GSoC 2011 Project

[Christian Stimming]

Dear Bernd,

thank you for your interest in working with gnucash in the GSoC 2011 program.

As for a GSoC project about a gnucash client on Android: There has  
been some discussion on this list before,
https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-devel/2010-December/030304.html  
and thread, and
https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-devel/2011-February/031114.html  
and thread. Please read those before proceeding.

If you want to write a GSoC application, you will have to add some  
more technical detail to your application. E.g., what exactly will be  
your goal? ("gnucash on android" will not work, because it isn't  
feasible anyway as discussed in those other messages.) Also, what  
experience do you have with programming on Android? If you don't have  
any, try to experiment a bit with the android SDK tutorials so that  
you have at least some experience when writing up your application.

Zitat von Bernd Bergler <bernd.bergler at gmail.com>:
> I am an master student in Telmatics(combination of computer science
> and electrical engineering).

http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/GSoC2011#Student_Participants_Application
What country are you in?

> In my mind are several different possible solutions to approach this problem.

Yes.

> 1. Sync GnuCash and App database so both have the same data.

Infeasible within the scope of the GSoC project.

> 2. Sync a limited but useful subset of accounts between GnuCash and phone.

Maybe feasible, but the definition of a good data exchange protocol is  
critical here.

> 3. Just collect expenses and push them to GnuCash.

Very much feasible. You can define your own data format that will be  
imported into gnucash, but the importing part is probably rather  
straightforward to do, especially with the new python modules  
available inside gnucash.

> How is the connection between gnucash and the app realized?
>  WiFi, 3G, Bluetooth, USB

Sorry, this answer is rather bad. Make sure you understand whether you  
are talking about the application protocol level, or the physical  
layer, and which ones need to be considered by you and which ones don't.

> What do you think of this project?
>
> Is anyone here who could be a Mentor for this project?

Yes, I could be a mentor. But your application needs to be improved  
before you have a realistic chance of being accepted by the Google  
staff that makes the final decision anyway.

> PS: I have successfully downloaded and compiled gnucash from source. ;)

"Downloaded"? Before talking about development, you must be able to  
checkout from SVN.

Best Regards,

Christian