To Whom It May Concern: Hi, I'm a student studying at the University of Toronto, in Canada, and am writing to follow up with the Google Summer of Code (SoC) ideas posted on the OpenOffice.org wiki. I recently heard about the program for 2007, and was extremely excited to see the wiki feature a discussion on building a connection between Calc and R.
To provide a brief background, I am studying Applied Mathematics and International Development Studies, and am interested in applying math, statistics, and computational tools to the social sciences. As such, I've been doing a great deal of work with statistics and am very interested in trying to implement this connection between R and Calc. I've been using R for about two years now, and am very familiar with OpenOffice. I'm involved in other statistical programming projects (lead coder for www.egotistics.net, a social network analysis tool, though please note this is in beta). I also have experience with SAS and SPSS, and have taken a number of statistics courses (probability, intro to stats, linear regressions, quantitative research courses, etc.). As such, I would be happy to tackle the challenge of integrating Calc and R during this upcoming summer. With this in mind, I had a few questions about the potential project: 1. Is there anything that a potential applicant needs to discuss with you (or others at OpenOffice.org) about such a project? 2. Is the R / Calc connection a priority for OpenOffice? (Personally, I'd love to see such a connection, and I think many other people would find it useful as well.) 3. The wiki had very few details about what you seek in an applicant and actual application, so I was wondering if you could provide more information about the statistical or computer-based skills one is expected to have. If you have any questions as well, please do let me know. I look forward to discussing the potential project, and am very excited. Feel free to e-mail me here or call me at +1-416-897-1344. Thank you, Wojciech Gryc
