Summer Coding 2010

The Fedora Summer Coding connects students, mentors, sub-projects, and sponsors to provide coding opportunities as summer jobs.

This page has information for all the groups involved.

This page is a draft only
It is still under construction and content may change. Do not rely on the information on this page.

This content is still being worked on and may contain inaccuracies until the draft mark is removed.

General information

The Summer Coding 2010 schedule has the timeline of events.

The page Summer Coding 2010 is the central location to find information about the program.

To communicate with other people about Summer Coding 2010 use these resources:

• General open discussion mailing list for 2010:

  Discussions between students, mentors, sub-projects, and upstreams.

  Weekly status report from students, in addition to blog.

  General program announcements; all students and mentors are required to be on this list.

  Occasional discussion, resolution, and decision on student project matters, as warranted.

• IRC #fedora-summer-coding on irc.freenode.net (Web-based chat)
• SIG mailing list

  How we are structuring and running the program - discussions and decisions.

  Anything related to program oversight, goals, short- and long-term plans - discussions and decisions.

• Contact project leaders directly:
  • Karsten Wade
  • Patrick W. Barnes
  • Put yourself here if you are a leader and want to be contacted individually by those who need this communication channel.
• Private mentors list

You are a student

This section is for students interested in contributing to the Fedora Project or JBoss.org through Fedora Summer Coding 2010.

If you have an idea or want to participate through Fedora or JBoss.org, you should already be looking around the community and communicating.

Timeline for students

This schedule is ready for Summer Coding 2010. Join the discussion mailing list and/or watch this page to be updated about schedule changes.

Start dates are emphasized and deadlines are in bold emphasis for student items.

Deadlines are 23:59 UTC on the specified date
For example, if the deadline is 09 August, all work must be in for mentor review by 23:59 UTC on 09 August. You must adjust for your own timezone, meaning the deadline may be at a different time of the day for you locally.

• April

  7 April - Students can begin submitting applications

• May

  Whole month - students, mentors, and sub-projects get to know each other

  13 May - Mentors need to finish idea pages

  20 May - Students applications + proposals need to be in

  21 May - Sponsors must pledge funding by this point

  24 May - Organizers finalize how many applications will be accepted

  27 May - Mentors + admins finalize rank-ordered list

  28 May - Students informed yes/no about application

• June

  Whole month - code, interact

  01 June - Project begins (depending on proposal)

Proposals may have a modified schedule included.

• July

  05 July - Midterm evaluations period begins

  05 July - Student midterm deadline for evaluation (first, soft deadline)

  08 July - Student midterm deadline for evaluation (final deadline)

  12 July - Midterm evaluations due from mentors

• August

  09 August - Project coding completes

  16 August - Students final report, code snapshot, and evaluations due

  20 August - Mentor evaluations due for students

  23 August - Final evaluations due back to students

  25 August - Mentor, sub-project evaluations of the Summer Coding program requested

• September

  01 September - Sponsors receive report from organizers

  06 September - Sponsors release and deliver funds (proposed date)

Why work with Fedora and JBoss.org?

Our projects are large and diverse. We are very experienced at working with new contributors and helping them be successful.

Many long-time contributors continue to be around, lending expertise and mentoring. People who stay around the community and do good work are noticed. They get hired for jobs from it, including being hired by Red Hat. Past Google Summer of Code students were hired by Red Hat, as well as interns in various positions. This is just an example, as experience and reputation in the JBoss.org and Fedora Project communities is influential on your career in many ways.

As long-standing communities with many facets, it is possible for you to find many rewarding sub-projects to work on.

Do you want to start from ideas mentors already have?

Mentors and sub-projects have put up sections on the Summer coding ideas for 2010 page. There you can find:

• Full ideas that you might want to start on;
• Suggestions and use cases, to help you make up your own idea;
• Links to the sub-project/upstream where you can learn more.

For example, if you are interested in doing something for the RHQ Project, there is a link to an an ideas page on their website and how to contact the team. If you contact them, you can learn about even more ideas, and share some of your thinking.

Even if a mentor has an idea, you want to find one that inspires you. You must become part of the idea yourself.

Do you have an idea you need a mentor for?

People can be most passionate about an idea that is their own. That passion can be what helps you get through the hard part of the project.

Do you know what person or sub-project in JBoss or Fedora that might be the mentoring group for your idea?

You need to do these two things:

1. Contact the relevant sub-project for your idea or contact the discussion group.
2. Be prepared to explain your idea, receive input and criticism, and grow (or reduce) the idea so it has the best chance of being accepted for Fedora Summer Coding.

Are you already working in the Fedora or JBoss communities?

Students who are users, participants, or contributors in the Fedora and JBoss communities are encouraged to participate in GSoC through Fedora/JBoss.

Do you have ideas for what you'd like to see in the project?

Are you working in an area of the project that might want to mentor you for your GSoC work? For example, if you write for the Fedora Documentation Project or translate for the Fedora Localization Project, talk with your group to see if there are ideas you can turn in to a student proposal, with another sub-project member as the mentor.

You are a mentor

Wanting to be a mentor is a good thing. Join the discussion list and tell us about yourself, your project idea, and so forth.

You must be committed to work with the student and be a liaison between the student, sub-projects, upstreams, and the overall project (Fedora Project or JBoss.org.) You can come from a Fedora sub-project, an upstream such as a JBoss.org project, from a university or college sponsoring students, as a few examples.

After discussion on the main Summer Coding 2010 list, you will be invited to join the private mentor discussion list

Timeline for mentors

This schedule is ready for Summer Coding 2010. Join the discussion mailing list and/or watch this page to be updated about schedule changes.

Start dates are emphasized and deadlines are in bold emphasis for student items.

Deadlines are 23:59 UTC on the specified date
For example, if the deadline is 09 August, all work must be in for mentor review by 23:59 UTC on 09 August. You must adjust for your own timezone, meaning the deadline may be at a different time of the day for you locally.

• April

  7 April - Students can begin submitting applications

• May

  Whole month - students, mentors, and sub-projects get to know each other

  13 May - Mentors need to finish idea pages

  20 May - Students applications + proposals need to be in

  21 May - Sponsors must pledge funding by this point

  24 May - Organizers finalize how many applications will be accepted

  27 May - Mentors + admins finalize rank-ordered list

  28 May - Students informed yes/no about application

• June

  Whole month - code, interact

  01 June - Project begins (depending on proposal)

Proposals may have a modified schedule included.

• July

  05 July - Midterm evaluations period begins

  05 July - Student midterm deadline for evaluation (first, soft deadline)

  08 July - Student midterm deadline for evaluation (final deadline)

  12 July - Midterm evaluations due from mentors

• August

  09 August - Project coding completes

  16 August - Students final report, code snapshot, and evaluations due

  20 August - Mentor evaluations due for students

  23 August - Final evaluations due back to students

  25 August - Mentor, sub-project evaluations of the Summer Coding program requested

• September

  01 September - Sponsors receive report from organizers

  06 September - Sponsors release and deliver funds (proposed date)

What to do with your ideas

Put them here on the Summer Coding ideas page.

We are looking in to using OpenHatch] for managing ideas. If you are interested in learning more about that, join us on the Summer Coding SIG mailing list.

How to work with students

One way is to provide an idea for students to work on. This idea might be very well planned out, in which case you may need a high-level of contact with the student to get it implemented correctly.

It is harder to find success where you are completely certain of how an idea needs to be implemented; finding a student with the skills and interest to implement a specific solution is a lot harder than finding a student with enough skills to respond to a use case need.

Where you can have looser ideas, you may be able to find a student who works as a sort-of intern who can implement a solution to a use case you have. In past experiences, students going after a use case are more likely to get somewhere with self-direction.

You may also want to work with a student who brings an idea to your sub-project. This requires a different level of communication throughout the project, but can be the most rewarding.

Mentor responsibilities

You are an essential part of the student's success, the project's success, and the success for your overall organization (Fedora, JBoss.org, or another).

Your responsibilities include:

• Being an interface for an identified sub-project or SIG in Fedora or JBoss.org.
• Helping students communicate with the overall project and any upstreams.
• Be the final, accountable person for deciding if the student is successful or not, which affects payment.

Are you committed to working with all parties?

You need to be committed to working on your part of the Fedora Summer Coding 2010 for it to be successful. You may want to work with another mentor (co-mentoring) to ensure there is always someone available to work with the student and other project members.

You want to help organize

Check out the Summer Coding SIG or the GSoC 2010 organization app.

You are a sponsoring organization

Fedora Summer Coding is about connecting sponsors (those with resources to share) with students (those with time, passion, and skills to share.)

Why you should be a sponsor?

What do you get out of it?

• Positively impact FOSS projects.
• Get your brand in front of smart students who want to work on FOSS.
• Work on a community program that demonstrates how open source business is done.
• See something you’d like coded be completed.
• Other positive brand associations.

What you need to do

We need to start talking, soon.

• Open by default on the discuss list - http://lists.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/summer-coding-discuss
• Private via direct email to project leadership - [[User:Quaid|Karsten Wade], ...

What are the resources you can supply?

1. Money to pay stipends to students for spending focused time on these FOSS projects. This is a cross between a summer job and an internship.
2. Someone to help coordinate and to contribute as part of the Fedora Summer Coding special interest group (SIG).
3. Mentors, especially if they work actively in sub-project or area the sponsor is supporting.

What does the Summer Coding program do?

The Fedora Summer Coding mentors sort the student ideas, generate the list of approved proposals, work with the students throughout the summer, and make sure you hear back about how things went.

It’s not necessary as a sponsor to have ideas of how your resources should be used, that’s what the Fedora Project and JBoss.org mentors and sub-projects are prepared to do.

You can learn more about the model we are using in this blog post, Summer Of Code Swimchart: Now With More Generic.