Systers: Women in Computing

Web Page: http://systers.org/systers-dev/doku.php/systers_google_summer_of_code

Mailing List: systers-dev@systers.org http://systers.org/mailman/listinfo/systers-dev

We are a community of 2800 women in computing -- perhaps the oldest such around. We were started by Anita Borg in 1987. We primarily exist to support women and girls involved in or interested in computing careers, but we've developed technology to support some of our activities, and we need help to support and extend those tools. These tools will be contributed back into the main stream of mailman, so in a sense this project is part of mailman.

Projects

• DATABASE ABSTRACTIONS Systers have customized Mailman2(which uses python pickle files)to make use of PostgreySQL database.The project idea aims at making the code:Independent of the database with help of an ORM(STORM) thereby increasing its maintainability and efficiency.Mapping existing schemas of the Systers database to an object oriented paradigm and determination and incorporation of necessary modifications needs to be done so that it fits cleanly and nicely in yet to be released Mailman3's architecture.
• Fixing and implementing wishlists items for existing features My work would be fixing bugs and implementing wishlists items for existing features, such as "List Archives constantly prompting for login" or "admin unsubscribe caused a crash" (for more ideas see https://bugs.launchpad.net/systers/+bugs?search=Search&field.status=New&field.status=Incomplete&field.status=Confirmed&field.status=Triaged&field.status=In+Progress&field.status=Fix+Committed).
• Using Mailman Authentication to Access other Applications I propose to build a tool that would make user single authentication with Systers valid for accessing resources like CMS, wiki also. Evaluate the relevance of existing standards for decentralized user authentication and access control eg. OpenID and openLDAP in context to the implementation of Systers services and decide the more suited standard that would be scalable and robust. Extend the standard support to Systers, providing modularity and flexibilty in terms of applications supported.