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 2. Have one sub-org admin and at least two mentors who are willing to commit to the full program.
 3. Be willing to accept the [[https://www.python.org/psf/codeofconduct/|Python Community Code of Conduct|]] for the duration of the program.
 2. Have one sub-org admin and at least two mentors who are willing to commit to the full GSoC period.
 3. Accept the [[https://www.python.org/psf/codeofconduct/|Python Community Code of Conduct|]] for the duration of the program.

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Google Summer of Code 2016 @ the Python Software Foundation

Google Summer of Code is a global program that offers post-secondary students an opportunity to be paid for contributing to an open source project over a three month period. Since 2005, the Python Software Foundation has served as an "umbrella organization" to a variety of Python-related projects, as well as sponsoring projects related to the development of the Python language. It is our intention to apply as a mentoring organization again in 2016, but remember that we won't know if we've been selected until the end of February.

If you are curious about how GSoC works, you might want to look at SummerOfCode/2015 to see how we ran things last year and who participated.

Please check back in around January 2016 for more information on our plans for the 2016 program. (Note: GSoC dates and deadlines)

GSoC 2016 has not started!

With GSoC 2015 just finished and GSoC 2016 mentoring org applications not open 'till February 8, 2016, please remember that many mentors are looking forwards to having some time to hack on their own projects. While it's never too early to get involved in open source, if you want to make the best impression on your communities, you might do best not to ask about GSoC. (We don't know anything about mentors, projects, sub-orgs, or even if Python will be accepted to participate at this point.) Instead try questions like "How can I help?" or "I've tried to fix this bug, do you have some time to review my code?"

Students

If you're interested in getting started early, here's 7 things you can do to get started in free and open source software:

  1. Choose an organization to work with. See "How do I choose a project or a sub-org?" if you need help choosing. And don't forget, you can try working with more than one organization!

    • Experience with *any* open source group will help you prepare for GSoC.
    • But if you want the list of orgs who participated under the PSF banner last year, check last year's page here: SummerOfCode/2015 (We don't know who'll be able to participate in 2016, but that's a good place to start.)

  2. Start communicating with the developers. Join the mailing list, IRC channel, or any other communication channels the developers use. Listen, get to know the people involved, and ask questions.

    • If you want to make the best first impression, DO NOT start emails with "Dear Sir." Python has many mentors who are female and/or prefer other forms of address. Try "Dear developers" if you're sending a general email, or use whatever name they use on their email if you're addressing a specific person. Culturally speaking, first names or chosen nicknames are fine for most open source projects.
    • DO ask your question in public. Being able to participate in the open is a signal to developers that you're ready to participate in open source/free software, so it can improve your chances of being accepted to GSoC. It also means others can benefit from seeing your questions and the answers you get.

    • DON'T Ask to ask. Just get right to the point and ask your question without asking if you're allowed to ask a question first. See What does "don't ask to ask?" mean? for more explanation.

  3. Set up your own development environment. This can be a lot of work the first time, so budget time for it, and don't forget that you're going to want to run the code you've written, so you'll need some sort of test environment. This is a good time to practice asking good questions and helping improve setup instructions!

  4. Find some beginner-friendly bugs and try to fix them. Many projects have these tagged as "easy", "bite-size", or "beginner-friendly"

    • Note that if you apply as a student with the PSF you will be asked to submit a code sample, generally code related to your project. A few fixed bugs with code accepted upstream will make your application look great!
    • Some projects have beginner-friendly "bite-sized" bugs listed in the OpenHatch search engine, found here: http://openhatch.org/search/ And the OpenHatch team is full of friendly helpful people who don't mind answering questions!

    • Having trouble figuring out which bugs are beginner-friendly? Try searching for terms like "easy" in the bug tracker. Or choose a bug that sounds easy to you and ask on the mailing list or irc channel: "I'm a beginner and was thinking about working on bug#123456. Would that be an ok one to start on or can you recommend something more beginner-friendly?"
  5. Find bugs and report them. It's always a good idea to get familiar with your project's bug reporting process. Writing excellent bug reports is a really useful skill, so try googling "writing good bug reports" and learn to write really great ones. You might even be able to help improve other people's bug reports by duplicating their results and asking questions to fill in information they didn't provide.

  6. Help with documentation. As a beginner in your project, you're going to see things that are confusing that more experienced developers may not notice. Take advantage of your beginner mindset and make sure to document anything you think is missing!

  7. Help others. This is a great idea for many reasons: explaining things can help you learn them better, demonstrating your skills as a good community member can make you more memorable when your mentors have to choose candidates, and being helpful makes your community a better place!

Mentors and sub-orgs

We won't start really gearing up until January 2016, but if you're looking for something to do, we do have a task list with ideas for next year and we'd love both suggestions and help: https://github.com/terriko/gsoc/issues

You can also drop by #python-gsoc any time to chat about ideas or get help with your plans for next year.

To participate under the Python umbrella, you must do the following:

  1. Be Python-based open source project meeting Google's requirements for GSoC.
  2. Have one sub-org admin and at least two mentors who are willing to commit to the full GSoC period.
  3. Accept the Python Community Code of Conduct for the duration of the program.

  4. Have a good ideas page. (This sometimes takes a few rounds of revisions and we're happy to help you out)
  5. Talk to TerriOda before the Python deadline (not yet announced, but probably the 1st week of March)

Note: Python projects are welcome and encouraged to apply as separate mentoring organizations directly with Google. In fact, we're happy to help you fill out your application and improve your ideas pages. If we've worked with you before, we may also be able to be a reference for you. We're happy to link to your ideas page and direct students your way even if you get accepted separately: we want students to find the best python projects for their skills. It is totally fine if you want to use the Python umbrella org as your backup plan.

SummerOfCode/2016 (last edited 2016-10-01 00:05:22 by TerriOda)

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