The Google Summer of Code applications period is open now, for both <a href="http://socghop.appspot.com/org/show/google/gsoc2009/sugarlabs">Sugar Labs</a> and <a href="http://socghop.appspot.com/program/accepted_orgs/google/gsoc2009">other participating organizations</a>, and runs until 3 April at 19:00 UTC. We have had a fair number of interested students in IRC and on the mailing lists, and last I checked we had 4 generally strong applications in<a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Category:2009_GSoC_applications"> the wiki category</a>. However, we have over 13 mentors signed up; the more applications we get, the more slots we will be assigned; and there are no applications yet in some of our important<a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/DevelopmentTeam/ProjectIdeas"> project ideas</a>. So please, use your blogs, your tweets, and even your actual mouth, to promote GSoC and encourage more high-quality students (at any level, as long as they're 18 or over) to apply; and of course, feel free to apply yourself. The sooner you start to apply, the more time you'll have to refine your idea. The steps to apply are: 1. write out an idea in<a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Category:2009_GSoC_applications"> the wiki category</a> 2. get comments on that idea by discussing it on these mailing lists and/or IRC 3. repeat steps 1 and 2 to refine your idea as many times as possible 4. sign up on <a href="http://socghop.appspot.com/">google's webapp</a> and submit your application to sugarlabs there, preferably by April 1 5. You can continue to refine your idea until the deadline on April 3. Cheers, Jameson Quinn