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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."

9 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.

  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.

    --
    Signatures are the new names.
    1. 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).

  3. 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...

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    Â_Â
  4. 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.

  5. 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

    --
    Check out Unsealed: Whispers of Wisdom! http://unsealed.k3rnel.net It's an action-RPG about Open Sourcerers.
  6. 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.

  7. 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?

  8. 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.