[math4] GSoC and other ways to gain contributors

Mel Chua mel at melchua.com
Mon Mar 2 12:39:58 EST 2009


> Is sl.o participating in GSoC?

Yes; we're applying to be an organization this summer.

> If so who is administering it?

Me. So I should hit up Karsten for some advice, it seems. ;)

> This strikes me as prime summer work for college students.

Likewise here! Beyond the immediate "college students! opportunity! this 
summer!" GSoC provides a good framework (er, "excuse") to define good 
projects for newcomers to work on - projects for coders new to the 
community, perhaps new to software engineering (as opposed to "I have 
written lines of code before") and maybe new to open-source, roughly 10 
weeks in scope with mentorship, defined goals/requirements/feedback 
loops and dates. That's just generally useful, period.

As a new org, we are unlikely to get more than 2 or so student slots. 
However, "too many good applicants with excellent projects" is a problem 
I'd love to have. Let's try to make that happen. If it happens, then 
we'll solve it.

--Mel


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