Google Summer of Code 2010

Ubuntu will once again participating in the Google Summer of Code.

It is a great opportunity to expose new students to the wonderful world of Ubuntu, get some exciting projects off the ground and get good exposure for the projects, students and organizations alike.

The main goal for this program is to encourage university student participation in the open source world. It is a great opportunity for students in Computer Science or related fields. Google Summer of Code (GSoC) is an annual program, in which Google awards stipends to hundreds of students who successfully complete a requested free software / open-source coding project during the summer.

The program is open to students aged 18 or older.

The program invites students who meet their eligibility criteria to post applications that detail the software-coding project they wish to perform. The applications are then evaluated by us.

Participating

We are looking for both students and mentors. See the appropriate page below for more information.

• Information for Students

• Information for Mentors

Participants must be eligible according to the rules of the Summer of Code programme available from Google's Summer of Code FAQ.

Project Ideas

We need exciting project ideas - preferably with detailed specs. Ideas can be related to the following broad topics:

• Ubuntu
• Kubuntu
• Accessibility

If you have a project idea, and would like it to be considered, please add a project headings with a brief description to this page. Selected projects will be tracked on Blueprint.

If you are ready to create a detailed spec please add it to Blueprint. We would encourage members of the community who have been thinking of a cool new feature or plan to seize the opportunity to get it into the idea pool, as it might just get selected and implemented.

• Ubuntu Project Ideas

Remember : A good idea that has been discussed with a mentor beforehand, will give that proposal a priority. If we are of the opinion that Ubuntu would benefit from the project and there's a mentor willing to mentor your project, you will be paired up with them. The mentors then will rank the applications and submit the ranked list to Google. Google then, decides how many projects each organization gets, and selects the top-n applications for that organization, where n is the number of projects assigned to them.

Important links

• Project's website

• Timeline

• Mailing list

• IRC: #ubuntu-gsoc or #gsoc on freenode

• FAQs

• Ubuntu Project ideas

Who to contact

If you are interested in an specific Ubuntu project or if you have your own idea, apply at http://socghop.appspot.com/ - however you might want to discuss with Ubuntu Developers first, so you can see how much interest there is and what you might want to bear in mind before you apply:

• http://wiki.ubuntu.com/DesktopTeam

• http://wiki.ubuntu.com/ServerTeam

• https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam

• https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MobileTeam

• https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CommunityTeam

• https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeam

• https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam

If you have any problems, send us an mail to: maria.randazzo@ubuntu.com or daniel.holbach@ubuntu.com or even better ubuntu-soc@lists.ubuntu.com

If you want to discuss an idea, concerns or suggestions the best thing is to post it in our mailing list:

We have also set up an IRC Channel at irc://irc.freenode.org/#ubuntu-gsoc

If you have any specific questions, you can also contact the mentors directly

Privacy Tool(s)

Confidentiality of data stored on a computer is critical for a lot of company and organizations. It can be dramatic if confidential data (i.e : stored on laptop) are thieved and diffused. An application which allow to encrypt the whole home directory, encrypt swap and create a 'safe deposit box' to store important private files will be useful.

A tool like Firefox "Clear my tracks" will be also appreciated.

More information : PrivacyTools https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/privacy-tools