Torsten Curdt’s weblog

So that was the Google Summer of Code. Well, somehow it was quite a bit of a “rainy” summer for me. I was so excited! Yeah! I even got two students! Both projects I was hoping for got accepted. BCEL was supposed to get the JDK 1.5 and 1.6 support. Commmons jci was supposed to get more compilers and the maven integration I was hoping for. Two students? Isn’t that too much work? Maybe? But they are even friends and can help each other out …and whatever it takes – I will put in some extra hours …because I like the idea, because I am eager to get these contributions and even more important – new contributors.

So the past few months I was trying to get these two students to understand the open source way. Trying to introduce them to the communities. Trying to give them the experience that it is not just about code. Unfortunately nothing of that really happened. We had a good start. The first week was great …but after that: unanswered emails, going offline on IM when I go online, just ignoring requests for status reports. Some code and a total of less than 3 mails to the mailing lists. God knows I tried! The BCEL student did made good progress (BCEL with 1.5 support should be pretty much there) but in the end -looking at other projects- this was just not enough effort and commitment to let either of them pass. The sad thing is: I fear I was more disappointed and frustrated about this than they were.

I still believe in the program …but I’ve learned my lesson. Next summer I will only vote for exceptional proposals. People that show that they really know what they are applying for. People that have showed up first on the mailing lists. “That sounds interesting, I think I can do it” is just not good enough. Glad many of the other projects had more successful students.

Today I’ve started my new job …at this new company …that does this new thing …that I still cannot talk about. Except that it is really cool …and a lot of smart people are working on it. And because it’s so cool I would love to blog/talk about it …but I still can’t.

Boy, will I be glad once we got public with this :)

The flight was long – one might say “as usual”. The more you fly the more it becomes normal …and the earth becomes a smaller place. The past year I have been flying this distance (Frankfurt – Melbourne) 6 times!! …plus the flights to San Diego and Costa Rica. You can image I’ve collected a few miles on my back. Being back in Europe it feels like everything is around the corner …and it feels good. Not that I didn’t like Australia – it was great …but things are ticking slightly differently over here …slightly more my way. But I am still looking forward to go back some day and visit the friends I made down there. Still so much to explore.

So yesterday I’ve moved out of my apartment. It was also my last day at ManageSoft and my last night in Melbourne nightlife (for now). With a few people we went out for some great food and fabulous wine at the “MOO Bar”. We went for some more drinks in Fitzroy (my favorite suburb) and then I crashed at Marcus’s place. Some breaky in the sun, a slow day and in a few minutes time he will be driving me to the airport. It has been a good time down here. It’s sad I have to leave some people behind. But I am also looking forward to what’s coming next …and I am sure we stay in contact. It’s not going to be last time that I am down here.

Is this world getting crazy? People are turning the idea of copyrights and patents into absurdity. A patent for for the concept of a plugin in a browser? For a shopping cart? Hunting down sites that provide song lyrics that anyone could easily write down? Pressuring independent countries to act beyond their legal abilities. And now they are after people that provide their tabbed interpretation of songs on the internet. This is becoming ridiculous. This is becoming a witch hunt cutting down our rights and our freedom. Just because -in particular the music industry- was too stupid and missed out on the development of a new media channel.