. I am also a FOSS enthusiast and would like to make use of open-source software in my professional sphere. I also got engaged with Fedora for GSoC from around the time when the program was announced for 2013. (Ref: http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/summer-coding/2013-March/000290.html)

I also evangelize open-source in my college.

Ref: http://www.facebook.com/events/486950444686832/ (Event)

    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/93115409/Introduction%20to%20FOSS.odp/ (Related presentation)

Proposal Description

An overview of your proposal

The image building project started last year as a GSoC project and while the progress was good, it isn't quite to the point where we need it to be for everyday usage. The current development can be seen at: https://fedorahosted.org/fedora-build-service/

The emphasis of the project would be on getting local image building to work before more work on distributing image building tasks got started.

Several improvements require to be made which include;

improvements in the CLI frontend such as,

Better integration with bodhi and working based on updates instead of just package envrs

Integration with blockerbugs app

DeltaISO creation ( when a base is given )

and improvements/feature additions in the general code-base including,

Zsync for downloads

Side repository management

Tree replication

The need you believe it fulfills

On-Demand build service seeks to build Live and installation images for developers, testers and consumers of Fedora Linux.

During the testing of Fedora releases, test images are often useful as smoke tests before full TC/RC composes, as baselines for specific test days or for automated installation testing in AutoQA. The Image Building Project provides an on-demand Web-based build service which users/developers can use to make custom Fedora based distributions.

Now, the basic framework for the same was well achieved during the previous SoC program. However, a lot of work needs to be done in order to make it usable for mainstream.

The code needs to be polished and packaged appropriately.

Also, a lot of features as described below need to be provided with the same.

Any relevant experience you have

I have coded in Python before and done work which involved talking via REST and retrieving data, building GUIs and other stuff. Basically, I love the way Python gets work done and try to use it's binding for any development purpose in case its there.

Final deliverable of the proposal at the end of the period

A more refined and better-equipped environment for Building Images

The prime concern of the project is to get local image building well-functioning and appropriately packaged.

After that, working on enabling the ability for distributed builds. Also for publishing the results. This may involve either attaching it on to a job-system or completing the one that has been started.

A rough timeline for your progress

Phase I (May 27 - June 16):

Community Bonding

Analyzing existing Image building code

Phase II (June 17 - August 2)

Polishing existing code.

Packaging/testing/debugging the same.

Getting local image building to work mostly.

Phase III (August 3 - September 16)

Enabling distributed image building.

Adding capability to publish results.

Phase IV (September 17 - September 23)

Wrapping up the summer

Writing/Updating documentation

Testing/Verifying code

Any other details you feel we should consider

Exams and other commitments

My college is about to end around mid-May with exams during the end. After that I have a two-month long vacation ;-). Following it my college shall begin; though, I shall be free of any responsibilities during that time (I.e. till September).

Plans for holidays

None. GSoC will be my primary concern in the holidays in case I get selected.

Have you communicated with a potential mentor? If so, who?

Yes, I have been communicating with Tim Flink who is assigned as a mentor for the project. As mentioned before, I got involved with him when the GSoC program for 2013 was announced. Ref: http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/summer-coding/2013-March/000290.html

I have also communicated with Amit K. Saha who formed the groundwork of the Image Building service under GSoC program last year.