Google Summer of Code

What is it?

The Google Summer of Code™ is a program sponsored by Google where they pay students to develop open source software. Google have been running this program every year since 2005. Geeklog was accepted to take part in 2007 and 2008.

Should Google decide to run the program again in 2009, we plan to apply for participation again.

Project Ideas

This is a list of ideas for projects that we feel would add useful functionality to Geeklog (to be implemented in possible future incarnations of the Google Summer of Code):

For Geeklog

• Webservices revisited
• SWOT (Spam: Web of Trust)
• Add Social Networking Features
• Implement a theme based on the YUI CSS Foundation Libraries
• Cross Site Alerting and Publication API
• Implement Open Web Analytics
• Core Notification Service
• Google Translation API
• Support for PostgreSQL
• Test framework
• Plugin repository

There are also some leftover ideas (not fully fleshed out) from 2007.

For AptitudeCMS (formerly Geeklog 2)

• Taxonomy and Tagging Plugin
• Continuous Builds
• Workflow Plugin
• Mapping Plugin
• Geeklog2 Syndication API
• Geeklog2 Anti-Spam "Solution"
• Media Plugin
• Social Plugin using Google's OpenSocial

Background information

Geeklog is an umbrella for two related but distinct CMS:

• Geeklog (current version: 1.5.1) is the software you may have seen running websites such as Groklaw.
• AptitudeCMS (formerly Geeklog 2) is a "next generation" CMS and has been rewritten from the ground up. There are no released versions of AptitudeCMS yet.

Geeklog was started back in the year 2000 and its code is still mostly procedural and it uses its own (thin) database abstraction layer. AptitudeCMS, on the other hand, is fully object oriented and uses technologies such as MVC and design patterns.

Further Reading

• The Summer of Code topic on geeklog.net provides coverage of our previous participation in the Google Summer of Code.