About the amount of stipends differing across countries

[Pengcheng Xu]

Hi all,

GSoC is an excellent event organized by Google annually, yet I'm not getting Google's

point on varying the stipend amount received by the student participant based on their

country of residence.

As the current documentation states [1], the total amount of stipend awarded to the

participant can vary greatly for different countries, ranging from 2400-6600 USD. While

the current policy according to PPP makes some sense, the rule of pricing for

goods like food or water does not apply to digital products, which, in my opinion, more

properly suits the students that apply for GSoC's needs.

Let's take the price for a maxed-out MacBook Pro 15in (late 2017, the current model for

now) for an example. It has the following specs:

• Touch Bar and Touch ID
• 3.1GHz quad-core 7th-generation Intel Core i7 processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.1GHz
• 16GB 2133MHz LPDDR3 memory
• 2TB SSD storage
• Radeon Pro 560 with 4GB memory
• Four Thunderbolt 3 ports
• Backlit Keyboard - US English

And, in the United States, that would be 4199 USD on the Apple online store [2]. Well cheaper than

the GSoC stipend, which is 6000 USD in the States, right? Grab a new MacBook Pro after the

awesome session! You still have nearly two thousand bucks to spare!

Yet things change greatly if you study in China. The price of the same MacBook Pro goes up to

32568 CNY [3], and if we exchange that number into USD, it turns out to be a shocking 5145 USD.

"Well, still affordable," you might think, "just lost one trip somewhere." Yet to make matters worse,

according to [1], students in China can only get merely 3600 USD due to the PPP calculating method

mentioned in that piece of documentation. Say good-bye to your new MacBook Pro.

And there are still many countries whose students are troubled by this, as the lowest bound is merely 

2400 USD.

Things like this happen for all digital products, not just those made by Apple. Due to the flying-high taxes

the so-called "poorer" countries apply to these goods, the price is only worse. Yet the students

that study there receives (often far) less money from the project, while they worked the same hard as

the other participants, regardless of where they come from.

And this will limit the devices they can obtain from the stipends of GSoC, as, obviously, not all students

can afford to purchase a MacBook Pro, even with support from their parents. And, without the fine tools,

it's easy to see that they're faced with obstacles on their way of coding.

So, what do you think? Don't hesitate to leave your opinion about this below. 

P.S. Being my first post on this discussion list, I'm not sure if there's any GSoC staff around here. I'd

appreciate it greatly if they can get notified about this somehow.

 [1]: https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/help/student-stipends

 [2]: https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro?product=MPTT2LL/A&step=config#

 [3]: https://www.apple.com/cn/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro?product=MPTT2CH/A&step=config#

[david...@gmail.com]

Hi, I can't totally agree with you because our purpose I think is not to obtain a lot of money, I think we have another purpose - to enter into the world of open source. And the task of Google is to allow the biggest number of people to make it. 

Please, contact me via e-mail, I have some really interesting thoughts that would possibly make you understand the underlying Google's motivation.

пятница, 26 января 2018 г., 15:57:03 UTC+3 пользователь Pengcheng Xu написал: