Participation in Google Summer of Code 2012. Part One: Proposal Submission
Inspired by the passanger2012 habrauser post , I decided to apply for Google Summer of Code 2012. And they accepted me! In this article I will talk about my experience in presenting a proposal (it is still fresh in my head), and I will also write 2 more articles about the course of the program itself. Anyone interested, please under the cat!
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I was ahead of awRabbit . Everything is already described here (with the only difference that I had an extremely positive experience in GSoC):
The whole truth about Google Summer of Code - part 1
The whole truth about Google Summer of Code - part 2
The whole truth about Google Summer of Code - part 3
The whole truth about Google Summer of Code - part 4
How it works
It all starts with the fact that organizations submit applications for participation. They make a list of ideas by which students write their proposals for participation in the Google Summer of Code (GSoC). The idea in brief, one or two paragraphs, describes what you have to do. The idea does not contain information about how it will be implemented. The student, in his proposal for participation, specifically paints the idea, and makes a concrete description of how it will be implemented. In addition, any student can add their own, completely new idea
The organization itself evaluates the received proposals from students. Google will distribute places for students among the organization, pay cash rewards, as well as control the entire process. Google is a judge if there are disputes between students, mentors, administrators of the organization, etc. Google may make exceptions to any of the rules. The word google is law.
Stage 1: Looking for an idea
We go to the official website and see: 180 organizations, each with 20 or more ideas! It will take too long to see everything. In the search there is an opportunity to search by organization name and by tags. At the beginning, I looked for organizations that were interesting to me (“eclipse”, “jetbrains”, “twitter”, etc.), looked at their ideas and made a list of interesting ones for me. Then I started searching by tags ("java", "python", "git"). So I found the JBoss Community, where I eventually submitted my proposal. Choosing an idea, you must first look for the one that you are really interested in and that you would like to do, even if you did not participate in Google Summer of Code. But there are still some aspects.
Own idea VS idea from organization
As I said, if you definitely want to participate in Google Summer of Code from a particular organization, but not one of their ideas does not suit you, then you can offer your own! The idea should be thought out and important for the organization. I can say that of the 8 accepted proposals in JBoss, 4 were offered by students!
Known VS unknown organization
Subjectively, it seemed to me that most of the proposals were submitted to well-known organizations. In the less well-known organizations there were less willing, and therefore more likely that they will choose you. Are there any mentors from Habré from GSoC? What do you think about this?
New VS 'former' organization
According to the rules of GSoC, new organizations do not get more than 2 places for the first time. This is due to the fact that Google cares more about quality, not quantity. They want to be sure that the organization has good mentors, and that they are really ready to devote enough time to support the students. Exceptions are known organizations with a good reputation, and organizations that previously participated in GSoC as part of a parent organization, or a partner organization.
Number of offers
It is allowed to submit up to 20 (!) Offers for participation. Organizations see how many offers you have submitted. If you have submitted more than 6 sentences, you will most likely be considered a spammer, since to write even 6 really good sentences you need to spend a fair amount of time. Once again:
Stage 2: We fulfill the prerequisites
In some organizations there is a prerequisite: before you submit a proposal for participation, you need to show that you really at least understand something in programming. Basically, they ask you to fix a bug from their bug tracker, and for some organizations it will be enough if you improve the documentation a bit or add a translation of the article. These tasks are small and solved quickly, they are just to filter out spammers, and those who write a sentence on the last day.
There were no preconditions in JBoss, you could submit a proposal immediately.
Stage 3: We write the first version
So, you chose the idea and decided to write a proposal! Here's what should be in a good sentence (taken from forums, emails, conversations with mentors and the GSoC FAQ):
- short description (maximum 300 words)
- Your contact details + time zone
- benefit from your idea
- how exactly are you going to implement the idea
- timeline
- personal information
- Why do you want to participate from this organization?
Also, I was guided by three suggestions that the Mozilla Foundation considered good in 2009:
Next, we find the email address of the mentor and send him the first version of the proposal, asking her to view and help with advice. The mentor will usually be glad that they showed interest to his idea and will tell you what else can be improved or added.
We supplement the proposal, thank him and ask if we can mention his name in your proposal. Usually the mentor will not mind.
Stage 4: Formally Submitting the Offer
When everything is ready, go to the Google Summer of Code website and submit an offer to the organization of interest.
Some organizations ask students to add suggestions to the organization’s wiki repository as well. Remember to do this if required.
Announcement of admitted students
Announcement of admitted students was held this year on April 23 at 19:00 UTC. If you are accepted, you will receive an official confirmation from Google. Congratulations! You did it!
Do not worry if you do not receive a response from Google at exactly the time specified in the announcement! I received a message only half an hour later. The GSoC server itself, the first 40 minutes after the announcement, was heavily overloaded and constantly gave an error 500 (to be honest, I did not expect to see this from Google with their cloud infrastructure).
Useful tips
- Start preparing in advance !!! It took me about everything for about 3 days. You will likely have to exchange a couple of messages with the mentor and / or administrator of the organization. They may be in a different time zone and they may have a lot of work, so that they may take time to respond.
- The first paragraph in your sentence should explain in simple language why your proposal is important for the organization and why you are worthy to implement it. (marketing, marketing, marketing!)
- Ask an English-speaking friend to check your offer. Reading grammatically and stylistically correct text is much more pleasant and it can increase your chances. If there are no English-speaking friends, then do not be lazy at least to check the text for spelling in a text editor.
- if you communicated with a mentor, add his name to your proposal (of course, after asking his permission). A phrase like "I would like your feedback." Will add to your proposal.
- mention that you will write a blog during the development of the solution (and of course write it). Organizations like this.
Some statistics
Ratio accepted / submitted proposals GSoC: 1212/6685 [18%]
JBoss Community accepted / submitted offers: 8/56 [14%]
KDE accepted suggestions: 60
accepted suggestions from twitter: 3
average number of students per organization: 1212/180 = 6.7
Dare!
In conclusion, here is my proposal , which was adopted in JBoss. I will be glad to answer any questions in the comments! The habraouzer article passanger2012, mentioned at the very beginning, describes a lot of things that I missed here. Good luck with
UPD1:
Habrayuzer fader44 points out the importance of communicating with mentors, as well as visiting IRC and participating in mailings! It really is! For example, I first learned all the news in JBoss from mailings, and only a few were published on the main site.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/142680/
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