[PLUG] About GSoC

[Dipen]

On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 8:59 AM, Dipen <dipench at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 8:59 AM, Dipen <dipench at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 12:52 AM, Ratnadeep <ratnadeepdeshmane at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I am final year engineering student and this year i want to participate
>>> for
>>> Google Summer of Code.  Regarding this I need help for things like -
>>>
>>> - Selection of organization and project.
>>> - Regarding application form such that there will be more chances for
>>> getting selected.
>>>
>>> Is there any expert or mentor worked with GSoC or any past GSoC student
>>> in
>>> Pune who can guide for GSoC.
>>>
>>> Thanks.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Ratnadeep Deshmane.
>>> http://rtdp.blogspot.com
>>> _______________________________________
>>> Pune GNU/Linux Users Group Mailing List
>>>
>>
>>
>> Ok My emails have been bouncing off coz of top posting  -
>> http://idallen.com/topposting.html So here are my 3 e mails ...
>>
>> Hi Ratnadeep,
>>
>>  If you are interested in web programming and CMS's I would suggest you
>> take a look at drupal and their ecosystem for GSOC. Every year drupal gets
>> around 20-23 students approved by google to work on drupal, which is at par
>> or i think even better than most of the popular open source projects. For
>> example mysql got some 3-5 students approved only, google has some long
>> standing relationship with drupal world and that can be seen when drupal
>> gets so many students approved.
>>
>> You need to decide whats your passion when it comes to open source and
>> what kind of OSS project you wanna contribute to. If you decide to look at
>> drupal as an option and have skills there, i would be happy to help with
>> your application and I think I will also apply to be a mentor this year.
>>
>> All the best
>> Dipen
>>
>>
>>
>>
> Going through your blog, I found that you have relatively heavy tag cloud
> towards RoR, which is cool framework to be working on. RoR is on a important
> transition upgrading itself to a major release change and I am sure project
> can use some help. Things I would suggest as a way forward:
>
> 1> Spend as much time as you can in #rubyonrails or place where core
> developers talk
> 2> Find out the pain points which align with your expertise or something
> you wish to improve in RoR, most of the times students dont have such knack
> of identifying pain points hence point 1, listen to the pro's talking about
> it.
> 3> Write a non obtrusive 1 mail to few developers who actively blog and
> dont freak out at social contact from anonymous. You can establish that
> dev's who tweet often are often receptive. Do NOT nag or drain the developer
> by e mailing many times. Ask them for same advice but with more information
> about your background ( unlike this e mail )
> 4> Try to find developers from indian community in the project and contact
> them as well. Since I am assuming its RoR for you, it wouldn't be a bad idea
> to attend rubyconf and meet pratik naik (core developer of RoR) Also I think
> Satish Talim is petty active in RoR.
>
>
> All above will help you identify the topic or problem you will write
> application again, its quite possible the people you contact and get
> feedback from in first phase are the ones who will judge the applications,
> so they have perspective of what u are trying to accomplish and if it has
> their input as well then getting accepted is sure shot, given u prove the
> skill part.
>
> All in All to cut it short, getting Gsoc approval is all about how well u
> are known in community and if u have existing contributions then great, but
> if you dont then above steps can help you build that rapport.
>
> I have couple of past Gsoc interns and I can connect you for the
> application part of it, but before that you need to figure out what you
> wanna work on, thats paramount.
>
>
Though in 2009 RoR got only 4 students approved, which kind of lower the
chances but its better to be working in your choice of framework then pick
something like drupal ( which is PHP and maybe something u dont wanna invest
ur time in) just for the money incentive. Though you can evaluate drupal and
see if u like it, but you gotta be honest with yourself :)

Work on only one application or problem through out the course, dont even
attempt to submit multiple applications just because you can.