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Hello,

As you are probably aware, the NetBSD project will once again participate
in the Google Summer of Code 2006.  We are currently compiling a list of
possible projects, but seeing how our userbase communicates primarily via
our mailing lists, I thought I should bring your attention to these
projects.

If you are interested in participating in the Summer of Code as as
student, it would be best if you would start discussing your proposal on
this list.  You also want to take a look at
http://www.netbsd.org/contrib/soc-application.html for a list of questions
you should be able to answer in your application.

The projects relating to topics on this mailing list are:

*  Unprivileged pkgsrc builds --  For the most part, pkgsrc requires
   superuser privileges. While some bits are in place to let normal
   users take advantage of pkgsrc, complete abstraction from the
   superuser as far as possible still needs some work.

   For more information, see the "How to use pkgsrc as non-root" section in
   the pkgsrc guide and review pkgsrc/mk/unprivileged.mk.=20

*  Parallel bulk builds -- kgsrc bulk builds -- that is, building all
   available packages in sequence -- are currently done without any
   parallelization. Changing the infrastructure to be aware of any
   clustered environments, delegating tasks to different nodes and
   building things in parallel whenever possible would greatly help us
   provide up-to-date packages much faster.

   Some work as been done in this area (with a framework called ?bobac?),
   but no fully functional solution is in place.=20

*  pkg_install rewrite --  pkg_install, the set of binary utilities used
   to install, remove, create and (to some extent) update packages, has
   to be rewritten from scratch because the current code is very
   difficult to extend and modify. Aside from rewriting these tool set,
   it would be interesting to add new functionality (basically improve
   updates).

   You can find more information about how the new tool would need to be
   in http://mail-index.netbsd.org/tech-pkg/2006/04/15/0012.html

The complete list of project ideas is available online at
http://www.netbsd.org/contrib/projects.html

-Jan

P.S.: Discussions (and implementations) of any of these projects is of
course welcome regardless of whether or not you are a student or intend
to apply for the SoC. :-)

--=20
``I still fail to understand why I should have been expected to waste
twenty-five years of my life following the progress of a beeping trash
can and a gay, gold-plated Jeeves.'' -- Anthony Lane on Star Wars III

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