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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.
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
No see they didn't take most of the applicants.. you would not have done any work. The rejection was even delayed by 9 hours!
.NET might have worked if they had mono in there but of course mono barely supports VB. Novell doesn't get that many people know VB.
Visual Basic
My project idea was for the FreeBSD project. My wife was also rejected with her ideas for the KDE Kate text editor.
What i'd like to know is how many people actually got paid. The projects got money up front but the individuals had to code all summer and if they completed their projects in a satisfactory member to the parent group THEN they got money.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
The "event" has lasted all Summer. Why not publish at least status of the projects? And I looked at the "mentoring organizations" page, which links only to the orgs' homepages, and their page of "ideas" projects which might have been candidates for the SoC. No readily available sign publications of the projects, which are now announced to be "concluded", which means the chance for the public to participate is over. Which would have been the point of an open project. Is Google trying to steal Netscape's irony crown of "unable to publish on the Web"?
Why are you so sure the projects can be found, that Google will make the announcement? I'm pretty patient, especially since Google's SoC hasn't cost me anything, and any results are a bonus. But when a big corporation announces a feel-good project like SoC, and gets so much benefit from attracting developers and generating goodwill, it's hard to feel anything but left out when the Summer comes and goes, and all we have to show for it is the feel-good announcements.
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make install -not war
To be followed by the "Bleak Winter of QA".
I jest, but in some respects, it seems like a couple months of student hacking could do harm as well as good. It's not exactly condusive to good development practices.
No. The reason Google uses Linux is simply because they always have. Even since before they called it "Google" it's run off of Linux servers because they couldn't afford anything else.
"Where is Google Desktop Search for Linux? Where is an official Google Talk client for Linux (yes, I know about Jabber, but it doesn't integrate with your gmail contact list)? Where is the Gmail notifier for Linux?"The reason we don't have any of these is because they're in touch with the OS community. Where's Google Desktop Search for Linux? I don't care, and from what I've seen and heard in the Linux community, no one else using Linux does either. We keep track of our files, and if we really need it, we've got Beagle and KFind. Same for these other programs. EVERY distro already comes with either Kopete or GAIM, both of which can handle AIM/ICQ, Jabber, MSN, and other chat protocols. And as for the GMail notifier. . . all it is, is an aggregator that retrieves an RSS feed from Google. If you really want your "GMail Notifier" you can set up Firefox, Konqueror, or Kontact - or any other program that can handle RSS feeds - for the same function. Since you'll likely be using these programs anyway, why would you want another program?
"Until that changes, I don't really think that you can consider Google anything more than an open source user, not a contributor."
You can't be serious. Even with the 400+ programmers they just brought into the open-source community, many of whom may have otherwise never even TOUCHED open-source software?
Google does plenty for the Linux community. It may not seem like much to you, but it really is - they open-source LOTS of code, and they're even using Qt (the basis for KDE) for Google Earth (even on the Windows verson! And I hear they're going to make Linux and Mac versions!) Not only are they spreading code, but they're spreading word about the beauties of open-source. That's a lot more than MS ever did - and back in the mid-90's, Hotmail ran completely off of open-source software (yes, they bought it off someone else, but still, it ran open-source software for a while when it was in MS's possession).
If you're trying to point out the fact that Google is using open-source to their advantage, so what? We'd be writing code with or without Google. I'm glad they support us, it's more than most people do. Plus, whether they profit or not from open-source, they ARE giving back to the OS community by open-sourcing their own code and, with "Summer of Code", bringing new people into the open-source programming community. And they're helping Mozilla out, too, by making GMail fully compatible with Firefox and Mozilla (instead of making it work only on IE, like many sites do) and hosting Firefox's start-up page.
Like I said, these may all seem like small things to you, but that's what the open-source community is like. Everyone contributes in their own way - whether it's contributing code, spreading the word about open-source, or contributing ideas - and, while each individual contribution may not be much, all of these contributions together work make a HUGE difference.
www.linuxpenguin.net
Yes, that makes them a user of open source, as the grandparent was saying. If they contributed changes back to TrollTech, they would be contributing.
back in the mid-90's, Hotmail ran completely off of open-source software (yes, they bought it off someone else, but still, it ran open-source software for a while when it was in MS's possession).
Which was a continuous embarrassment to them. They tried several times to switch to Windows before they finally got it right. They would have switched immediately if they were capable of doing so.
Like I said, these may all seem like small things to you, but that's what the open-source community is like. Everyone contributes in their own way - whether it's contributing code, spreading the word about open-source, or contributing ideas - and, while each individual contribution may not be much, all of these contributions together work make a HUGE difference.
We have higher standards for google because they're huge. What you're saying - many small contributions - works out well when you're talking about lone developers. A giant organization like google gets a lot of good out of open source. It's expected that they'll contribute a lot back. If they contributed nearly nothing, they would actually be hindering open source because other companies would follow their example.
Look, I agree with your conclusion - that google does a lot of great stuff for the open source community - but your arguments still suck.
SoC students got to work on what they wanted.
I was lucky in my summer placement in that they grossly underestimated my abilities and so I was able to finish the work they had set for me in the first week, and I then got to spend the next 9 weeks playing with any bit of the project I wanted. Other people I've talked to were less lucky, and ended up doing little more than data entry and uninspiring grunt-work coding.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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
For a college student 9.37/hr is a ton of money.
Even for underemployed former IT workers doing call center jobs for 10/hr (like where I work) is considered alot of money.
This isn't 1999 anymore folks. IT is viewed as a cost center and perhaps maintance rather than long term investments if your lucky.
Still it looks good on your resume and if I had more software programing experience I would be jumping over doing google's summer coding. $4500 is still money and my resume will look very very good and its a free advertisement to employers.
http://saveie6.com/
- 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