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Google Pumps $6 Million Into Summer of Code 2011

Posted by timothy on from the will-you-be-my-mentor-today dept.

darthcamaro writes "Google Summer of Code 2011 is now underway. Google is providing stipends for 1,116 students to mentor with 175 open source projects. In total, Google will be investing over $6 million dollars into Summer of Code 2011. There are a few project omissions this time around though. Neither Fedora nor Ubuntu have any students this year."

70 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Cheap investment by Elektroschock · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When you consider how helpful this is for recruitment and winning the hearts and minds of the programming elite this program is actually cheap. I would recommend governments and supranational organisations to do the same.

    1. Re:Cheap investment by mug+funky · · Score: 1

      cheap investment?

  2. Very generous stipend by Myji+Humoz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's really amazing how a drop in the bucket (for Google) can encourage so much innovation and foster so much enthusiasm in the next generation of programmers.

    The stipend averages out to $5376 per student, which will surely go a long way to paying for rent between semesters and then some.

    I'm fully aware that programming has lower fixed costs than say, recombinant organism research or semiconductor development, but I can't help but wonder how many STEM students we could encourage by redirecting just 1% of the U.S. national defense budget. The gains of such projects really isn't in the end result (though they're nice), but rather in the skills, connections, and confidence that the work inspires.

    --
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    1. Re:Very generous stipend by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 2

      While it may get your name on the big stage, isn't a ton of money. Normal internships I worked for my engineering degree started mid May, ended mid August. So lets say May 16 - August 19, which is 95 days. You'll probably only work 5/7ths of those days or ~67 days, 8 hours a day for 536 hours.

      Or around $10 an hour. Now, most certainly if you're good you can deliver it in much less time. But at the same time. $10/hour is what I made after my freshmen year in 2002. I think I was making around $19-20/hr by 2004 the year before my senior year.

      That was for Mechanical Engineering. I'm not sure if paid internships for CS majors pay that much or if you even have internships like those in engineering. But to me, that just doesn't seem like a ton of money. But like I said, you do get your name forever etched into a project and on Google's website.

    2. Re:Very generous stipend by theskipper · · Score: 1, Informative

      Common sense ideas like yours won't be possible until moderate Republicans take back the party.

      Until then, science will remain a big juicy target for budget cuts.

      This country is whistling past the graveyard when it comes to science and future economic prosperity.

    3. Re:Very generous stipend by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "...but I can't help but wonder how many STEM students we could encourage by redirecting just 1% of the U.S. national defense budget"

      1% of ~685 billion? Uh, yeah, $6.8 billion aught to be enough to fund a lot of STEM students, given that 1% of the defense budget is more than the entire budget of the NSF in 2010 (~$5.5 billion).

    4. Re:Very generous stipend by whovian · · Score: 1

      Common sense ideas like yours won't be possible until moderate Republicans take back the party.

      Sarcasm, or no? It was Republicans who advocated, passed, and then underfunded No Child Left Behind. The Democratic party is seeing fit to run with it though.

      As I see it, every few years there are renewed pushes to get kids interested in the sciences to little apparent effect. US culture idolizes sports and entertainment while mocking geeks and scientists. Those who are qualified to work in science and reject the big incomes of finance cannot find corresponding work because foreigners are sought after to fill the positions.

      Sorry, but the US is currently fscked in many ways.

      --
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    5. Re:Very generous stipend by theskipper · · Score: 1

      Good points and, no, sarcasm wasn't intended. Just that it takes two to tango.

      There are moderates and extremists on both sides of the aisle. But when level-headed moderates are in the majority on both sides, things actually tend to get done in a rational fashion.

      When one side is out of whack, like the Republicans these days, it's essentially hopeless. Then it's all about demagoguery, not progress.

    6. Re:Very generous stipend by trawg · · Score: 1

      The stipend averages out to $5376 per student, which will surely go a long way to paying for rent between semesters and then some.

      Not to mention the incalculable benefit of all that new open source code they're contributing to.

      The Summer of Code is probably my favourite thing about Google. Such a great example of corporate marketing!

    7. Re:Very generous stipend by lee1026 · · Score: 1

      When I was in college a few years back, almost every prof was working on research products for the military. This means that the military is effectively paying stipends to a small army of grad students. When you add in things like the research that Lockheed and the such are doing (and funding), the military is in fact doing exactly what you are suggesting what it does. Most of the cost of all of those high end weapons is R&D, and when you get down to it, R&D dollars is paying some grad student somewhere to sit down and do research.

    8. Re:Very generous stipend by mwvdlee · · Score: 1

      Wow... that is just... wow.
      I hope you were being sarcastic or ironic or something like that and I just missed the joke.

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    9. Re:Very generous stipend by adolf · · Score: 1

      Depending on location, indeed. If I had an opportunity to make $6-7k/month over the summer, I'd be telling my day job to stuff it, sign a loan on a new BMW M3, and I'd stick with that "6-7k/month" internship forever.

      But I'm in Ohio, not the SF Bay. YMMV.

      --
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    10. Re:Very generous stipend by Tsingi · · Score: 2

      Wow... that is just... wow. I hope you were being sarcastic or ironic or something like that and I just missed the joke.

      It's an exaggeration, but it's no joke. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States

    11. Re:Very generous stipend by polymeris · · Score: 1

      The stipend averages out to $5376 per student,

      It's $5500 per student: 5000 for the student plus 500 for the mentor. TFA does not consider that some students may drop out, so they don't actually know yet how much the average student will get.

    12. Re:Very generous stipend by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1

      Republicrats and Demicans are not the solution to any problem. But neither are the people at the extremes. And for every (R) you don't like, I'm sure there is a (D) on the other side that is just as horrible that you ignore, because ... well you might like what they do MOST of the time (or visa versa if you're an (R).

      And the (R) are out of whack because the (D) showed themselves out of Whack previously, passing the boondongle of HealthCare reform that does nothing to reform HealthCare other than to create yet another class of people dependent upon Government to provide for them. We've long since passed the days where the productive members of society can provide a "safety net" that has grown beyond original scope with the government version of feature creep.

      And when you have the (D) party screaming (literally in some cases) that the fractional budget cut would cause MILLIONS to STARVE to DEATH ... THAT is what makes talk of budgets hopeless. Meanwhile we're leveraging our children to be slaves to China and the rest of the world because we don't have the discipline to say NO to increasing out debt beyond our ability to repay it.

      Unfortunately we don't have enough people on either side of the isle to realize that we cannot sustain current spending on social programs and military. Instead we get new social programs and a new war.

      --
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  3. Both Fedora and Ubuntu will reap benefits by dwheeler · · Score: 2

    Both Fedora and Ubuntu will reap benefits, because they will end up packaging many of the results. But even more importantly, people around the world will reap the benefits. Not only immediately (from these projects), but even more importantly, but also from all the amazing work these developers will do in the years ahead because they they learned how to collaboratively develop software. Good job.

    --
    - David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
    1. Re:Both Fedora and Ubuntu will reap benefits by theolein · · Score: 1

      FTT: "Neither Fedora nor Ubuntu have any students this year."

      Seems like Google thinks Unity sucks as well. :P

    2. Re:Both Fedora and Ubuntu will reap benefits by EvanED · · Score: 1

      Besides, it's not quite right. While Ubuntu doesn't have any, Fedora has 6 projects.

    3. Re:Both Fedora and Ubuntu will reap benefits by Dr_Barnowl · · Score: 2

      Debian has 9 projects. As a Debian derivative, Ubuntu will benefit.

      At least one of them is being mentored by Canonical / Ubuntu (Matt Zimmerman, the Ubuntu CTO).

  4. The Slashdot Perspective by Nukedoom · · Score: 1

    Yea, yea, yea. But what about those other people that aren't doing anything to help this project? Like the government...or my grandma? They need to get their shit together. Seriously.

  5. Conspicuously missing by CharlyFoxtrot · · Score: 1

    Conspicuously missing ... Android. Sure, a couple of apps but nothing on a system level.

    --
    If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
    1. Re:Conspicuously missing by WorBlux · · Score: 1

      Why would they pay themselves to hire an intern when they can just hire an intern?

    2. Re:Conspicuously missing by CharlyFoxtrot · · Score: 2

      Well, they do just that for 3 projects through Google Open Source Programs Office.

      --
      If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
  6. Best thing about Google by danbuter · · Score: 2

    Supporting the Summer of Code is my favorite aspect of the Google Corporation. They help young guys learn real programming and also improve lots of open source projects. It would be great if other big companies also did this, but after so many years, I doubt it will happen.

  7. Some of those are uh.. lame by phantomcircuit · · Score: 1

    For example this one is lame

    ldd + equery belongs and some bash glue would do that.

    1. Re:Some of those are uh.. lame by phantomcircuit · · Score: 1

      And in case anybody doubts the lameness of this specific project, behold

      find . -type f -executable -exec ldd {} \; | grep -vF "not a dynamic executable" | cut -f 1 -d " " | xargs equery belongs

      can i haz stipend?

    2. Re:Some of those are uh.. lame by badboy_tw2002 · · Score: 1

      How is that an "auto dependency builder"? Bad link?

    3. Re:Some of those are uh.. lame by phantomcircuit · · Score: 1

      That will tell you the packages for which an already build (in the current directory) depends as configured. The step of generating the ebuild is trivial from there.

    4. Re:Some of those are uh.. lame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      how do you intend to run LDD on something before it's compiled, when you can't compile it without the deps?

    5. Re:Some of those are uh.. lame by phantomcircuit · · Score: 1

      You'd run this in a project directory which you have built from source, try it.

  8. 5 millions for the seti by bubulubugoth · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Wouldn't be nice if Google pumped 5 millions to keep the seti@home working for 2 years more? They pump 6 millions for a small and local event...

    --
    Â_Â
    1. Re:5 millions for the seti by Zerimar · · Score: 1

      No, it wouldn't be nice. It would be $5 million wasted on SETI@Home.

    2. Re:5 millions for the seti by Ruke · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I don't mean to sound harsh, but has SETI produced any results that might justify further funding it? I understand the "it's cool!" factor, and I understand that we don't really expect to find alien civilizations every day, and I understand how important of a discovery it would be if we did discover intelligent extraterrestrial life... however, I also think that, given $5 million, we'll see far greater returns on investing that money in Summer of Code than we would supporting SETI. The expected results from SoC are clearly expressed for every one of the thousand programmers. What would investing in SETI get us, beyond, "Well, we'll keep looking, I guess."

    3. Re:5 millions for the seti by Thing+1 · · Score: 1

      Exactly. My former coworker might still have a job, if not for that... (Well, also his stupidity in thinking that "his work server" was really "his machine".)

      --
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    4. Re:5 millions for the seti by braindrainbahrain · · Score: 2

      Two of the GSOC projects this year were for the SETI Institute. Apparently, the SETI Institute proposed 5 projects, but only 2 of them were funded.

    5. Re:5 millions for the seti by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Exactly. My former coworker might still have a job, if not for that... (Well, also his stupidity in thinking that "his work server" was really "his machine".)

      I don't think it's entirely fair to blame SETI for your former coworker being retarded.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    6. Re:5 millions for the seti by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Two of the GSOC projects this year were for the SETI Institute. Apparently, the SETI Institute proposed 5 projects, but only 2 of them were funded.

      I would guess that at least one off them was a project "to develop an algorithm capable of producing a fictitious but convincing pattern out of vast amounts of random data in order to justify further funding for the SETI project".

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  9. What's the point when maintainers ignore your work by gumpish · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Code written to allow per-workspace wallpaper in GNOME as part of a Summer of Code 2008 project:

    http://gsocblog.jsharpe.net/

    Result?

    Ignored by GNOME.

    https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=543596

    Thanks, GNOME.
    Thanks, Søren Sandmann.

  10. Fedora's got 6 projects by Nushio · · Score: 4, Informative

    Look for them under "The Fedora Project".
    Sudo support for SSSD.
    Robotics Suite
    Fedora Medical Packages
    Revert to Snapshot for Ext4
    KDE Plasma Dependency and
    Fedora Events System

    Disclaimer: I'm the mentor for the Fedora Events System :P

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  11. why don't users get some of the google cash by cinnamon+colbert · · Score: 5, Funny

    if you look at google, facebook, linkedin, etc, it is we - the users - who make them rich.
    I think 50%, gross, of the IPO should be given to charity, with charitys chosen by the users.

    1. Re:why don't users get some of the google cash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why don't you start your massive search engine / advertising website and do that then?

    2. Re:why don't users get some of the google cash by Thing+1 · · Score: 2

      if you look at google, facebook, linkedin, etc, it is we - the users - who make them rich. I think 50%, gross, of the IPO should be given to charity, with charitys chosen by the users.

      Yeah, and I vote all your money into my wallet. Neither are likely.

      --
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    3. Re:why don't users get some of the google cash by mwvdlee · · Score: 2

      You mean they get rich because we use their products?
      My god! It's unheard of in the world of business!

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    4. Re:why don't users get some of the google cash by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      if you look at google, facebook, linkedin, etc, it is we - the users - who make them rich. I think 50%, gross, of the IPO should be given to charity, with charitys chosen by the users.

      Yeah, and I vote all your money into my wallet. Neither are likely.

      Finding a selfless, moral, sane, witty and wise poster on slashdot isn't likely either, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be nice.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    5. Re:why don't users get some of the google cash by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      You mean they get rich because we use their products? My god! It's unheard of in the world of business!

      Yeah, it's good that you're seeing the bigger picture, moron. What is it with all the "greed is good" weenies now taking over slashdot, the internet and the world?

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    6. Re:why don't users get some of the google cash by mwvdlee · · Score: 1

      This has nothing to do with "good" or "evil".
      It has to do with the basic fact that businesses exist in order to make money.
      If it's not supposed to make money, it's called a "non-profit".
      There simply isn't any bigger picture than that besides the one you've made up in your own head.

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  12. We've tried several times... by pongo000 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...to get onboard, but have been rejected each time. The amount of detail that Google requires for its application is just mind-boggling. More mind-boggling is the selection process that seems to favor established projects with large developer bases that really aren't in need of extra help. Good luck getting on the SoC bandwagon if you're a small (but established) open software project.

    1. Re:We've tried several times... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Many small but established open source projects enrolled in SoC this year just fine. They didn't get many slots, but they got their feet in the door. When I filled out my org's application, it took like 30 minutes. It wasn't hard at all..

    2. Re:We've tried several times... by rryan · · Score: 2

      Proof by contradiction. Mixxx (http://mixxx.org) has probably 2-5 active developers and we've received 3 or 4 students every year since the beginning of the SOC. I've been to the GSoC mentor summit as well and there are plenty of small sized projects. In fact, this year they focused on accepting more smaller projects via the 'referral' system whereby projects could refer other small projects that would be a good fit for the SOC.

    3. Re:We've tried several times... by karlm · · Score: 1

      That's an existence proof, not proof by contradiction.

      --
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    4. Re:We've tried several times... by mmsimanga · · Score: 1

      Considering that Sourceforge.net alone hosts "over 260 000 projects" one cannot be faulted for deducing that perhaps they do receive a large number of applications. I would wager they try select projects which will most "benefit mankind". All subjective off course but show me a process that is perfect. Good luck next year.

  13. TFA inaccuracy: Fedora is participating by krkhan · · Score: 2

    I was surprised to read that Fedora didn't have any students this year (after all, my proposal for Fedora was accepted but I chose Tor in the de-duplication process). As it turns out, Fedora actually has six projects this year. The full list of accepted projects is available here.

  14. Re:What's the point when maintainers ignore your w by spikeb · · Score: 2

    GNOME ignores anything that doesn't come from the select few entrenched bastards within the project. Doesn't make it the rule for all projects, though.

  15. Re:What's the point when maintainers ignore your w by ToasterMonkey · · Score: 1

    Code written to allow per-workspace wallpaper in GNOME as part of a Summer of Code 2008 project:

    http://gsocblog.jsharpe.net/

    Result?

    Ignored by GNOME.

    https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=543596

    Thanks, GNOME.
    Thanks, SÃren Sandmann.

    Never mind GNOME, why would Google be paying for that??

  16. Re:What's the point when maintainers ignore your w by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    Piss on GNOME, apparently there is a working patch for per-workspace wallpaper in Compiz now. So now you can use it with any compiz-compatible WM if you have a halfway decent GPU...

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  17. Thank You, Google! by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

    see subject.

    --
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    1. Re:Thank You, Google! by martin-boundary · · Score: 1

      see subject.

      I see no subject, just a verb and an object.

  18. Re:What's the point when maintainers ignore your w by macshit · · Score: 1

    If it depended on mono I'll bet they would have added it...
    :[

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    We live, as we dream -- alone....
  19. Re:Very generous stipend - Why GOOG's doing this by Compaqt · · Score: 1

    What's in it for Google:

    1. More open source software means more ability for young innovators to create cool new stuff on the Internet.

    2. More cool new stuff on the Internet means people spend more time online.

    3. The more time people spend online, the more likely they are to see an ad or click on it.

    4. Profit!

    Also, a side benefit is that M$ profit gets reduced because they have to fight side battles with a 101 open-source projects. This is asymmetrical warfare in that a small investment in open source can mean a huge loss to Microsoft.

    --
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  20. Fedora by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Did you even look? They are under "The Fedora Project" organization and we have 6 students this year from GSoC and several more as our own interns.

  21. Why not Google University? by elucido · · Score: 1

    They have the money now to open their own online school. They can select the best coders and pay them to create valuable code under the GPL, they can also allow coders to contribute code in exchange for further education.

    1. Re:Why not Google University? by mug+funky · · Score: 1

      GPL = Google Payroll License

  22. Re:What's the point when maintainers ignore your w by mwvdlee · · Score: 1

    Which rules out both my laptops for having Intel and VIA GPU's.

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  23. Re:What's the point when maintainers ignore your w by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

    It's in their right, but then why bother with GSoC at all, if you're not going to use the results of it? When people come and see tasks posted by various projects, they kinda assume that those tasks are actually meaningful, and not just a waste of time.

  24. Re:What's the point when maintainers ignore your w by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2

    Google doesn't pick the projects. Google picks the organisations, and they pick the projects. Over the last few years, there has been an increasing trend towards picking large umbrella groups (e.g. KDE, GNU), so Google is two layers of management away from the actual decision.

    --
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  25. Re:What's the point when maintainers ignore your w by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    I share your pain because all three of my laptops suck, but that doesn't mean you and I didn't make unintelligent purchasing decisions.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  26. Re:Very generous stipend - Why GOOG's doing this by tehcyder · · Score: 1

    What's in it for Google:

    1. More open source software means more ability for young innovators to create cool new stuff on the Internet.

    2. More cool new stuff on the Internet means people spend more time online.

    3. The more time people spend online, the more likely they are to see an ad or click on it.

    4. Profit!

    Also, a side benefit is that M$ profit gets reduced because they have to fight side battles with a 101 open-source projects. This is asymmetrical warfare in that a small investment in open source can mean a huge loss to Microsoft.

    For most people, it is the content on the internet that is the cool stuff, whether it's accessed via open or closed source software is irrelevant.

    --
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  27. Re:Very generous stipend - Why GOOG's doing this by Compaqt · · Score: 1

    No, what I'm talking about is that almost all of the cool web 2.0 (or 1.0) stuff is built with open source software.

    If you're a bunch of college guys trying to come up with the Next Big Thing, it's very easy for you to cobble it together using LAMP for the platform, Postfix+Dovecot for email. To the extent that GIMP and Inkscape work well, you've got your graphics that you need to create for your website right there.

    To the extent that such open source software is available, and it works well (the point of Summer of Code is to fix longstanding bugs, and extend features), young innovators are that much more able to realize their ideas.

    It's not that site visitors care that someone used FOSS to make a site. It's that FOSS allows more people to make sites. More sites, more ads.

    Take, say mxtoolbox.com, which I found out about the other day. What do they have on every page? Google Ads.

    --
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  28. Pumps 6M$?! by SpaghettiPattern · · Score: 1

    Pumps 6M$?! Google may perhaps accidentally spill 6 M$.

    --

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  29. It's cool that they do this by MillerHighLife21 · · Score: 1

    I wish they'd let people vote on how the money should be allocated / which projects deserve funding. It'd be interesting to see what came out on top.

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