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Summer of Code Student Applications Now Open

Posted by kdawson on from the getting-paid-for-it dept.

The accepted Google Summer of Code 2007 mentors list is now complete at the Summer of Code website — 131 projects could use your help. Student applications are open and the end date is March 24. Google has an application guide in the Summer of Code Announce discussion group that provides more information on the application process.

13 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. multilingualize OLPC for SOC by wixi · · Score: 2, Interesting

    http://wiki.laptop.org/go/WiXi

  2. Re:summer by Fuckin+ROBOTS! · · Score: 2, Funny

    I prefer the Summer of George!

    --
    You see 'em? They're EVERYWHERE!
  3. Crystal Space by mastershake_phd · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Crystal Space is on the list. Its an open source 3D/game engine. Cant wait till this is done and ported to some consoles.

    --
    Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
  4. What about rejected organisations? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Our project - a fairly well known OSS project got rejected. We had a good comprehensive list of projects (that, IMO, rivals some of the big players in the announced list).

    We received no explanation of any kind. I understand that Google doesn't owe us anything, but surely some feedback will help us improve in the future, especially that we are trying to garner some corporate support.

    Anyone in the same boat? any ideas why this could happen?

    1. Re:What about rejected organisations? by Raphael · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I don't know what project the parent post was refering to, but it is not only GIMP (with some interesting ideas) that got rejected.

      Other projects that were not selected include interesting improvements to the desktop infrastructure, such as GStreamer (list of ideas) or Avahi (list of ideas).

      --
      -Raphaël
    2. Re:What about rejected organisations? by gstein · · Score: 4, Informative

      In the next couple days, I'll be posting a rough summary of some of the things that we looked for this year in the applications. Please watch the google-summer-of-code-discuss mailing list.

      The first year, Chris DiBona and I just winged it and picked out about forty projects that we knew. In 2006, a bunch of people emailed us, and we manually picked some. This year, we had a web application to help organize the process, but the selection is still based on a manual review. We had something like 240 applications to sort through(!)

      I understand it is disappointing, but we had to pare the list down. A lot of people are asking "why not me?", and students will ask it in a few weeks, too, when their proposal is not accepted. We probably should have come up with some advice beforehand, but this stuff is always a rush. We have a bit on the AdviceforMentors wiki page, but I'll create a whole separate page for organization applications.

      Sorry if you weren't selected, but I hope you'll understand that we had to trim the list.

    3. Re:What about rejected organisations? by Carewolf · · Score: 2, Insightful

      KOffice also got rejected for the second time. It will ride with the KDE project yet again. It just seems odd KDE isn't allowed to register the subprojects, when it gets more than twice as many applications as the second biggest project.

      I am assuming some of the GNOME/GTK projects got rejected this time to add some balance, they can always put their ideas under their umbrella project like KOffice does.

  5. Re:Um... W00t! by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Obligatory dumb answer: one click at a time! :P

  6. Re:how advanced should a coder be? by Nicholas+Bishop · · Score: 2, Informative

    There are over a hundred different organizations available to choose from, and many possible projects for each organization. Pick something you are comfortable with; if you consider yourself a novice, you should probably don't want to start out with a project for gcc, but there are many options for simpler projects.

    Most organizations also encourage potential applicants to chat with them on IRC about projects the student is interested in doing; that's a good way to find out in advance of completing an application whether you have the skills necessary to complete a project.

    One last thing to keep in mind is that you don't need to know everything before you start. Over the course of a three month project you can learn quite a lot about writing good code; you'll develop skills as you go along.

  7. Any companies other than Google? by starseeker · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Google has been doing this now for some years with what appear to be fairly impressive results - I wonder if we might start to see other companies pick up on this a little. What about, say, the major Linux distributions sponsoring some projects for the major open source desktops? Or universities sponsoring some scientific software (I was very interested to see fityk on the supported list this year)? Or perhaps IBM could sponsor some work? There should be many possibilities.

    Google is supporting quite a lot of work and a great many projects, but it is unavoidable that many useful projects will fall though their net - they have only so much support they can offer. I would be interested to see other companies either partner with Google or do on their own what Google is doing - if Google can do so much, what could 5 or 10 more companies using the same basic method accomplish?

    --
    "I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
  8. Re:Pay really sucks by gstein · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You know... we get this every year. Some whiner says "they don't pay well enough." Fine. My thought is always, "do something else with your summer."

    Last year, we spent over $3 million on this program. This year, we're increasing that to $4 million. That means 800 students get an introduction to Open Source around the *world*. Your narrow view of life says the pay sucks. I don't think students in India would agree with you. Last year, an eastern European student used the money to start his own business.

    Those 800 students are going to have a nice little entry on their resume which will read a lot better than "flipped hamburgers at the local burger stand." These students will get to interact with some of the best Open Source organizations on the planet. And work with mentors who can show them how these communities work. They will produce more code, for the benefit of *everybody*.

    It is a fair bet those 800 students will produce more this summer than all the people who complain about the "low pay" will produce in *years*. I'm happy and fortunate to be able to do this, and I know there are thousands who are willing to participate. And I'm happy they will have a great attitude about it.

  9. Re:Pay really sucks by paulbd · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Many of us would prefer to work on open-source projects if we could get paid a fair salary to do so (I certainly would). It wouldn't even need to match what I can get from any one of the companies listed. But it *would* need to be enough to pay my cost of living and allow me to put some cash in the bank ...

    dude, join the back of the queue! do you have any idea how many of the mentors that SoC2007 participants will be working with would love to find a way to fulfill what you've just described? finding a way to work and live from work on open source projects is high on a large number of developer's goals, but the vast majority of these projects do not make much, if any money. the ones that enable Red Hat and others to sell Linux - well divide up RH's profits among all those that could be said to contribute, and there isn't a lot to go around. The ones that make google, amazon etc. possible on an infrastructure level clearly leverage more financial return but hey, guess what? They've been around for a while, and there are others far more deserving than you or I of any living based on their financials.

    In short: open source software development in the US doesn't really make a whole lot of sense anymore. Its not impossible, but its hard.

  10. GNUstep got accepted and has a lot to offer by sqar · · Score: 2, Informative

    GNUstep has a lot of different projects to offer - from entry level improvements for the beginner (like compiling the missing classes in GNUstep compared to current Cocoa and creating the header files) to advanced tasks like porting Apple's WebKit over to GNUstep (here you would need proper ObjC++ and C++ skills) or improving GNUsteps integration into the MS Windows Platform (tighter integration into the Windows look and feel, Windows programming skills are welcome). So there is something for everybody.

    newspieces:

    http://digg.com/programming/GNUstep_participates_i n_Google_Summer_of_Code_2007
    http://gnustep.blogspot.com/2007/03/summer-of-code -2007.html

    ideas:

    http://wiki.gnustep.org/index.php/Summer_Of_Code_2 007 (the wiki requires a registration here: webmasters@gnustep.org since we got a lot of wikispam before)

    regards, Lars