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Google Summer of Code (GSoC), for those who are not familiar, is an initiative led by Google to encourage students to participate in Open Source projects during their summer break. Projects like JBoss Community or Fedora apply to be a mentoring organization and if selected by Google, are paired with students who they are expected to mentor. Selected and successful students receive a stipend from Google for their participation.

JBoss has been participating in GSoC for the past several years, with outstanding success, and I am happy to announce that the JBoss community has once again been selected as a mentoring organization for GSoC 2016.

We have posted a list of ideas for proposals for students, but students are also encouraged to submit their own ideas.

How can I participate?

First, review the official timeline for this summer of code:

  • March 14-25: Students submit proposals, interact with mentors and refine proposals
  • March 26-Aptil 21: Projects evaluate proposals, request slots from Google, get slots and assign students to slots
  • April 22: Accepted proposals and students are announced by Google
  • April 22-May 22: Community bonding period - students get to know mentors
  • May 23: Coding starts
  • June 20-27: Mid term evaluations
  • Aug 23-29: Final evaluations

Next, if you are submitting a proposal, it is a good idea to contact the projects and possible mentors as soon as possible, because the individual projects may have additional requirements. Hawkular, for example, requires a non-trivial contribution (i.e. not just code cleanup) from a potential student to be considered.

When submitting, make sure to provide a detailed timeline on what you want to achieve, and when - specially for midterm and final evaluations. Your timeline should probably show weekly and bi-weekly goals against which you can track your progress.

We look forward to seeing your proposals, and to working with you to not only advance open-source software, but also to provide an experience in which students can learn and grow in a professional open-source environment.

Last updated: November 16, 2018