OpenTasks

This page contains a list of substantial open tasks from throughout the project. Completing any of them would be of great benefit the ScummVM project.

In theory, all of these tasks should be doable even by somebody relatively new to the project, in particular, as part of a Google Summer of Code project.

It should be noted however that while we suggest that potential GSoC students looks at these tasks they are in no way exclusive to GSoC. Anyone is very welcome to work on any task (or any aspect of it).

Besides the tasks collected here, there are of course also the TODO pages listing more things that need to be done (but with far less details).

Introduction

Some basic rules

Below follow some basic rules that anybody interested in one of these tasks should adhere to. Sometimes exceptions may be possible -- as always, common sense applies, and if in doubt, ask.

The projects below are sketches and ideas. Plus, things evolve over time, so the descriptions might be slightly outdated by the time you read them (although we strive to keep them up-to-date). Hence, you should talk with somebody from the team, probably the person(s) listed as Tech Contact, before starting work on any of them.

All code, unless stated differently, must be written in clean and portable C++, in particular, GCC must be able to compile it (portability exceptions can be made for platform specific code, of course). We also have some Code Formatting Conventions. Using the standard C++ lib for code used inside ScummVM is at this time not possible. Using it inside a non-essential tool should be fine, though.

All of the code submitted must be contributed under the terms of the GPL v2+.

We only accept clean and maintainable code. This is a somewhat vague requirement, but as a rule of thumb, if the code does what it is supposed to do, but is not extensible, a quick hack, or we need to rewrite it from scratch to properly integrate it, we will not accept it. In particular, we would rather have a maintainable, clean and incomplete piece of code that we could extend than a complete but unmaintainable piece of code.

Some good advice for Summer of Code Applications

The PostgreSQL folks have some real good Advice to Students on Submitting GSoC Applications. We recommend all students interested in applying with us (or any other GSoC project, for that matter) to read this.

Student application template

The following was adapted from the FreeBSD Proposal Guidelines.

• Name
• Email
• Project Title
• Possible Mentor (optional)
• Benefits to the ScummVM Community - A good project will not just be fun to work on, but also generally useful to others.
• Deliverables - It is very important to list quantifiable results here e.g.
  • "Improve X modules in ways Y and Z."
  • "Write 3 new man pages for the new interfaces."
  • "Improve test coverage by writing X more unit/regression tests."
  • "Improve performance in FOO by X%."
• Project Schedule - How long will the project take? When can you begin work?
• Availability - How many hours per week can you spend working on this? What other obligations do you have this summer?
• Skype ID - If you don't use Skype, install it.
• Phone Number - Celullar is preferable, for emergency contacts.
• Timezone - Where do you live.
• Bio - Who are you? What makes you the best person to work on this project?

Your task

Anything you can dream of

Technical Contact: Our IRC channel, our mailing list, or contact Eugene Sandulenko, Max Horn

The Task:

Come up with your personal clever way to improve ScummVM and its various side projects. Be creative. Incorporate the ideas listed below and in our TODO, but don't let yourself be limited by them. Come up with something totally new, or enhance existing features. It's up to you.

But of course like with all the other tasks, we recommend that you first talk to us (see above).

Current Open Tasks

Below is a table of all the currently open tasks that people may wish to consider working on and links for more information. These tasks can be considered in addition or in conjunction with anything on our TODO, any other task or your own 'Anything you can dream of' project.

The GSoC workload figure can be used to indicate the percentage of GSoC project time we consider this task will take an average competent programmer. These are just rough guides and should you feel you can undertake a task well in less time (or take longer but deliver a much better or more feature rich result) please feel free to mention this on your application and select your tasks accordingly.

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