GSoC 2012 is on! important next steps

[todd rme]

2012/2/16 Trever Fischer <tdfischer at fedoraproject.org>:
> Since GSOC 2012 is starting, I've started a wiki page for everyone:
> http://community.kde.org/Multimedia/Google_Summer_of_Code_2012
>
> Note that this is in /Multimedia, so it isn't just a phonon thing. I'll be
> adding one or two kdemm-wide tasks in the coming days once I think of them.
>
>
> ----------  Forwarded Message  ----------
>
> Subject: GSoC 2012 is on! important next steps
> Date: Tuesday, February 07, 2012, 02:17:59 PM
> From: Lydia Pintscher <lydia at kde.org>
> To: "kde-devel" <kde-devel at kde.org>, kde-soc-mentor at kde.org, KDE SoC mailing
> list <kde-soc at kde.org>
>
> Heya folks :)
>
> Google Summer of Code 2012 is a go. KDE will apply again as a mentoring org.
> The next steps for mentors are to fill the ideas page and ideally give
> info sessions at local universities. Former GSoC students are
> especially encouraged to mentor this year. We will try to give this
> round a focus on accessibility. Please add ideas soon as students are
> starting to look for orgs/ideas.
> If you're a student who intends to apply start preparing now.
> More infos and links in my blog:
> http://blog.lydiapintscher.de/2012/02/07/gsoc-2012-is-on/
>
> Let's get this rolling ;-)
>
>
> Cheers
> Lydia

I can't be a mentor, but I do have some suggestions that someone else
can pick up if they want:

1. Generic UPNP/DLNA sharing and streaming framework.  Currently we
have UPNP browsing (although it uses HUPNP, which is GPL 3, which may
be a problem for some distros).  However, there is no corresponding
framework for sharing media.  Making it as easy to share videos and
music over UPNP/DLNA as over Samba (right-click on the folder and open
its properties) would be great.  Further, it should offer an api that
other programs, like digikam and amarok, can use to share their
collections.  Making it possible to use phonon sources as media
renderers would also be great.  Gnome already has this, called rygel,
but it uses nautilus, gstreamer, and tracker instead of dolphin,
phonon, and nepomuk/strigi.  Note that digikam is already proposing
doing this on their own, but I think that a generic kde-wide solution
would be better.

2. Gstreamer kio plugin.  Gstreamer can currently view network files
seamlessly on gnome desktops uses a gvfs plugin.  There is no
corresponding kio plugin to let KDE users do this, requiring the
system to make a local copy before playing.  This project would create
such a backend.

3. iPod kio slave.  Work is already underway for an mtp kio slave to
make it easy to seamlessly browse mtp devices in the file manager and
provide consistent access to apps like amarok and digikam (which
currently use their own implementations).  The purpose of this project
would be to do the same for apple devices using the ipod/iphone
protocol.  This would provide considerably better ipod and iphone
support than even apple offers.

4. DVD ripping kio slave (may have legal issues).  Currently KDE has a
kio slave for ripping CDs, which allows you to drag-and-drop files,
organized in folders by file types, to rip the CDs.  There is also a
rudimentary DVD ripper, but it only allows you to rip individual
low-level titles into basic raw DVD video.  This project would be to
make a more comprehensive DVD ripper kio slave like the cd ripper.

5. Unified music and video collection backend.  Should support all the
features of the current amarok, juk, bangarang, and plasma media
center collections, should be extensible via plugins to add new
features, should probably be nepomuk-based, and should probably offer
kio access.  All the existing capabilities of all the backends, such
as amarok's biased playlists, need not be created initially nor be
built-in since they would be offered via plugins.

I hope at least a few of these are interesting.

-Todd