GSoC 2014 Organization Application
David PS
Cadair
sunpy
SunPy
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SunPy is a community-developed free and open-source software package for solar physics. SunPy is meant to be a free alternative to the SolarSoft data analysis environment which is based on the IDL scientific programming language sold by Exelis. Though SolarSoft is open-source IDL is not and can be prohibitively expensive. The aim of the SunPy project is to provide the software tools necessary so that anyone can analyze solar data. SunPy is written using the Python programming language and is build upon the scientific Python environment which includes the core packages NumPy, SciPy. The development of SunPy is associated with that Astropy.
python, science, solar physics
New and Simplified BSD licenses
https://raw2.github.com/sunpy/sunpy-logo/master/generated/sunpy_icon_64x64.png
https://groups.google.com/d/forum/sunpy-dev
#sunpy on Freenode
https://plus.google.com/+SunpyOrg
Veteran
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Why is your organization applying to participate in Google Summer of Code 2014? What do you hope to gain by participating?
SunPy is a community-developed, free and open-source solar data analysis environment for Python. In the solar community almost all of the data is available for free to the public as per NASA policy. Unfortunately the tools to explore and analyze that data are mostly written for a proprietary analysis environment (IDL). The goal of SunPy is to enable anyone to use and analyze solar data thereby empowering the public and expanding the community of solar scientists. By participating in the Google Summer of Code we expect to not only help us expand SunPy by incorporating new functionality, but also promote our efforts in other communities beside solar physics and hopefully attract new contributors. SunPy has successfully participated in the ESA Summer Of Code In Space program, through which we have had three students contribute to SunPy's development and two students from last year GSOC programme (under the Python Software Foundation). All the six students have been from computer science, this has improved SunPy's code considerably while teaching the solar physicist who are contributing to the development process. We hope to gain more quality in the code and new developers to the team (three of the six students are active in our community), while using this opportunity to introduce our potential summer student(s) to astronomy and solar physics.
How many potential mentors do you have for this year's program? What criteria did you use to select them?
We have 7 potential mentors. SunPy proposes a number of different possible projects. Each project has two mentors associated with it (one primary and a backup). These mentors are experts in the given subject area and they are active developers in Sunpy. Likely the mentors proposed the project in the first place. Though not all are expert Python programmers, the SunPy community will be available to support Python questions. Also, we have established links with webservice developers from solar and heliosphere data archives in Europe and USA, who will participate in the discussions aimed to help us implement the access to their services. All mentors are experienced solar scientists, with expertise in data acquisition, analysis or both. SunPy GSOC is also open to student proposed projects. In this case the project can only be accepted if the proposed project is appropriate to SunPy (i.e. accepted by the SunPy developers) and if suitable mentors can be identified. We also maintain a strict rule that no mentor shall be assigned to more than one student.
The students will have the flexibility to accommodate his/her other duties as a student with the project. However, students are expected to be in regular contact with the mentors assigned and with the community (irc, mail-list, dev-Google+ hangouts and by writing blog posts on a regular basis on the SunPy site). The mentors and the student have to agree on a time to meet every week for at least one hour, and discuss the evolution of the project. Also, the student is expected to have his git repository on github up to date, so the mentors and all the SunPy community can review the progress achieved. In the case that the student does not show any progress, the GSOC administrator for SunPy will study the specific case to solve any issues the student may have with the project. However, if the student completely disappears and if there is no reply after efforts to contact them, then we will understand they have broken the agreement and we will contact the administration of GSOC for further actions. The student's progress will be evaluated and the project mentors will be responsible for folding the existing code (if any) into the SunPy project.
In case any of the mentors has either a temporary or permanent unavailability to commit as such, the project administrator will be responsible for finding a new mentor. The SunPy project is large enough that it will not be difficult to find another mentor that is familiar with the project. By having two mentors listed for every project, unless both disappear, which is unlikely, we always have someone ready to replace disappearing mentors.
What steps will you take to encourage students to interact with your project's community before and during the program?
Working together with the community is a very important aspect of SunPy we therefore have already begun to encourage students to work with our community even before their application is submitted. We have created a page with guidelines [1] on how what students can do to increase their changes to accepted into the SunPy GSOC programme. SunPy provides a number of communication channel to its users and developers. These include weekly google hangouts, a google group email list, as well as an IRC chat room. We will expect the student to make use of all of these channels during their time working. We also will make specific requirements of the students which include weekly meetings with their mentors as well as weekly blog posts on the SunPy site describing their progress. They will also be asked to participate in the creation of posters, presentations and/or tutorials to show in this years solar physics conferences [2]. Students (as all contributions to SunPy) will be required to write up a guide and documentation for their contribution. This will be reviewed by the community through the github comment and annotation pull request architecture. If the work done leads to a research publication, the student will be invited to collaborate in the preparation of the publication. These guidelines have already been successful applied as part of our participation in the ESA Summer of Code programme.
[1] https://github.com/sunpy/sunpy/wiki/GSoC-student-application-guidelines
[2] http://figshare.com/articles/search?q=sunpy&quick=1
What will you do to encourage your accepted students to stick with the project after Google Summer of Code concludes?
We aim to involve all the new people with the community as much as we can. GSoC students will be encouraged no less. We hope to convince them of the attractive and usability that our projects have for the long shoot. As many solar physicists are new to Python, we will try to invite the students to give SunPy tutorials to the solar physics institutes near their home location. This will help the student to get a better understanding of the needs in the community and to get closer to the users and the field. This may provide the student a big push in their career, and open new doors in the solar physics research world.
Are you a new organization who has a Googler or other organization to vouch for you? If so, please list their name(s) here
We previously participated successfully in GSOC under the Python Science Foundation (PSF). We were therefore “endorsed” last year.
Are you an established or larger organization who would like to vouch for a new organization applying this year? If so, please list their name(s) here
No
If you chose "veteran" in the organization profile dropdown, please summarize your involvement and the successes and challenges of your participation. Please also list your pass/fail rate for each year
We participated under the umbrella of the Python Science Foundation. Both students we had last year brilliantly passed.
2013
