Google Summer of Code 2010

Ubuntu is participating in the Google Summer of Code 2010, and is eager to attract good, capable, eligible students to apply for the projects.

If you are a registered student and are over 18 years of age, you can apply for one of the projects, or your own (applications open on the Summer of Code page starting March 29 2010).

We would like to select students who are enthusiastic about their projects and are able to commit the time and energy required to make them successful.

Please make your applications detailed and give us enough information to be able to make an intelligent selection. Please remember that being selected is a privilege and a great opportunity. The more you commit, the greater your chance of a fantastic reward at the end.

How to start

• Make sure you are eligible to participate

• Review our Project Ideas

• Read the Selection Process / Proposals section very carefully

• Join the #ubuntu-gsoc Freenode IRC channel

• Send an email to the mailing list, introducing yourself

• Use this template to create your profile in our wiki page

• Apply from March 29 - April 9, 2010 here

• Rock and Roll!

Can you participate?

• You need to be enrolled as a student in a college/university
• You need to be 18+
• If you are a Google employee, intern, contractor, family member, or resident and national of Iran, Syria, Cuba, Sudan, North Korea, and Myanmar (Burma), with whom Google is prohibited by U.S. law from engaging in commerce, you won't be eligible to participate.

Application Process and Proposal

• We will not accept a proposal that we can do ourselves over a few days, so be detailed. But also, don't be super ambitious - it is be better to succeed with a small idea than to submit a complex project and leave the program
• Feel free to submit multiple proposals, but you can only work in one project (Ubuntu)
• Applications are for individuals, you can't work in groups

• Don't feel you have to use one of the listed ideas, or even that they're necessarily good projects to work on! People just add them as they think of good beginner projects. In fact, a custom project proposal is likely to be more impressive, as it shows you've put time into researching the project and getting familiar with its needs. We believe, we'll have loads of applicants for each idea listed on the mentor's page, so keep in mind that your proposals will have less competition

• The idea needs to fit in with our project goals, it needs to be specific, and it needs to be detailed

• Before sending us the whole proposal, we recommend that you send a summary with your idea to the list or to your mentor for feedback

• Include your IRC nick in the proposal
• List your milestones
• Be creative, do not copycat
• Impress us!
• Tell us who you are and why did you choose Ubuntu

• It is highly recommended that you go through Google's advise page

• If you have queries, read Google's faqs and contact us immediately if your question is not answered there

• Write simply, concisely and describe the project in your own words.
• Try not to get intimidated: Passion counts more than experience
• Join the IRC freenode channel, let us know who you are!
• Include some evidence that you are a good programmer, past projects you've worked on are ideal but also just some background information is good enough.
• If you have already submitted patches to Ubuntu implementing part of your project, please link to them from the proposal.

• Where possible discuss your proposal in advance on our mailing lists or on #ubuntu-gsoc Freenode IRC channel to get feedback from the Ubuntu community

Reports

We suggest you send the following report to your mentor every 2 weeks minimum

Subject: Project name - Date of report
TIME SPENT: approx hours

HIGHLIGHTS: what you learnt/ enjoyed the most

CONCERNS: what is concerning you that is out of your hands to change

WAITING ITEMS: Are you waiting for anyone else to complete a task or are you depending on someone else

STALLED TASKS: If you are stuck, please state the factors that delayed those tasks

ACCOMPLISHMENTS: List them by importance

MINOR TASKS: Any other tasks

ACTIONS FOR FOLLOWING WEEK: 

If you don't have the time to write a report or you had a busy week, you should at least send an email to your mentor answering the following questions

1. What have you done since your last status report?
2. In the process of doing it, what did you run into, both positive and negative?
3. What did you do about what you ran into, both positive and negative?
4. What are you going to do next?

Time to code!

• Do your best to write good code!
• Track your progress: the more detailed, the best chances to your project to succeed
• Keep in touch with your mentor all the time
• Write reports/updates to your mentors and mailing list
• Log your activities somewhere (wiki is great for this, and you can create your own wiki page)

Things to consider

• You should know how to program already, preferably in Python.
• If your project involves a UI element, you should know the toolkit for your target desktop; GTK+ for Ubuntu or Xubuntu, Qt for Kubuntu.
• You should at least have a working knowledge of Ubuntu, and knowing our community and its working structure would be an advantage.
• Relative to the whole job market, not many people have the sorts of skills Ubuntu hacking will give you. Doing any serious work on Ubuntu will not only make you a more confident developer, it will look great on your CV/resume.

How to succeed

• Don't overbook yourself. Working on your Summer of Code project should be your main activity for the entire summer. You'll have a lot to learn before you will get to the point where you can begin coding your project, and the projects are all non-trivial. We will provide you with amazing support from the mentors and community, but it is up to you to make sure that you can focus on your project
• Your mentor is here to help you; don't be afraid to ask the difficult questions, or even the easy ones!

• All Ubuntu participants in the Summer of Code programme are subscribed to the ubuntu-soc mailing list. This list is an excellent place to ask for help, discuss ideas or shout to the world about how your project is going.

• Submit progress reports early and often. Use these to honestly reflect on how well you are doing towards your goals, and make adjustments to your project plan to match.

• Get your code public as soon as you can, ideally starting with the empty directory you start in. Make your changes public often. Get your code into Launchpad (QuickStart).

• You need submit a completed spec at the end of the project. It is best if you use the wiki as you go along, to make sure you capture as much relevant information as possible. See SpecLifeCycle and FeatureSpecifications for details of how to write a good spec. If you project does not yet have a spec use the SpecTemplate to create one. Don't forget to make sure your spec is registered in the Blueprint tracker If you have any doubts about this, ask your mentor for help and consult SpecTemplate (and FeatureSpecifications).

The end

• Keep in touch
• Blog about your experience
• Become part of our community!

Ubuntu Projects

The lists of Ubuntu project ideas for Summer of Code 2010 are found on the Ideas GoogleSoC2010 page.