Google Pumps $6 Million Into Summer of Code 2011

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."

Comments

Cheap investment

[Elektroschock]

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.

Very generous stipend

[Myji Humoz]

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.

Re:Very generous stipend

[0100010001010011]

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.

Re:Very generous stipend

[Anonymous Coward]

"...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).

Re:Very generous stipend

[Tsingi]

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

Both Fedora and Ubuntu will reap benefits

[dwheeler]

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.

Re:Both Fedora and Ubuntu will reap benefits

[Dr_Barnowl]

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).

Best thing about Google

[danbuter]

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.

Re:Conspicuously missing

[CharlyFoxtrot]

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

5 millions for the seti

[bubulubugoth]

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...

Re:5 millions for the seti

[braindrainbahrain]

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.

What's the point when maintainers ignore your work

[gumpish]

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.

Fedora's got 6 projects

[Nushio]

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

why don't users get some of the google cash

[cinnamon colbert]

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.

Re:why don't users get some of the google cash

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:why don't users get some of the google cash

[Thing 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.

Re:why don't users get some of the google cash

[mwvdlee]

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

Re:Some of those are uh.. lame

[Anonymous Coward]

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

We've tried several times...

[pongo000]

...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.

Re:We've tried several times...

[rryan]

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.

TFA inaccuracy: Fedora is participating

[krkhan]

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.

Re:What's the point when maintainers ignore your w

[spikeb]

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.

Re:What's the point when maintainers ignore your w

[TheRaven64]

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.