Google's Summer of Code Over
yootje writes "The Summer of Code ('Google's program designed to introduce students to the world of open source software development.') is now over. The result: 410 participants helping 38 projects suchs as Apache, KDE and FreeBSD. 'Among the project awards are both complex and simple innovations spanning the width and breadth of everything that the open source world has to offer. There are projects dealing with security, networking, VoIP, Java, mono, IP-PBX, online picture galleries, instant messaging and content management. There is even a game that Google's summer internship helped to pay for.'" Update: 09/11 17:15 GMT by Z : Added the story link at submittor's request.
This is awesome! There is nothing like the highest worth technology company paying students to work their ass off in the summer to make and improve products and open source software in the name of Google.
Cover your eyes and click this link!
You mean the Summer of Code doesn't last forever?! It went by so fast...
I wish I could have went, maybe they'll hold it this summer before I take the Visual Basic and A+ certification classes.
When I saw the subject I was really expecting to see some analysis, some statistics, at least a list of projects. Well ... where are all these things? The only reference in the article is to the official Summer of Code page, and that has been unchanged for weeks. So I have ask: where is the story?
If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough. (Alan Kay)
They rejected my application to write a search engine driven by sites linking in. It could've been huge!
I see some fun and very usefull stuff that came out of it. Too bad my favourite project from GAIM camp didn't turn out much... Crazy Chat is a lovely idea IMHO...enhancing communication via IM to include emotional messages presented usually by webcam, but without the bandwith (and difficulties of transmitting video) overhead. (Matrox tried somthing similar with their Headcasting, but it was useless IMO - it merely guessed how the animated face on the other end should look like based on voice, but this didn't add any additional information to communication, like Crazy Chat would, by "scanning", transmitting and displaying on animated, cartoony head, real emotional responces) I wonder if someone else would pick up the idea...
One that hath name thou can not otter
How "open" is the "Summer of Code" when there are no links to the projects? I've been looking for these projects, from which Google is getting the best PR since their IPO, since they started. Where are they? If source is released in a forest, and there's no one to read it, is it really open?
--
make install -not war
The "pencils down" for Google's Summer of Code was September 1st.
...if they came up with anything that runs on Linux, unlike Google's other software offerings...
Yay me! ^^
Maybe im just paranoid, but whats that saying about absolute power... Now Google may not be the ultimate power yet, but they have some fair sway and this abundant generosity could all be farce to lock us in to their future. GoogleOS and such.
http://www.awfullybigmoustache.com
If I'm not mistaken, all major BSD's (Free, Open, and Net) support a feature called 'soft updates'. Basically, re-ordering filesystem updates in such a way, that the filesystem remains in a consistent state, even in the event of a badly-timed crash or powerout. All this to avoid the need for a full fsck on reboot.
Quote from the FreeBSD features page: "Soft Updates allows improved filesystem performance without sacrificing safety and reliability. It analyzes meta-data filesystem operations to avoid having to perform all of those operations synchronously. Instead, it maintains internal state about pending meta-data operations and uses this information to cache meta-data, rewrite meta-data operations to combine subsequent operations on the same files, and reorder meta-data operations so that they may be processed more efficiently. Features such as background filesystem checking and file system snapshots are built on the consistency and performance foundations of soft updates."
From the NetBSD site: "Soft Updates permit metadata writes to be ordered to achieve close to asynchronous disk performance without risk of metadata corruption. This significantly improves the performance of FFS file systems."
You might still do a full fsck later (as regular maintenance), perhaps even as background task, but it wouldn't be needed for a reliable restart.
Journaling is another way to do this, by adding an extra 'log' of the latest updates to a filesystem. Then in the event of a crash, you don't need to check the entire filesystem, but can bring it back into a consistent state by 'replaying' those latest updates from the journal.
Now here's what I don't understand: why add journalling to a filesystem, when you're already updating it in a 'crash-proof' manner (soft updates)? What's the point? Seems rather like a step back to me, with soft updates looking like a smarter way to archieve crash-proof filesystem handling.
I assume that this soft updates feature is limited to certain OS/filesystem combo's. And maybe journaling provides some thing(s) that soft updates doesn't? Can some knowledgable BSD user shed some light on all this?
-- This sig just wasted another 0.x seconds of your precious time. Supporting banning sigs!Tsync is a Summer of Code project. Looks cool...
Here is what you are missing. Soft updates is a method of ensuring that disk metadata is recoverably consistent without the normal speed penalty imposed by synchronous mounting. At heart it is a fancy specalized cache. The only guarantee that softupdates makes is that your file system can be recovered to a consistent state by running fsck. Soft updates is designed to aid the running of fsck, but does not eliminate the need.
- Hubert
Too be really good would require 100 of thousands or millions of computers networked together. If you had the money to do that, then you would not require a simple stipend from Google.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Apache Perchild MPM: Coder selected, can't find any code
Apache mod-bandwidth-limit: 2 people have shown an interest, can't find any code
Firefox bittorrent: Alpha 0.0.2
Several gaim projects: One project has commited *something* to HEAD
Several gnome projects: Can't find any news
Several SVN projects: Can't find any news
So has anything really changed?
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
Google is not evil, NOW. You have larry, serge, and eric in charge. BUT, if they ever start losing (economy goes down, something better comes along, etc) or eric quits, then stockholders will call for a new CEO. At that point, you could find somebody like elison, gates, McNealy, etc. who would turn it evil.
Google is a weird problem for me. Back in the 80's, I was busy pushing a small start-up. I was certain that anything was better than IBM who was EVIL. Of course, I was pushing MS. IOW, I helped replace one evil with something as bad or worse.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
My favorite so far ...
http://shed-skin.blogspot.com/
Uses type inferencing to create pure C++ code and make files that compiled to a tiny stand alone executable with no Python dependencies at all and reportedly runs upto 10 times faster than running on VM.
Not a magic solution yet but has a lot of potential.
Here are SOC projects done for Blender,
m merOfCode2005
http://wiki.blender.org/bin/view.pl/Blenderdev/Su
We had some really awesome projects happen (fluid simulation, high quality boolean tools, improved nurbs, 'Verse network integration, animation constraints improvements, and a drawing tool, alas two projects - ODE integration, and a live tutorial didn't happen).
LetterRip
For those who are curious, the Perl Foundation had 8 Summer of Code projects funded. They were a blast to work with.
SOC was really great, but i found quite sad to see that some guys' project (mentored but some *BSD) was to just to rewrite some already existing GPL licensed tool as BSD. I don't want (and i don't like) any GPL vs BSD flamewars, but i simply prefer original projects (and luckily there was a lot of them).
Wondering why i am doing so strange posts? I am trying to get a "+5,Flamebait" or "-1,Insightful" rating.
I was a reject. So while I was going to code through the summer anyway I decided to go on vacation to protest. WTF? Didn't like my project? Well, I *don't* have to do it then. Eventually I went free camping (many nudists, drinking and smoking joints) and got a new girlfriend. Ahh. Now its September. Well, back to work fellas!
http://google-blog.dirson.com/post.new/0279/
What I remember from fbsd and softupdates is that the fsck can be performed in background, so you can get the system boot as if no fsck was needed, and run the task as IO allows.
She was part of the debate club back in highschool and was more of a political science nerd than a computer one.
I am curious how the qualitive search works vs a quantitive? My guess is the difference deals with some heavy duty mathmatics.
I assume all a database does is link tables and arrays of data together based on sort and index routines. How would the qualitiave work for a site such as okcupid.com?
http://saveie6.com/
Yeah, for a $2 million dollar project it was ridiculously understaffed on the Google side. But Googlers like Chris DiBona and Greg Stein worked extraordinarily hard to keep things flowing relatively smoothly. So it still turned out to be a huge success for Nmap and most/all of the other participating projects. Thanks, Chris and Greg!
So what did we (Nmap project) accomplish in those two months? The sponsored students and their credentials/projects are listed here. Much of their work can be found in Nmap 3.90, which was released on Thursday. SoC changes include:
It has been a crazy two months, but I'm very pleased to see so much accomplished! If you're using an older version of Nmap, you really should consider upgrading to 3.90 to see the difference.
Cheers,
Fyodor
Its only just turned spring here!
"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." - HL Mencken
Yeah, I applied following all application form rules and then two weeks later I recieved a notice saying "thanks for applying, but you have not been selected" with no other unique content and that's all I got all summer. That 'summer' lasted around 4 weeks total for most (oh, 7590+ out of 8000+ applications -- not sure people-wise). Short indeed, yes I understand there were 8000+ apps but the short response back from Google in 1 email could have at least said something as to why, they obviously thought about it...wouldn't it have been a simple cut-and-paste? Obviously this isn't going to be easy for students who have at least 1 school semester in the summer as part of their program, assuming this happens again next summer.
You think that's bad. Try applying for a job at Google. You get the same email.
splat! >p, one one
What is the game they worked on? File searching, while being attacked by ravaging zombies that you have to search for their weakness by probing them with a google scanner. Then you attack them by searching for a weapon with your google auto-materializer that will materialize any weapon you can find in the google search database... how cool?!?
"What happend to just paying for a product without being constantly nibbled to death by Credit Card Ducks?"
You think that's bad. Try applying for a job at Google. You get the same email.
... couldn't get much more generic indeed. At least the Google Summer of Code email said my name back!
Come to think of it, I remember applying for one of the of their moderator positions and the email I got consisted of this:
We received your resume and would like to thank you for your interest in Google. After carefully reviewing your experience and qualifications, we have determined that we do not have a position available which is a strong match at this time.
Thanks again for considering Google. We wish you well in your endeavors and hope you might consider us again in the future.
Sincerely,
Google Staffing
Funny, it didn't address names or anything
- That's $4500 before taxes. Where I live at least jobs and services are usually negotiated with after-taxes sums, so I was disappointed that I had to give up 30% of the sum.
- I'm not the only one that hasn't received even the so-called "initial" payment ($500 - 30%) even after it's been more than a week since the project ended
- Not a single deadline Google set for themselves was honoured. Not for announcements, forms, nor payment.
Organization of the SoC project from the Google's side was just horrible - they obviously didn't know what they are getting into. Some students didn't know details about how and when they will be paid until the end. Students were left to deal with taxation issuses without help from Google (and have did extraordinarily well - on occasions even proving what little advice Google gave was wrong).
All this is inexcusable for such a large corporation, and one that actually has lots of experience with international issues. The have a lot to improve.
-- Sig down
Is that a tribute to the Mighty Mightor, Zonk?
Com'mon man, your job is to be able to spell words like submitter. It ain't that hard.
And goodbye karma, but it's the truth!
I can understand being pissed off if you needed the $500 to cover incidentials, but other than that, I think Chris and crew did a good job given their circumstances. It's not easy to organize something like this (the ITIN stuff alone must've caused at least a couple of ulcers), and it's their first time doing it. Not to mention the fact that they have regular jobs to attend to as well.
IMHO, a lot of the SoC participants came off as overly demanding and self-righteous, kinda like you. The mailing lists were full of complete drivel (to the point where I just unsubscribed and just used dejanews to find the occasional bit of info). If I had to read those to pick out the 0.1% of info that actually consisted of pertinent questions, well, that'd make me reconsider my line of work...
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Hmm. Let's see. 9000 applications, and average of 3 pages apiece, that's almost 30,000 pages of proposals to go through. So that's what they did most of June, read those proposals. Now, sending out personalied replies? Assuming it takes 2 minutes to write a reply (with some actual content referring to "why"), that's 18,000 man-minutes, and assuming 5 people working full time on the program (about how many they had), that's 60 hours of non-stop work per person. That'd be a full tech-workweek, doing nothing but sending out personalized replies!
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Here is the SoC page for WinLibre projects. Nine of them have succeeded. It has been a wonderful experience !
- Philosophy doesn't pay the bills
- In any serious business, continually neglecting deadlines is extremely bad.
-- Sig down
If it were any other company but Googe would we hear about this. /. continues to slide in relevance!
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
In my day, interns didn't get paid. If you got paid, it was called "a job."
My Heart Is A Flower
I worked my way through college as a motel night auditor (so I could do homework on the job). $4,500 was a lot more than I'd earn during summer break, and I'd actually enjoy the work I was doing. While I can see your point, understand that the Summer Of Code would be a huge step up for many would-be contributors.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
- What philosophy? Again, I agree that if you needed the startup money as, well, startup money, that would be a problem, but other than that, I don't see the problem here.
- For Google, the SoC isn't a serious business, its a tangential project. In any case, we didn't pay Google for services, it was the other way around. Since they are the ones cutting the checks, they can miss whatever deadlines they want. I'm not being facetious about this. In the real world, missed deadlines happen all the time, especially on the customer's end. In previous summers, I worked with a company bidding on a DARPA project, and they once missed a major deadline by a month and a half. And you know what? That was okay, because they were the ones writing the checks!
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Hmm, that last statement was perhaps a bit unclear. The company didn't miss the deadline (that would have lost us the project). DARPA missed their own deadlines.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I went somewhere intense for CS, but what I am hearing from current students is that $15/hr is low for summer interning. The kids are getting $20-25/hr to TA CS classes or as summer interns if they are focused on the $$$. However almost all of them will take a big pay cut to work on something interesting, or to get an in on a company they really want to work for.
Hmm, fast track for Google job after college or $5k more this summer? What would you choose?
yes I understand there were 8000+ apps but the short response back from Google in 1 email could have at least said something as to why.
You said: Hmm. Let's see. 9000 applications, and average of 3 pages apiece, that's almost 30,000 pages of proposals to go through. So that's what they did most of June, read those proposals...
Obviously some people don't read the comments to which they reply that well. I don't see anything requesting a 'personalized reply' but more that some mention as to why, which Google obviously had thought of if they are going to reject people. You could have started there but you didn't because that would destroy your argument before you even got anywhere with it.
First, by including a "why", it is automatically a "personalized e-mail"! In any case, Google, by and large, didn't know why people were rejected, only why people were accepted. They had the mentoring organizations rank proposals before they ever looked at them. They mostly just took the top N proposals from each organization, did a final review, and sent out acceptance and rejection letters. Whether individual mentoring organizations gave applicants more feedback was their business (I know some did).
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I've read many articals about Summer of Code. Yet, I've seen no web page listing all the accepted projects (not proposed). Now that its over, shouldn't there be a link list of finished work so we can go and see what these kids did?
I, for one, can attest that mod-mbox generated a great deal of traffic on the httpd-mod developers list.