paid summer internships working on open source software -- application period open now

[Katherine]

The Google Summer of Code and Outreachy programs are open again -- paid summer internships ($5500 stipend) working on open source projects with an assigned mentor.

• Google Summer of Code accepts university students (doesn't matter how many credits you are taking)
• Outreachy helps people from groups underrepresented in free and open source software get involved. 
• Currently, internships are open internationally to women (cis and trans), trans men, and genderqueer people. Additionally, they are open to residents and nationals of the United States of any gender who are Black/African American, Hispanic/Latin@, American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander. And they are planning to expand the program to more participants from underrepresented backgrounds in the future.
• Folks applying to Outreachy are encouraged to apply to GSoC as well.

There's a lot of materials to read on the websites, but first look at the list of participating organizations (lots of Linux projects among them) and see if there are any that you're excited about:

• https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/organizations
• https://wiki.gnome.org/Outreachy/2017/MayAugust#Participating_Organizations

...and then the work begins. Even just the application itself is a lot of work: 

• deep diving into the programs' websites
• deep diving into the open source communities of interest 
• contributing bug fixes to the open source communities of interest -- a *required* part of the application (successful applicants general contribute multiple)
  

If accepted, you are expected to work 30+ hours per week from June 30th to August 30th. If you already have an internship, another summer job, or plan to be gone on vacation for more than a week during that time, these aren't the right programs for you this summer.

Whatever the outcome, just applying is a great experience -- joining open source software projects gives you great experience for working on large software projects -- many times students apply one summer, are not accepted but stay involved with the open source project, and then submit a much stronger application the next time and are accepted.

Definitely check this out!

Katherine

p.s. Here's a panel discussion about how to be successful applicants + then participants in these programs:

https://vreplay.mozilla.com/replay/showRecordingExternal.html?key=MGhffWijOIA7FLK

00:00:00     Outreach Program for Women presentation by Larissa Shapiro

00:09:00     Google Summer of Code presentation by Carol Smith

00:21:00     Google Code-in by Carol Smith

00:26:20     Panel Begins - Introductions

00:33:20     What is your advice for how to choose a project?

00:39:30     How did you make your first contribution?

00:45:15     As a mentor, what do you like to see when people first contact you?

00:49:40     How do you select the participants?

00:51:20     How did you structure communication with your mentor?

00:59:15     How do you balance contributing to open source with other things you do in your life?

01:05:00     How does participating in open source relate to getting jobs?

01:09:05     Carol, how did you go from being an administrative assistant to a programs manager?

01:12:55     If you just learned to code, how likely is it that you will get to work on code for an open source project?

01:14:30     How many projects or how deep does one need to complete to be a contender for an internship?

01:19:15     Are there open source projects that have meetups in SF where people can get started?

01:22:45     Do you have to be a college student to participate in GSoC?

01:24:00     Do you have to be enrolled in CS to participate in GSoC?

01:24:55     Can you participate in OPW remotely? What is the time of year for OPW?

01:25:35     How can you get a mentor if you are not planning to apply for an internship?

01:27:50     How do I find projects for OPW?

01:29:00     As a humanities major, how do I find out how I can contribute?

01:33:10     Wrap-up

...this was filmed in 2014, when "Outreachy" was the "Outreach Program for Women" -- it's still the same program, it just has expanded to include other under-represented groups.

[Katherine]

Some good advice for Google Summer of Code + Outreachy:

https://opensource.googleblog.com/2011/03/dos-and-donts-of-google-summer-of-code.html

...and some interesting discussions about open source software:

http://www.drdobbs.com/open-source/how-to-contribute-to-open-source-project/231000080

http://producingoss.com/en/producingoss.html

...especially interesting point that most professional software developers get involved in a new-to-them open source project because there's a specific bug that they run across.

Also, good advice about assessing an open source community:

The first step is generally to determine whether the software is any good.

When I look at a piece of open source software before I download code, I'm looking to see whether a lot of people are complaining about broken installations, or if there are questions that suggest poor programming practices. And are people getting answers quickly?

Every good open source project has a public discussion forum, email or forum-based, and has developers who have a stewardship mentality about it and care about happy customers, even if they're not paying customers. So, before even touching the code, I would evaluate the community — because there is an awful lot of code that has no community behind it, such as somebody open sourcing something they worked on at their last job, or an overnight hack, with no intention of making it usable.

Evaluate the community, look for activity, look for a release every couple of months, people who've used it and said good things or even bad things.

...also this applies to "how does this community treat its members" -- no one wants to acquire more jerks in one's life.