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.

Comments

awesome!

[xintegerx]

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.

Re:awesome!

[Vann_v2]

He's right. There were two big problems for me with Google's summer of code. The first was that they announced it well after most major summer internship deadlines. Even if I had wanted to do it I was already committed to doing an REU. The second was the pay. $4500 for the entire summer? Give me a break. Most REUs pay better than that per-hour and include room and board.

Personally, I did an REU for the first 8 weeks of summer, which paid two thirds the amount Google was paying. The remainder of the summer I work full time and by the end I'll have made significantly more than Google's $4500, plus I'll have learned a lot of research-level mathematics. Most of the Summer of Code projects seemed to be plain BORING. Never mind that $4500 for someone in rural Iowa will go a lot farther than $4500 for someone living in San Francisco -- cost of living doesn't figure into Summer of Code anywhere, while it does for typical summer research or internship opportunities.

I'm glad Google did this because it will help out a lot of projects, but the only way Summer of Code is compelling to a college student is if they've already exhausted other avenues.

Where is the story?

[hritcu]

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?

Re:Where is the story?

[jgaynor]

Amen. I've had a problem with this since they announced it - such a great idea but no content on their site re: the actual work. They should have paid someone $4500 to maintain their summer of code page!

Re:Where is the story?

[hritcu]

The article is interesting, and I really have to agree with the ending phrase:

"Quite frankly, I don't know how Google will use the projects' results," Macieira said. "I hope they use it to promote free/open software and show that there is a healthy relation between the corporate world and the free software developers."

I know that there will be enough of you trying to find a hidden (evil) reason for Google's action, but it is simply not the case. Google has very many benefits from open source, and now that they have the power to help back, they are actually doing it. Thank you Google.

Re:Nmap Project Results

[jgaynor]

Two points here -

1. Holy shit. wow. The above list just goes to show how much work can be involved in maintaing a tool which im sure many administrators take for granted and assume is more or less static.

2. This is exactly the kind of summary each project needs. A list of developers and features (or at least a link to the relevant changelogs) and the version number (or future version number) we can see those changes in.