Google Summer of Code 2006
Google’s Summer of Code 2006 closed its doors to new applicants yesterday, and I’ve submitted two applications for open source projects to do over the summer.
The Summer of Code, which also ran last year, is a Google sponsored event which pays developers to help out with open source software projects by clearing bug-fixing backlogs, coding new features or even evangelising.
Normally, open source software is maintained primarily by those who give up some or all of their free time to doing it. Most of these people also have full-time jobs, whether in IT or any other industry. As a direct result of this, many projects progress quite slowly. The Summer of Code aims to get around this by paying people to devote full-time hours during the summer to help out.
As I mentioned, I have signed up for two projects. One is to help the Mozilla Foundation with tracking and prioritising nearly 200 security related bugs in Firefox. The other is to completely redesign the MythWeb interface for MythTV.
In the end, this creates a win-win situation - developers get paid $4500 to help out with projects and can then advertise this in their portfolios, the projects themselves get $500 as well as quality code and a faster release schedule and Google gets the kudos for sponsoring open source development.
If you missed the Summer of Code this time around, then get ready for the next one, which should be held next year if everything goes to plan. It’s a brilliant way of helping out, getting involved, and also learning all at the same time!