These projects are designed to get you working on real open source software, and to do it within the open source community. You are expected to interface with the Mozilla community. Success in this project means becoming an active contributor to the community, and to following the principles of open source development.
You are highly encouraged to work alone, but in special cases a group of 2 will be accepted. You must speak to your professor if you wish to work in a group, and must have a larger project and a valid reason.
Pick a project from the list of Potential Projects (soon available) , and once chosen, create an entry on the Project List and create your project page using this model.
You should also make yourself aware of other projects for which you can become a contributor. Remember that a significant portion of your final grade is based on contributions you will make to other projects.
It is assumed that all students will begin without knowing how to start their project, what the scope is, what is expected, etc. These questions must be answered quickly, and it is your responsibility to find answers. You must not wait for someone to tell you what to do. Rather, become a driver of the process, and talk to people, do research on-line, and so forth.
To do so, you are strongly encouraged to create a blog for the project and to write about your experiences in your blog.
If a student has already “claimed” a project which you would like to work on, there are several options open to you:
Final approval of project selection is at the discretion of your professor. In the event of a conflict, significant preference will be given on a first-come-first-served basis.
Following the standard for open source development, you are asked to do three milestone releases of your software
You will work with your professor, your CoMETE Mozilla instructors, the Mozilla community, the responsable of the project , and your fellow classmates to determine what each milestone should include. Notice that you are not expected to create a 1.0 release. It is assumed that your final product will be incomplete in many respects; however, software at 0.3 must be usable. Again, each project will be different in terms of what is expected, so speak with your professors.
You will be expected to use open development practices, which means public releases, public documentation, public access to source code. You must keep your project wiki page updated, with new entries at least weekly. The project wiki page will contain technical and logistic information. Use your blog to record more personal reflections, observations, etc.
Each release must be made available on your wiki page, with full source code, so others can download and test it.
You are expected to contribute to other projects, and to allow others to contribute to yours. This means two things:
Important: Keep track of your contributions to other projects on your personal wiki page. Also, give credit to people who have helped your project by indicating their contribution in your project's wiki page.