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Summer of Code Now Taking Student Applications
chrisd writes "Just wanted to let you know that we've opened up the student application process for the Summer of Code. We've signed up ~100 mentoring organizations this year, including Apache, Postgres, Xiph, The Shmoo Group, Drupal, Gallery and many others. We're accepting applications through May 8th this year."
The Freenet project is also looking for students, please take a look here for more information. Our new Freenet Client Protocol spec makes it very easy to build applications on top of the new Freenet 0.7 "darknet" architecture.
Because I'm sure you might have to sign a contract of some sort.
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
Maybe practice for a year, topcoder is a good place to start.
This reminds me of an article on /. the other day about young people losing interesting in coding. The fact that they can have this program and it's successful tells me that they are in fact *not* losing interest in coding.
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
A minor can still sign a contract so long as a parent or legal guardian also signs.
Remember, open source is free as in speech, not free as in bear.
Wikipedia *always* needs more coders - the 3-5 that we have just are not enough. Here's the relavant page
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
It was a nice surprise to see FFmpeg in there, these guys, while largely unknown, deserve some _serious_ credits for their work. If you don't know, FFmpeg develop the libav libraries (libavcodec and libavformat) that demux, mux, decode and encode pretty much every video and audio format in existence.
If you use mplayer, you rely on these libs. If you use xine, you rely on their work. If you use VLC - same. Heck, even if you use Media Player Classic + ffdshow on Windowz you use their libs.
Thumbs up!
(No, I have nothing to do with them. I do use their libs in my project though, and they are nice).
http://haiku-os.org/learn.php?mode=news_view&id=40 6&haikuusersession=c036c3e0b54b7e66a167d1654b692eb 2/
It's sad that they didn't even bother to reveal the reason why they refused.
Yeah, that's what I plan on, but it still doesn't help paying for university *this* year.
Remember, open source is free as in speech, not free as in bear.
Internet2 needs you as a coder this summer. </shameless plug>
-- Stanislav Shalunov
Right, but I'm guessing that they just say 18 and over to circumvent any type of headache this may provide. I'm not saying that it's a huge problem or a problem at all, but I'd guess they would rather just have Student Joe Shmoe sign without have to get his gurardians to come too. It's just plainly easier, I would think.
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
Well, considering that this is open to people around the world, I don't think people will be physically signing papers unless they are mailed out. If it's online, there's no problem except an extra field and a check to see if the applicant is under 18 and therefore need the field. If it's mailed, there's no inconvenience in signing at all as the parent would theoretically be right there or easy for the student to get the contract to. Google should experience no problem that way.
Remember, open source is free as in speech, not free as in bear.
For the second year, the Fedora Project is participating in the Summer of Code as well.
See this page for more details.
You have to be 18 to take your education furthur? Why can't someone learn something that will influence their coding for the rest of their lives? if they know how to code, then why can't they learn to use it? Many aspiring minorities have empty summers and would love an open door.
Don't forget Blender! http://www.blender.org/
There are all sorts of cool things that could be done as projects, pretty much any siggraph paper, any computer graphics research, etc. would make a good candidate.
LetterRip
What I would like to say, though, is that I noticed at least a few people felt left out - their projects weren't accepted, or they didn't meet one or another entry requirement. (Hell, I've a whole bunch of projects that I could use help with! I'm working on some games, some crypto stuff, some utilities... Nothing quite like the smell of shorted-out synapses!)
I really do urge those who don't want (or can't) code for SoC but do want to get involved in a project that needs help to contact any of those who are mentioning projects being short of coders. We can't all pay or give prizes, but volunteer work on any serious project can be enjoyable and can be a good addition to a resume in some cases. (Volunteer work experience is still work experience.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I think those are some of the coolest projects, though the page lists others (and is always growing as I get new ideas). And don't forget, you can always propose any new idea you come up with -- don't feel limited to that list.
And while we hope you consider Nmap, remember that you can increase your odds by applying to multiple projects. I've seen some pretty cool ideas from the other organizations.
-Fyodor
If you are a student and keen on developing open source, then the Summer of code is a great opportunity for experience, kudos, and some cash. Either pick a project (some are pretty broad) or if you prefer come up with your own idea (compatible with the project) and submit it to one of the the approx. 70 organisations.
Or pick a project based on the mentor - many are captains of open source!
Most mentors will be happy to have anyone who has ability, and the motivation to work through to complete a project.
Happy moony
Now how am I supposed to get laid?
"Made up/misattributed quote that makes me look smart. I am on
Since we're on the topic of shameless plugs, Adium got the nod too. But they knew last week. Any reason why it took so long for this to be published? Also, is there any way of insuring that all the projects get a fair shake at volunteers? I mean, everyone's gonna see Mozilla and GNU and friends on the list and jump on it.
I would if I could, but I don't exactly live in Silicon Valley.
Remember, open source is free as in speech, not free as in bear.
What they could do is find a code that puts things in alphabetical order, regardless of upper or lower case, so that openSUSE does not come after Xorg (and YES, it is openSUSE, not OpenSuSE)
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I'm wondering how this would compare to an internship, considering that's what college students such as myself would otherwise be doing with our time.
On the con side, the pay seems slightly low. You work from home only talk to your mentor over the internet, which seems like it might distract from the learning experience. I've telecommuted before, and while it might seem convenient at first, there are numerous related to communication, and being able to go home at the end of the day and be a psycologically non-work space that detract from those advantages. Probably the biggest problem is staying in touch with people who are in different time zones, or who merely have different working schedules. In a telecommuting situation, some people work at odd hours.
Maybe someone who worked on the summer of code previously could comment on how easy or hard it was to keep in touch with his mentor? Were there many mentors who basically ignored partipants (no need to name names)? How helpful were they in general?
Overall, as I see it the strong benefit is to be able to come up with your own project, and to be able to work on open source. Those kind of go hand in hand to give the participants a lot of freedom in what they do. For me, this would be worth the negatives mentioned above.
I guess one last factor to address, that might be merely a tie breaker for some people or a deal breaker for others, is just how good it will look on a resume. College students looking for internships are looking for work experience, but also an opportunity to break into the industry. Will future employers look at there resume's and think, "He worked for a big name company over this summer, came up with his own project and executed it." Alternatively, an employer might wonder about time spent in such an unstructured way, and wonder if participants goofed off all summer. I sincerely doubt this, but its something to consider and maybe something someone in a hiring position in industry could comment on.
I suppose there might be some sort of legal thing happening - you can only employ minors at slave rates if you're (a) Nike, or (b) in the third world!
Even so, for something like SoC, cutting out the young folks is cutting out a lot of talent. I know that a substantial portion of my clue developed when I was well under 18yo, and I only had a Z80 and a dodgy BASIC interpreter to work with. Imagine what 13,14,15yo programmers could develop today, given the amazing tools we have access to now.
So maybe there's industrial/human-resource problems with hiring minors, fix it! I'm sure that a lot of under 18yo folks would take the CoS jobs, pay or no pay. It's invaluable experience.
No, ignore the lawyers and let the n00bs (that's n00b at life, not code!) in I say! To not do so is a double disservice - filtering talent from OSS projects that need it, and filtering experience from the folks who need it most!
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." (Diderot)
I'm glad to see Gallery on the list again. It is a great package for photo management.
:(
I'd love to see the Picasa module work better. I'd love to work on it myself but unfortunately don't have the time.
nmap is very, very cool ... and a great opportunity to hack on the best network scanner around ... plus you could be famous! ;-)
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
for students to help develop their own next generation virtual learning environment.
The project is very supportive of folks who would like to contribute, serveral programmers who started adding features to Moodle as students at Humboldt State University are now core developers, and have the experience of having tools they have developed be used, reviewed, and built upon by educators and educatees around the world.
Project ideas and discussion.
Perchance I'm the only one who read the eligibility rules, but you don't have to be in university yet. You are also eligible if you have been admitted but not yet enrolled. I'll be a freshman at the end of August, but until then I live in a combination retirement community/hick town. Meh.
Remember, open source is free as in speech, not free as in bear.
While some smart,young people will choose to get involved with these open source projects, some other smart,young people will be developing and launching their Web 2.0 startups. Yep, the seeds of the next Google will be planted this summer, and it definitely won't come from the people working for $4500(?) for 16 weeks of full-time work.
Thank god Larry and Sergey didn't spend their time working on some open source project called BackRub, otherwise there won't have been any Google.
To every geek, coder, student out there....let this be the Summer of You. Fwak Google and fwak open source. Do it for yourself. Create great code and try to make serious money off it.
I would imagine that anyone interested in doing one of these jobs for no pay is quite welcome to do so, 18 or not.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Just spend your summer coding your dream girl in your basement. Sure, you're going to have to make a lot of advances in AI research, robotics, and biology, and spend some time collecting Turing and Nobel awards for your advancements, but it will be worth it in the end when you see the finished results.
Or, you can do what I do, and just wait.
- Gordon @ IA
I let my boss know that I'd have to drop down to 10 hours/week (java coding stuff for school) if I get selected. Just enough to not totally forget over the summer.
What next, "young people are losing interest in machining?"
/young machinist
Please, don't let the industry mature!
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
Blender got a lot of super cool features in the last Googoe SOC. It would be an absolute shame to miss this opportunity. There is so much work that is done, but so much more that can be done. The animation system got recoded last time, plus fur/hair/cloth rendering (and a hundred more items I can't remember right now). People are shocked at what you can do with a program whos binaries are still less than 10 megabytes. It rivals applications ten times as large (in file size). Blenderheads unite! Get to the Google SOC site, submit a great proposal, and impress the Siggraph crowd like never before!
Okay, I'm unsure about the troll status on that, given the AC posting, but that gave me a good laugh. Thanks, I needed that.
Remember, open source is free as in speech, not free as in bear.
Yeah, and you might even get to meet Tom Cruise.
In general, it is safe and legal to kill your children. -- POSIX Programmer's Guide
Check it out... you can do work for NASA Mars missions: http://code.google.com/soc/mars/about.html
DiscDividers tabbed plastic CD dividers: divider cards f
I would have loved the opportunity to do this while I was in college. Seize it while you can!
When you are a little kid, you have tons of time, but little skill, so you spend a lot of time being bored.
When you are an adult, you have a lot more skill and you're capable of doing great things, but so many things compete for your attention (job, house/apartment, car, family) that it's harder to chase big ideas. The people who do so become the abnormal people we call "startup founders."
College is this great crossover where you're just becoming good enough to do great things, but it's still normal to live in a totally non-domestic way. It's the time to chase big dreams.
Google is not only giving you lots of great ideas for interesting work and arranging for mentors to guide you through the learning process, but they're paying you to do it! Find a project that sounds up your alley, and do it!
Fwak Google, Fwak F/OSS, Fwak Linux, etc, etc. Would you rather make $4,500 over 4 months, or start something that would make you $4,500,000,000? Enough said.
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Funny? Overrated? Neither one makes sense. Now either mod this up or leave it alone.
I'd like to do this...but I just finished my Masters degree and am no longer a student.
Come on, are you telling me you're actually busy finals week? My finals week typically involves drinking, video games, then lots more drinking after each final. Come to think of it, I guess that's a pretty full week...
First of all I'm not trying to troll - Summer of Code is a great initiative! Please take this as a question, not as critique.
I see a small potential problem however: In some 3 months, one is supposed to implement a project. Fair enough, but doesn't that usually require significant familiarity with the code of that project? How is a student expected to have this familiarity? Does he/she get it while working on the project or is he/she supposed to already have it?
This is a point that has stopped many enthusiasts. They are afreaid that, while they are experienced coders, they have no idea how Program X works, and are afraid to even try to extend it.
Has this been adressed in any way?
> Why can't anyone here realize
:-)
You know, when everybody around you seem insane or stupid, there is an alternative explanation you should consider...
FreeRADIUS is among the rejected applicants for SoC, but there are some interesting projects in there anyway. For a list, take a look here: http://www.freeradius.org/summerofcode/ One example is a TLS security layer and TCP/SCTP transport for RADIUS messages ("RadSec"), which is a leap ahead in authentication protocols.
Continuous positive slashdot karma since... uh, maybe next year.
My University applied and was rejected. There were many students expecting the acceptance, including myself.
The worst of all is Google just says "Sorry, you are not being accepted" but they won't tell you why. That's discouraging.
Everyone moans that NASA's World Wind doesn't do this, doesn't do that, and so on - well, we're a non-profit organisation centred around World Wind and we're taking part to hopefully produce lots of useful features for World Wind. More info, ideas and contact details are at our SoC page. See you there, or in #worldwind on Freenode :)
£5.99 domain registration/transfer: the cheapest in Europe
Mythtv was accepted as a project. I would recomment working with them because it is an app most people could potential use.
The Free Earth Foundation, mainly working on NASA World Wind, is also participating. This 3D globe is somewhat similar to GE, but is very extensible and more science/classroom oriented than just looking at your house, and has a large community backing it.
You all have Oo.o and Firefox, so get World Wind.
Sorry for the confusion.
You all have Oo.o and Firefox, so get World Wind.
MythTV is also participating in the Summer of Code
The Wine project is looking for students!
:-)
http://wiki.winehq.org/SummerOfCode
Wine is a great opportunity to make a mark on the world.
Wine is already production quality -- I'm
posting this using Windows Firefox on Wine --
but many apps are just a few APIs away from running.
Join the Wine project now and help us light the world on fire
The Python Software Foundation is also one of the organizations sponsoring projects. There's a guide for students that includes project ideas.
As a high school student who loves open source, is looking for a way to break into the development community thereof, could use some money, and is faced with lots of free time the SoC seemed like a perfect oppourtunity when I first heard of it. Just a glance at the FAQ, however, says that I am ineligible..
Anyone know why this is?