Google Summer of Code 2012

[Christian Helmuth]

Hi,

On Thu, Mar 01, 2012 at 09:58:13AM +0100, Norman Feske wrote:
> That said, I am uncertain about the motivation you gave. From a
> student's point of view, our needs at Genode Labs may not provide enough
> incentive to go for it. If I were a student, I would prefer working on a
> topic that is somehow related to my personal (or more general) needs.

You're right, what I wrote are _my professional_ needs. My personal
need that definitely overlaps with other developers is: privacy. IMO
this shall be a strong motivation factor in the present computing
world as it is for the whole Genode project.

> One way of making this topic more convincing may be to take block-level
> encryption just as a concrete example to work on, but define the topic
> in a more general way. For example "cryptography on Genode". By framing
> the topic this way, the student can explore many interesting
> technologies (e.g., random-number generators, OpenSSL, GnuTLS, SSH,
> GnuGPG) in the context of Genode. The implementation of the block
> encryption component would be merely a side effect.

Two remarks about the two components of your paragraph:

* If I understand you correctly, you propose to broaden the topic to
  anything related to cryptography in Genode, which I'd like to avoid.
  The tasks for summer should be tailored for the expected time frame
  and also address a specific topic. Additionally, we should keep the
  trailing remark about our openness to proposals.

* I don't think block-device encryption can be solved as a side effect
  as it must be investigated thoroughly and implemented with care. The
  history of LUKS and its predecessors for example spans over years.

> I would not rule them out. If there is someone who is highly interested
> in working on a sophisticated topic such as Intel Wireless support and
> already has a track record in working on similar things, we should try
> to accommodate him/her by providing test hardware. But for a student
> without a clear skill set, I would propose a topic that does not involve
> such additional expenses. I.e., a topic that can be carried out natively
> on Linux or on Qemu.

Agree.

Regards
-- 
Christian Helmuth
Genode Labs

http://www.genode-labs.com/ · http://genode.org/ · /ˈdʒiː.nəʊd/

Genode Labs GmbH · Amtsgericht Dresden · HRB 28424 · Sitz Dresden
Geschäftsführer: Dr.-Ing. Norman Feske, Christian Helmuth