Google Launches Summer of Code

chrisd writes "We're very happy to launch the Summer of Code today, and I thought Slashdot readers would be interested and might even help us spread the word (We have a flyer, even). The program is designed to give computer science, and other, students a stipend ($4500) while they learn to release and create open source software. We're working with a variety of Open Source software foundations and organizations and we hope to sign up around 200 developers. We hope the end result will be more open source developers! I'll be pleased to answer questions in the comment stream about this program. Thanks!"

Wary of title....

Hopefully this venture will fare better than the Summer Of George.

Re:Wary of title....

Hopefully this venture will fare better than the Summer Of George.

I think it will. I mean, the summer is normally when I want to spend a lot of quality time indoors, in front of my computer, writing code, breathing recirculated air.

Question for Chris: Are you guys supplying the vitamin D supplements, or do I have to pay for that myself?

Re:Wary of title....

We can't do everything, you know. I understand Salmon is a good source for Vitamin D, and it has less mercury than Tuna.

Chris

Why just students?

I think it's wonderful Google is doing something like this. Then again, I don't think Google has done much that could be considered wrong as of late. There are two good rules of business that so many modern industries seem to forget. 1) Make a good product, which so far Google seems to be doing well, and 2) Don't make it a hassle for your customers to do business with you. If only other tech companies followed those two simple rules, they probably would be faring much better. If the recording industry followed these rules, they would . . . well, that's not going to happen any time soon.

The one question I have is this: Why just students? Sure, it's always good to help out students (especially with money), but there are a lot of people out there who are doing this stuff on their own. You don't have to be in school to be trying to learn coding or work in open source (some of us do it as a hobby). This really isn't meant to be a complaint, it's a serious question, and I'm sure there is a good answer out there I just don't happen to know what it is.

Re:Why just students?

From the faq:

Who is eligible?

Students. Since the point of the program is to create new developers, we're looking to find developers around the world who have considered creating free and open source software but who have not yet taken the plunge. We felt that concentrating on the student population was a good place to focus these efforts.

Not from the faq:

Basically, You gotta start somewhere.

Chris

Re:Why just students?

If whether the applicant is a student next semester depends on a scholarship that they may or may not get over the Summer, are they still eligible?

Re:Why just students?

The one question I have is this: Why just students?

If you open it up to everyone, it's harder to tell if the person will get the intended benefit out of it: education. Experienced coders could participate just for the money. The program isn't supposed to be mainly about the money, it's just there to get college students' eyes on developing open source software as an option.

Because Students Are Cut-Throat Slave Laborers

Because students are cut-throat slave laborers that will work hard, 24/7, based on sheer ideals then quickly sell-out come the first mortgage payment. Also, if nothing good comes out of this, they don't have to feel bad firing everyone in September.

Every

Re:Why just students?

Again, Google is following the simple rule of Don't make it a hassle for your customers to do business with you. Google's advertisements are the best out there that I've seen. They don't try to jump out at you, they don't annoy you with flashing pictures or insipid audio, and a real attempt is made to make the advertisements relevant to the person viewing them.

You appear to be under a misapprehension that you are a customer of google because you view their ads- you're not. You are their product. Their customers are the people that buy the ads.

*and* a free t-shirt!

So here's the skinny: we'll give $4,500 to applicants who successfully work with a sponsoring organization or advisor to create innovative or useful open source software. We'll also get you a t-shirt to go along with the cash.

Holy hell... a t-shirt? I mean the cash, well I know Google has a ton of that, but where on earth are they finding these T-shirts to spare!? I hope they technology behind these Tees is open sourced, and machine washable. Think of how much further I could take my undergrad degree if I had a free t-shirt...

which is it?

When exactly is the application deadline?

The "summer of code" page [google.com] says June 24th. The pdf [google.com] linked from there says June 14th.

('Course if those were reversed I could've made some smart assed comment about the extra 10 days accounting for Adobe's pdf reader to launch).

Re:which is it?

Crud. Thanks. It's the 14th. Updating the site now.

Chris

A little late...

It would have been a better idea to post this sooner. Many schools have already completed finals as of last week.

Lacking a date on the flyer, I don't know if this is Google's fault or it just took a while to hit slashdot. Good idea, anyway.

Open source

Google just recently [google.com] started giving lip service to open source, after some people noticed they had really given nothing back to the Movement given that their infrastructure is largely built on free software (or open source or whatever it's called this week).

What's the point of this, really? Why is Google suddenly so interested in fostering open source? And why only students? More pliable to the idea of giving your work away?

I'm a college student

And I am definitely going to enter, as soon as I have a suitable idea. To hell with the money (although it is nice, I'll probably buy a Xbox 360 + games with it), I'd do it just for the chance to have "Google Project Assistant/Implementor" on my resume. Although, a bigger list of organizations would be nice. I hope more open source organizations jump in.

Direction

This looks like a really interesting project. I've often wanted to get into open source development, but the most I've done is to submit a minor bugfix to a project. What seems nice about this project is that it gives some direction on how to get started. I think the idea of hooking a student up with experienced developers also adds to this direction. The problem I've found when trying to contribute to open source software is that few people seem willing to help you get started.
I'm definitely thinking of applying, but why GNOME and the perl foundry but no KDE or Java Foundry? never been fond of Perl or GTK+ myself, and I don't know anything about Python or .NET so my options are kind of limited :(

Re:Direction

We welcome those groups, but we had a limited amount of time to corral everyone. They can still join in. This is why we posted the mentorship faq [google.com] on the site.

Man, the 2 minute posting restriction is killing me today.

Chris

Please read the mentorship faq...

We didn't choose actually, we had to round up the groups who wanted to do this. The ones you see were the most interested. We didn't turn any groups away that offered up what we needed to make the program successful. Don't read anything into that list.

I'd love to add the KDE league.

Chris

Just great

Our parents had the "Summer of Love", where they all flocked to San Francisco etc. to do drugs and have sex, and all we get is this lousy "Summer of Code", where we get to DO WORK on our summer vacation?!?

Spectacular

This is spectacular. I mean talk about giving back to the community. I wish that google would pay the students on a bi-weekly basis though. When I was a student I would have leaped at this opportunity, but the lack of a stream of cash would have made it extremely difficult to take.

It is more of a motivator to give the cash in one lump sum at the end of the summer, and it reduces the possibility for fraud, but many students need cash to scrape by.

Anyways, go google, I hope these 200 student developers do amazing things over this summer!

Some questions

Are graduate students considered eligible students? (e.g. summer between completed undergraduate degree and upcoming Master's program). Yes, I need money.

Is a programmer eligible for this if they already have been developing open source software? In other words, they already have experience working with OSS projects and producing public code.

Re:Some questions

Yes on both.

Chris

Re:ZzzZZZz

I thought Slashdot readers would be interested WRONG!!

Hold on a moment. They are offering Slashdotters money to program open source! How is that not right up the alley of "News for Nerds" and "Stuff that Matters?"

Re:Slashdot becomes a shill for google

A shill for Google? If any other company were putting up close to a million dollars in bounty money for open-source development, it'd be huge news. Hell, Novell offered $25000 in GNOME bounties a year ago and we got at least two separate /. stories about it. This is exactly the sort of news for nerds that /. exists to report (as are, incidently, both of the other Google stories on the FP). Should /. just start rejecting all stories pertaining to Google, just because Google is working on a lot of cool stuff?

Re:Suppose you have a brilliant idea

Apply. Sounds cool. Put lots of details in the application.

Chris