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GSoC 2013 Organization Application
David PS
sunpy
SunPy
SunPy is a new (just 2 years) open-source project which aims to provide a complete framework in Python for solar, heliospheric, and space weather data analysis. We envision it as an alternate choice to the ''de facto'' standard library SolarSoft (SSW) that is widely used within the solar community. SSW is based on the Interactive Data Language (IDL) programming environment, which is propriety software, with costly recurring licensing fees. Since SSW is built with IDL, it limits the access to solar data analysis to those people and institutions who can afford the license fees and makes it difficult for amateurs or institutions with limited resources to become involved. Python is the perfect alternative to build a solar data analysis framework, as it is freely available to everyone and is already being used as a scientific data analysis environment in other science fields (NumPy, SciPy, PyRAF, Astropy) with many already-written scientific libraries available. Additionally, it can be used interactively (Python command-line), which is very close to how users already work with SSW in IDL.
New and Simplified BSD licenses
New
Cadair
If you chose "veteran" in the dropdown above, please summarize your involvement and the successes and challenges of your participation. Please also list your pass/fail rate for each year.
N/A
No.
Why is your organization applying to participate in Google Summer of Code 2013? What do you hope to gain by participating?
Participating in Google Summer of Code would not only help us expand SunPy by incorporating new functionalities, but it will also promote our efforts in other communities beside solar physics community and thereby attract new contributors.
After two years of development, this is the first time that SunPy applies to participate in the Google Summer of Code. In this two years we have gathered more and more developers, but it has been the ESA summer of code in Space programme which have boost our development by funding 2 students to work in SunPy the last two summers. The first one was then contracted the last summer by Trinity College Dublin (Ireland) to add a functionality to SunPy to analyse data from a network of solar radio spectrometers (e-callisto) hosted in many places around the world. This has enabled to these institutes with low resources to don't depend of IDL.
By participating on Google Summer of Code we also hope to use it as an educational instrument to the wonders of solar physics and space weather, and attract more people to study of astrophysics.
sunpy on Freenode.net
What criteria did you use to select your mentors for this year's program? Please be as specific as possible.
Each idea proposed has two mentors linked with it. These mentors are experts in the given subject area and they are active developers in Sunpy. Though not all are experts 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 which will participate in the discussions to help us to implement the access to their services. All mentors are experienced users of solar data, with experience in data acquisition, analysis or both.
If there's an idea proposed by any student that has not been proposed before, then we will choose the best mentors for achieving that purpose considering their expertise and their availability (no mentor should have more than two students).
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 administrator of 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 him/her, then we will understand as s/he has 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 into the SunPy project.