Google Summer of Code 2014 Ideas
================================

Welcome, potential Google Summer of Code students!  This projects is
currently called "The NPO Accounting Project", for lack of a better name.

The project is coordinated by
[Software Freedom Conservancy, Inc.](https://sfconservancy.org/) which is a
501(c)(3) charitable not-for-profit organization in the USA.  We run all our
operations solely and completely on Free Software.

One area that we've had great difficulty is regarding non-profit accounting
software.  We've launch this project to improve the state of accounting
Open Source and Free Software for non-profits.

## Possible GSoC 2014 Projects

1. Add all necessary the tag types found
   [the tutorial on the Ledger-CLI setup for fiscal sponsor 501(c)3 organizations](https://gitorious.org/ledger/npo-ledger-cli/)
   into the
   [REST API for basic double-entry accounting](http://npoacct.sfconservancy.org/accounting-api/).
 
   This will require the student to get familiar (or already be familiar)
   with how Ledger-CLI works, how REST APIs work, and learn some basics of
   double entry accounting.

    A successful student should be able to complete that work about
    three-quarters the way through the summer, and then be able to focus on
    actually writing a few specialized NPO-style report using the API.  A
    great acid test will be to use the API to implement the
    [IRS required charity public support test](http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Exempt-Organizations-Annual-Reporting-Requirements-Form-990,-Schedules-A-and-B:-Public-Charity-Support-Test).

2. Build a better test suite for [Ledger-CLI](http://www.ledger-cli.org/).

   Since this project relies so heavily on Ledger-CLI, we'd really like there
   to be a full test coverage for Ledger-CLI.  To do that, a student will
   need to be already somewhat familiar C++ and willing to learn about how to
   set up test suites for C++ programs, and likes writing tests.  The student
   could easily spend the whole summer just writing tests and not finish.

3. Build a better Python interface to Ledger-CLI for use by our API.

   Right now, Ledger-CLI has a rather incomplete Python interface, based on
   [Boost.Python](http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_55_0/libs/python/doc/).
   However, the right approach is probably to use
   [SWIG](http://www.swig.org/) or some other similar mechanism to build a
   proper Python API.  Perhaps Ledger-CLI could stick with Boost.Python, but
   what's there clearly needs an overhaul.  The upside of using SWIG will be
   that we can get APIs for other languages too.