[gentoo-soc] Application Antoine Gicquel

[gentoo-soc] Application Antoine Gicquel

[Antoine Gicquel]

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Hello everyone,


I am writing you to apply for the Google Summer of Code projects. I am 
long time Linux user and I have used Gentoo and Fedora for several 
years. I learned so much about computer science and operating system 
thanks to Gentoo that I want to become a contributor.


I have recently graduated from the Technology University of Vannes (IUT 
de Vannes, in Brittany, France) with a technology degree in computer 
science (called DUT in France). After these two years, I joined the 
Engineer School of Rennes (ESIR, in Brittany, France) into the 
information system department along with the advanced CS option. I plan 
to do a PhD in CS after my engineer degree. During my years of 
schooling, I have done an apprenticeship and several projects.


Throughout the last year of my technology degree at the Technology 
University of Vannes, I have done an apprenticeship in a startup called 
Smartmoov located in Rennes (Brittany, France) working in the industry 
of connected cars. I was conducting the development of the Android 
application  and I did some research about a new architecture that 
allows installation of features into an existing application. This 
experience was a success but now I want to try working for open-source 
organization I appreciate like Gentoo. You may find my other projects in 
my resume or my GitHub page (link in the resume below).


I am particularly interested in two of proposed projects. The first one 
is the support for multiple MPI implementations. I have read some MPI 
documentations and I will inform myself about the current MPI 
implementation. The second project I would apply for is the Porthole 
update. I used to use this software but because of the lack of updates I 
prefer to use the command line. Nevertheless I will be very happy to 
make it usable again and adapt it to the latest version of Portage. I 
think I have the skills needed to carry out those projects and learn a 
lot. Moreover, I can learn the necessary skills very quickly to be the 
most productive for the 3 months for GSoC.


The Google Summer of Code is an opportunity for me to get involved into 
the open-source world, develop my technical skill and learn a lot from 
free software organization like Gentoo. Even if I am not hired, I would 
be very happy to contribute to Gentoo. I would be very pleased to 
discuss with developers and mentors more technically about the projects 
and learn more about the team. I do not know if you prefer to 
communicate in email, mailing list or irc but I will be connected into 
the gentoo-soc IRC channel as agicquel and very attentive to my emails.


You can find my resume online at this link (notice the wonderful Gentoo 
colors ;-) ) 
:https://drive.google.com/open?id=1pv2PWVn-xLPVREC5-XXh704d-gVtIRas


I will remain attentive and answer any questions you may have. Thank 
you, in advance, for your time and your consideration.


Antoine Gicquel


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Re: [gentoo-soc] Application Antoine Gicquel

[Andrew Savchenko]

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Hi Antoine!

On Sat, 2 Mar 2019 15:47:41 +0000 Antoine Gicquel wrote:
> Hello everyone,
> 
> 
> I am writing you to apply for the Google Summer of Code projects. I am 
> long time Linux user and I have used Gentoo and Fedora for several 
> years. I learned so much about computer science and operating system 
> thanks to Gentoo that I want to become a contributor.

Thank you for your interest and welcome!
 
> Throughout the last year of my technology degree at the Technology 
> University of Vannes, I have done an apprenticeship in a startup called 
> Smartmoov located in Rennes (Brittany, France) working in the industry 
> of connected cars. I was conducting the development of the Android 
> application  and I did some research about a new architecture that 
> allows installation of features into an existing application. This 
> experience was a success but now I want to try working for open-source 
> organization I appreciate like Gentoo. You may find my other projects in 
> my resume or my GitHub page (link in the resume below).

Your github link contains a small error: it lacks ".com" in the
URI :)

> I am particularly interested in two of proposed projects. The first one 
> is the support for multiple MPI implementations. I have read some MPI 
> documentations and I will inform myself about the current MPI 
> implementation. 

There is no "current" MPI implementation in Gentoo. We support many
different implementations. The problem is that they are not binary
compatible with each other and users have to choose which one to
use, as only one implementation may be installed at the same time
in the main Gentoo repo. The science overlay contains
instrumentation allowing installation of different MPI
implementations at the same time and building corresponding
consumer packages, but the design involves overlay creation for
each MPI implementation, which is quite an overkill and demands
severe changes in packages using MPI which puts unjustified burden
to its maintainers.

The goal of the MPI GSoC project is to rework support for multiple
MPI implementations to make it simpler to use and conforming to
Gentoo standards. One of possible approaches is to implement
multiple MPI targets the same way multiple python or ruby targets
are implemented.

The demand for multiple MPI implementations or versions of the same
implementation comes from the HPC world where different user
applications often demand different MPI implementations.

> I think I have the skills needed to carry out those projects and learn a 
> lot. Moreover, I can learn the necessary skills very quickly to be the 
> most productive for the 3 months for GSoC.

The most important skill for the MPI project will be ebuild and
eclass writing experience. It needs to be strong before the coding
period will start, since coding involved is quite complex and there
will be no time for learning the basics.

You can start by fixing some bugs from our bugzilla. You may select
sci and mpi related bugs, but this is not required. What is
important that you should be fluent with ebuilds and eclasses and
that comes from experience.

You will likely have technical questions about ebuild writing, so
keep an eye on our developer manual:
https://devmanual.gentoo.org/

> The Google Summer of Code is an opportunity for me to get involved into 
> the open-source world, develop my technical skill and learn a lot from 
> free software organization like Gentoo. Even if I am not hired, I would 
> be very happy to contribute to Gentoo. I would be very pleased to 
> discuss with developers and mentors more technically about the projects 
> and learn more about the team. I do not know if you prefer to 
> communicate in email, mailing list or irc but I will be connected into 
> the gentoo-soc IRC channel as agicquel and very attentive to my emails.

E-mails are good for lengthy discussions, IRC is fine for small and
swift Q&A.

> I will remain attentive and answer any questions you may have. Thank 
> you, in advance, for your time and your consideration.

Please work on your GSoC application thoroughly and submit its draft
early, as soon as student's application period starts you should be
able to submit draft to mentors. It takes considerable time and
effort to write a good application with detailed plan.

Best regards,
Andrew Savchenko

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[gentoo-soc] Re: Application Antoine Gicquel

[Justin Bronder]

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On 04/03/19 12:47 +0300, Andrew Savchenko wrote:
> Hi Antoine!
> 
> On Sat, 2 Mar 2019 15:47:41 +0000 Antoine Gicquel wrote:
> > I think I have the skills needed to carry out those projects and learn a 
> > lot. Moreover, I can learn the necessary skills very quickly to be the 
> > most productive for the 3 months for GSoC.
> 
> The most important skill for the MPI project will be ebuild and
> eclass writing experience. It needs to be strong before the coding
> period will start, since coding involved is quite complex and there
> will be no time for learning the basics.
> 
> You can start by fixing some bugs from our bugzilla. You may select
> sci and mpi related bugs, but this is not required. What is
> important that you should be fluent with ebuilds and eclasses and
> that comes from experience.

If you're looking for somewhere to start that would be very relevant to the
project, take a look at the following two bugs.

This one has to do with something new in OpenMPI-4.0.0 not playing well with
multilib.eclass.  Despite being told to build 32-bit binaries, it's building 64.
https://bugs.gentoo.org/671510

This one popped up recently and I haven't had time to investigate.
https://bugs.gentoo.org/680236

Finally, OpenMPI-4.0.1 is out as well as Mpich 3.3.  Both ebuilds could use
version bumps.


> 
> You will likely have technical questions about ebuild writing, so
> keep an eye on our developer manual:
> https://devmanual.gentoo.org/
> 


-- 
Justin Bronder

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