[a bit off topic]
Hehe, nice
But in one way is quite cool, because as a consequence you produce something which some one( in this case, the open source community) can actually benefit from. Some times I feel academic projects are really just for grades. I'm not sure how it works for PhD theses, but do they all get published somewhere so people can read? (naive guestion, sorry :p)
My is still an undergrad project (final year :shock:), but I still have to write 15,000 words for a report, which is crazy (given I haven't start it). The problem is that most of the grade seems to come from the report, while the program we write doesn't even count that much (which is quite strange). Maybe I'll have to limit the project and spend more time in the report, and hopefully I'll continue its development after exams.
I'm considering doing master. Fbi, did you start your PhD straight after university?
[\a bit off topic]