Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Google Launches Summer of Code

Posted by Zonk on from the better-than-the-summer-of-love dept.

chrisd writes "We're very happy to launch the Summer of Code today, and I thought Slashdot readers would be interested and might even help us spread the word (We have a flyer, even). The program is designed to give computer science, and other, students a stipend ($4500) while they learn to release and create open source software. We're working with a variety of Open Source software foundations and organizations and we hope to sign up around 200 developers. We hope the end result will be more open source developers! I'll be pleased to answer questions in the comment stream about this program. Thanks!"

13 of 376 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Why just students? by chrisd · · Score: 4, Informative
    From the faq:

    Who is eligible?

    Students. Since the point of the program is to create new developers, we're looking to find developers around the world who have considered creating free and open source software but who have not yet taken the plunge. We felt that concentrating on the student population was a good place to focus these efforts.

    Not from the faq:

    Basically, You gotta start somewhere.

    Chris

    --
    Co-Editor, Open Sources
    Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
  2. Re:which is it? by chrisd · · Score: 4, Informative
    Crud. Thanks. It's the 14th. Updating the site now.

    Chris

    --
    Co-Editor, Open Sources
    Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
  3. Re:Direction by chrisd · · Score: 5, Informative
    We welcome those groups, but we had a limited amount of time to corral everyone. They can still join in. This is why we posted the mentorship faq on the site.

    Man, the 2 minute posting restriction is killing me today.

    Chris

    --
    Co-Editor, Open Sources
    Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
  4. Re:Country Eligibility by gstein · · Score: 3, Informative

    Any student from any country.

    (except for those countries the US State Department forbids us from working with... the "terrorist" countries)

    So yeah... Canadians are welcome! :-)

  5. Re:Spectacular by gstein · · Score: 2, Informative
    From the FAQ:
    Can I receive half the money half way through?

    There are some situations where we will be open to this, and only for full time students.

  6. That's why they ask students! by DogDude · · Score: 2, Informative

    Duh! You just summarized why they hit up students for free code: They're cheap! $4500 to a college kid going to a state school that his parents paid for is a *mint*. That's heavy drugs for a semester, or tuition if they have to pay their own way. That's the whole point. That's why companies fire experienced workers and hire young students: they're cheap and naive. $4500 wouldn't get me to even comment an open source program, never mind develop one.

    --
    I don't respond to AC's.
  7. Please read the mentorship faq... by chrisd · · Score: 3, Informative
    We didn't choose actually, we had to round up the groups who wanted to do this. The ones you see were the most interested. We didn't turn any groups away that offered up what we needed to make the program successful. Don't read anything into that list.

    I'd love to add the KDE league.

    Chris

    --
    Co-Editor, Open Sources
    Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
  8. Re:Great, but what about existing OSS developers? by gstein · · Score: 2, Informative

    Google supports a number of Open Source organizations. We've listed those on the code.google.com site. We hope to expand that list over time. It is a lot easier for us to support (on a continuing basis) a dozen organizations than hundreds of OSS programmers.

    The Summer of Code is about getting new developers interested in Open Source development. We're willing to risk that some students might not be long-term contributors, but there will be some that do!

  9. Re:$4500? by Ride+Jib · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you read further into the details, the compensation is not determined on _completion_ of the project, but if your mentoring organization thinks you have contributed enough work to merit the reward.

  10. As a matter of fact, he's an EX... by LePrince · · Score: 2, Informative

    ChrisD used to be a editor for Slashdot before he left for Google.

  11. Re:Some questions by chrisd · · Score: 4, Informative
    Yes on both.

    Chris

    --
    Co-Editor, Open Sources
    Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
  12. Amazing. But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    If Google really wanted to attract the most talented students, they needed to advertise this MUCH earlier. College has been out for a month in parts of the country, and over two weeks for others. The prime time college students agree to internships is FEBURARY through APRIL, and students have already committed their time to those internships. While people can do Summer of Code on the side, certainly, a lot of people may be bound by, say, "no moonlighting" or "non-compete" contracts now that might forbid them from joining the project of their choice. (Additionally, provisions could have been worked into the contract to allow for the summer of code, had they thought to do so before signing the contract.)

    I am a student, and I start work at Microsoft as an intern tomorrow. (Oh, quit your booing - they have a good internship program for learning CS.) While Summer of Code sounds wonderful for me, I feat the contract I've already signed with the Borg will prevent me from participating - had I known this was available, I may have just planned to work on this and a research project back on campus, or at least argued to make the MS contract more permissive of this type of work (assuming it was unrelated to my project).

    I mean, not to take anything away from this. But for this to reach its true potential, Summer 2006 should be sent to computer science departments in February 2006, not June 2006.

  13. Wine Resources by vinn · · Score: 2, Informative

    The Wine project has put together a list of resources to help someone thinking about this figure out a project. You might find the following helpful:

    --
    ----- obSig