Summer of Code Student Applications Now Open

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.

Re:how advanced should a coder be?

[Nicholas Bishop]

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.

Re:What about rejected organisations?

[gstein]

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 [google.com] 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 [google.com] 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.

GNUstep got accepted and has a lot to offer

[sqar]

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 [digg.com]
http://gnustep.blogspot.com/2007/03/summer-of-code -2007.html [blogspot.com]

ideas:

http://wiki.gnustep.org/index.php/Summer_Of_Code_2 007 [gnustep.org] (the wiki requires a registration here: [e-mail] since we got a lot of wikispam before)

regards, Lars