Would like to get some feedback on GSOC idea

[Juan Lang]

Hi Marek,

On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 9:13 AM, M C <kcmark at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> My name is Marek Chmiel, I am a student a NEIU. I am studying computer
> science and network security related topics. This semester I had spent
> a fair amount of time writing crypt related functions with java, and
> became very interested in Cryptography. After looking over the
> suggested ideas on SOC official wine wiki I was pleasantly surprised
> to see that there was already a crypt related idea suggested. I have a
> great understanding of c++ and java, and though I know c I have not
> worked with it as much as the other languages.
>
> Implementing a DSS provider sounds like an awesome task to tackle, if
> someone has never written code for Linux, can they take on such a
> task? Are there any significant issues implementing a DSS that you
> guys know about? Any crypt GSOC ideas would you suggest for someone
> who has wrote limited amount of code for Linux?

If you know C, you ought to be able to code in Linux.  I don't see
that being a significant hurdle.

I don't know of any significant issues implementing a DSS provider.
The usual gotchas with coding for Wine apply here:  tests, tests,
tests.  Solid test cases are a prerequisite to adding new code to
Wine, and if a SoC project produces nothing but a solid test suite,
it's still a win.  I expect this is a pretty straightforward project
for someone motivated, so I'm happy to see someone interested in
picking it up.

> What I would also like to do, besides implementing a DSS provider, is
> to fix most if not all of the crypt related bugs that remain in Wine.
> This might seem like more than most people can chew, but viewing the
> Bug Tracking database it appears that there aren't that many crypt
> related bugs and might even be caused by a lack of a DSS provider
> (Hopefully this wouldn't create a entire new series of bugs).

There aren't that many bugs, it's true.  I don't think many of them
relate specifically to DSS, and some may be quite challenging to fix.
But the more you can fix, the better :)

As you dig more into the project, I'm sure you'll have more specific
questions.  By all means ask once you get there.

(Also, I'll try to be a mentor, should your project be accepted.  I
may be on vacation part of the summer, hopefully not enough to impact
your work too much.)
--Juan