contests similar to summer of code

[kumar]

Can anyone please tell all the contests which are similar to google
summer of code?
I mean all those contests wherein people contribute for open source
and get paid in turn.
Are any of these open to non-students ie working professional who can
contribute in their part time and get paid in turn too.

Thanking you,
kumar

[sankarshan]

On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 7:32 PM, kumar<kr.a...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Can anyone please tell all the contests which are similar to google
> summer of code?

You are probably asking this on the wrong list :)

> I mean all those contests wherein people contribute for open source
> and get paid in turn.

A few FOSS projects do (or, used to) offer bounties for fixing various
problems. Perhaps you could try and initiate a discussion with
projects that match your skills to see if such a thing is feasible.

~sankarshan

--
http://sankarshan.randomink.org/blog/

Sent from Westford, MA, United States

[Souvik Roy]

@sankarshan I see no problem in him asking this question in this list.
I had asked this question to Leslie once, and she had given me a link
to a blog entry with such info. Unfortunately I cant find it now..
@kumar If you are interested in Usability, then there's another
programme called "season of usability" . Leslie, can you please send
the link to other programmes like GSoc again :)

Cheers!
Souvik

[PulkoMandy]

This year I'm in GSoC for Haiku OS. They run their own program in
parallel to GSoC, as a way to get some more students working. It's
funded by community donations and the $500 from google that go to the
org for GSoC.

[Matt Madia]

In addition to Haiku's Code Drive, an independent site Haikuware (
http://www.haikuware.com ) has a bounty system, which is open to
anyone. Unfortunately, at this time Haikuware is experiencing service
issues.

Basically, a programming task is suggested, a developer sets the
requested price, and then individuals in the community may decide to
financially support it. One current bounty is a WiFi stack, being
pursued by Colin Günther (
http://www.haiku-os.org/blog/coling/2009-07-12/wifi_stack_prototype_works
)

--mmadia

[Leslie Hawthorn]

There are several Google Summer of Code like programs mentioned on the Google Open Source Blog. [0]

 

I can think of a few more off the top of my head that I've hear about:

 

Students in Brazil tried one during the Southern Hemisphere summer. I discussed this with some folks at FISL - care to chime in?

 

The OpenMRS project has self-funded an internship program. They have also worked with the Humanitarian FOSS Foundation to fund student interns.

 

The GNOME Foundation has run several student coding programs, including the GNOME Women's Summer Outreach Program, the GNOME Accessibility Outreach Program.

 

I know there are others, particularly regional programs, that I am simply not recalling or haven't heard about - please continue sharing!

 

I also want to point out that I think the key aspect of success for programs like these is the mentoring component, not the money, Money certainly helps - we all have bills to pay - but being effective in Open Source means engaging well with the comunity first.

 

Cheers,

LH

[0] - http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/search/label/summer%20of%20code%20meme

--
Leslie Hawthorn
Program Manager - Open Source
Google Inc.

http://code.google.com/opensource/

I blog here:

http://google-opensource.blogspot.com - http://www.hawthornlandings.org

[Runa Sandvik]

On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 9:00 PM, Leslie Hawthorn<lho...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I know there are others, particularly regional programs, that I am simply
> not recalling or haven't heard about - please continue sharing!

There's the Finnish Summer Code:
http://www.coss.fi/kesakoodi
http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2008/12/finnish-summer-code-2008.html

--
Runa Sandvik

[Tomáš Linhart]

I also want to point out that I think the key aspect of success for programs like these is the mentoring component, not the money, Money certainly helps - we all have bills to pay - but being effective in Open Source means engaging well with the comunity first.

 

Well, If I can choose between working for open source for free for entire summer or take a some job in a computer company where I get paid for it so I choose  a regular job. Open source is exciting, but not many people will spend entire summer coding for free when they can do it for money. Of course do open source and get paid is the best option.

I don't get it why Google limits number of students? becase of organizations don't need more or why?

[Egidijus Jankauskas]

Looks like other companies like Google's idea. Check the Unity Summer
of Code:

http://unity3d.com/usc/

The deadline has passed for this year, but maybe they will do the same
next year.

[Nandeep Mali]

2009/7/31 Tomáš Linhart <snea...@gmail.com>:
[...]

> I don't get it why Google limits number of students? becase of organizations
> don't need more or why?

Because of limited funds? Can't pay unlimited number of them. :)

[Sergiu Dumitriu]

On Jul 30, 11:26 pm, Tomáš Linhart <sneake...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I also want to point out that I think the key aspect of success for
> > programs like these is the mentoring component, not the money, Money
> > certainly helps - we all have bills to pay - but being effective in Open
> > Source means engaging well with the comunity first.
>
> Well, If I can choose between working for open source for free for entire
> summer or take a some job in a computer company where I get paid for it so I
> choose  a regular job. Open source is exciting, but not many people will
> spend entire summer coding for free when they can do it for money. Of course
> do open source and get paid is the best option.
>
> I don't get it why Google limits number of students? becase of organizations
> don't need more or why?

First because Google is paying. So your question becomes "Why doesn't
Google give for free all the money we want?", which doesn't really
make sense in the materialistic world that we live in.

Second, because the goal of GSoC is not to pay for FLOSS development,
but to give the occasion to students to get familiar with FLOSS. This
means that students need mentors, and the number of mentors is
limited. One thing I noticed is that mentors and their organizations
tend to over-commit, since many students look promising, and all
projects are interesting. However, the more students are accepted, the
less time mentors can invest into each student, and the higher the
chance of failure. Fewer projects with higher quality is better than
more projects, which are mostly unusable. So, the fact that Google
limits the number of slots an organization receives is a very good
thing, although it hurts in the beginning.

[Tomáš Linhart]

According these stats - http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AgL4N-OdGxhQcDZEdW9BMmxKVG9LbVV6b1NxNnJhWlE&hl=en GSoC got almost 2000 mentors, but only 1000 students.

2009/7/31 Sergiu Dumitriu <sergiu....@gmail.com>

[Sergiu Dumitriu]

On Jul 31, 3:13 pm, Tomáš Linhart <sneake...@gmail.com> wrote:
> According these stats -http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AgL4N-OdGxhQcDZEdW9BMmxKVG9Lb...

> GSoC
> got almost 2000 mentors, but only 1000 students.

Yes, but 2 mentors per student is hardly enough for a successful
project, unless the student really knows what he's doing and rarely
needs the mentor. Big and popular projects have a lot of students to
choose from, and usually the students they get are already familiar
with the application, and sometimes even with the code. For my project
(I'm one of the admins for XWiki), the situation is totally different,
mostly because the target users are enterprises, and I doubt that
there are many students working in enterprises... So, as mentors we
must teach the students everything, from what the product does, how it
works, how is a module written, what tools we use, and not to mention
all the questions about their own project. And on top of that, we must
try to get them involved as much as possible in the community, and for
that we must also be psychologists trying to extinguish the fear of
writing to a huge mailing list, full of important people. When you
also take into consideration that mentors are not just mentors, but
active contributors that must take care of their own code, and most of
them also have a full time job outside the free software world, you
can say that mentors are real multi-functional heroes.

Thus, mentoring done right takes a lot of time, and much more than
just coding skills. 2000 mentors is not much.

Now, also take into consideration that the number of mentors probably
didn't go down that much after the students were selected, thus the
mentors/wanted students ratio was much lower in the beginning.

> 2009/7/31 Sergiu Dumitriu <sergiu.dumit...@gmail.com>

[Robby O'Connor]

With my org: We have one main mentor then a backup mentor that can come
in if my main mentor is out of reach, on vacation, busy, etc.

Overall, I've been able to work with my mentor almost exclusively, and
i've learned a lot from him :)

--rob
Sergiu Dumitriu wrote:

[Leslie Hawthorn]

2009/7/31 Sergiu Dumitriu <sergiu....@gmail.com>

Well put all around. Thank you Sergiu.

Best,

LH 

[Helder Ribeiro]

On Jul 30, 4:00 pm, Leslie Hawthorn <lho...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > There are several Google Summer of Code like programs mentioned on the
> > Google Open Source Blog. [0]
>
> I can think of a few more off the top of my head that I've hear about:
>
> Students in Brazil tried one during the Southern Hemisphere summer. I
> discussed this with some folks at FISL - care to chime in?

Sorry I took this long to answer. Yes, some of us at Unicamp took a
swing at organizing a local SoC in 2007, with terrible results. I
wasn't directly involved, but I talked to those who were and gathered
some feedback. We had about 8 mentors and 13 students and, in the end,
none of the projects was actually carried out. Why it didn't work:

- Poor marketing
Not too many people knew about this, so only a few signed up, which
led us to the next problem;

- No selection phase
Since there weren't many, students just had to show up on a mailing
list saying "I'm in" and they were in. They didn't even have to write
an application;

- No "officialness"
This was a student initiative. There was no official endorsement from
the university or from any company or institution, which led
applicants to not take this very seriously;

- No reward/punishment
There were no prizes in cash or gadgets or anything, there was no
extra exposure participants would have (like giving talks in
conferences) and, due to the lack of "officialness", it wouldn't buy
you course credits or look good on your CV either. With not much to
gain, there's also not much to lose, and even the social pressure of
"flunking" our SoC was much smaller than that of flunking the Google
SoC.

This time we are going to do it right:

- Thanks to the visibility Unicamp has been getting as 2nd in the
world with the most accepted students (http://google-
opensource.blogspot.com/2009/09/tasty-new-google-summer-of-code-
stats.html), we already have support from the university, which will
give course credits to completing participants (we also got credits
for Google SoC participants);

- We'll kick things off with a smaller Hacking Weekend to help build
enthusiasm and awareness;

- We'll have a tighter application process, regardless of number of
applicants. We believe that the upfront work of writing a proposal
will help select people with a stronger commitment;

- We'll try to get talk space on conferences like FISL to promote our
participants' work;

- We're already in touch with alumni startups who work with free
software to provide us with mentors. This will help them have more
people qualified to work on FOSS projects they use and contribute to,
and will help applicants have a more concrete sense of the improved
hire-ability given by participating in the program. In fact, we've
already had a few students who work at these companies be mentors in
the GSoC this year;

- As for prizes, it will depend on budget, but we want to at least
give completing participants some cool swag (which will also work as
good marketing for the next installment).

It would be good to hear other people's experiences (especially
related to universities) who've tried this and what DOs and DON'Ts
they've run into. Any criticism on our approach is also greatly
appreciated.

The main person responsible for this is Gustavo F. Padovan
(padovan.org), our champion enthusiast, so people behind other
initiatives can also ping him if you need, or want to give, help.

Cheers,

Helder

--
Helder Ribeiro
Blog: http://helderribeiro.net
Open Parliament: http://migre.me/7bkC

>
> The OpenMRS project has self-funded an internship program. They have also
> worked with the Humanitarian FOSS Foundation to fund student interns.
>
> The GNOME Foundation has run several student coding programs, including the
> GNOME Women's Summer Outreach Program, the GNOME Accessibility Outreach
> Program.
>
> I know there are others, particularly regional programs, that I am simply
> not recalling or haven't heard about - please continue sharing!
>
> I also want to point out that I think the key aspect of success for programs
> like these is the mentoring component, not the money, Money certainly helps
> - we all have bills to pay - but being effective in Open Source means
> engaging well with the comunity first.
>
> Cheers,
> LH
>
> > [0] -

> >http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/search/label/summer%20of%20code...

[Leslie Hawthorn]

On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 12:32 PM, Helder Ribeiro <hel...@gmail.com> wrote:

This time we are going to do it right:

- Thanks to the visibility Unicamp has been getting as 2nd in the
world with the most accepted students (http://google-
opensource.blogspot.com/2009/09/tasty-new-google-summer-of-code-
stats.html), we already have support from the university, which will
give course credits to completing participants (we also got credits
for Google SoC participants);

How did you talk your university into this? I would be so excited to help spawn even more GSoC like programs by working with universities to get such mentor/mentee initiatives recognized for course credit.

Cheers,
LH

[James Myers]

I don’t know the case here, but there are lots of institutions that have some form of senior capstone activity that has students/teams working for external customers on real-world projects – the customer gets code and the students get academic credit. It would make a lot of sense to connect those programs with open source ‘customers’…

 

 Jim

[João Paulo Rechi Vita]

On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 5:09 PM, Leslie Hawthorn <lho...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 12:32 PM, Helder Ribeiro <hel...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> This time we are going to do it right:
>>
>> - Thanks to the visibility Unicamp has been getting as 2nd in the
>> world with the most accepted students (http://google-
>> opensource.blogspot.com/2009/09/tasty-new-google-summer-of-code-
>> stats.html), we already have support from the university, which will
>> give course credits to completing participants (we also got credits
>> for Google SoC participants);
>
> How did you talk your university into this? I would be so excited to help
> spawn even more GSoC like programs by working with universities to get such
> mentor/mentee initiatives recognized for course credit.
>

Hello Leslie,

I'm also one of the students involved in organizing our program. We
are lucky to have a professor (which is also my MSc advisor) in our
institute who is a free software enthusiast and is very supportive of
our group. She is going to open a summer study course on which the
approvance criteria is going to be the approval in the program.

IMHO a good way to. spawn more initiatives like this would be try to
make more university directors / professors aware of how much their
students can gain from the contact with FOSS during their undergrad.
The students can get in touch with real-life program development
process from FOSS communities and also to look how some kind of
problem is solved in real-programs since the code is available.

--
João Paulo Rechi V

--
João Paulo Rechi Vita
MSc Computer Science Student
Computer Engineer
IC / Unicamp
http://jprvita.wordpress.com/

[suresh dandiboina]

Hi all..
   This is a newbie in Open source.Though the programme Google Summer of Code is quite encouraging.It sounds a little big for a new one like me.Its somewhat tough to get the project here.A person, who is just a kid in projects and having skills in programming languages like C,C++,java & Shell scripting is unable to get in here.He must know some stuff related to sub version control systems,repositories,patches,makefiles....he must meet some organizations for mentoring.Can anyone suggest some mentoring organizations for the above mentioned skills...So that he/she can contribute to open source.

[Charles A. Lopez]

Has anyone ever heard of the mythical man month?

2009/8/2 Sergiu Dumitriu <sergiu....@gmail.com>

[mibby]

hello all,
thank you for your replies ,can you please say me what is
the easiest open source program (or) contest similar to summer of code
of the all.please reply me.
thank you.