Google Summer of Code accepted students announced

Google has just published the list of student proposals that have been accepted for Google Summer of Code 2012.

This year KDE received more than 200 proposals. 192 of those are valid and have not been withdrawn. The general quality level is very high, and most of those 192 proposals are very good. Google has allocated 60 student slots to KDE, which means that this year we are able to accept 60 Google Summer of Code students. The trouble is that we got a lot more than 60 good proposals! During the past few weeks the GSoC admins and mentors of KDE had to make some really tough choices.

If you are a student, you should have received a notification about the state of your proposals via email. Either way, you can check the status of your proposals on Google Melange.

Accepted into Google Summer of Code?

Has your proposal been accepted by an organization? Congratulations!

Has your proposal been accepted by none other than KDE? Awesome! This means that you will be spending your summer hacking with us. On behalf of the KDE community, I wish you a warm welcome! The selection process was hard and competitive, but if your proposal has been accepted it already means that we think you are the very best. Feel free to brag about it a bit, you’ve earned it! 🙂

I will write another blog article shortly on the next steps for accepted Google Summer of Code students.

Not accepted into Google Summer of Code?

If on the other hand your proposal has not been accepted, you are still very welcome to hack on KDE! Note that I never used the word “rejected” because I do not consider a proposal that has not be accepted for Google Summer of Code as something that’s unwelcome or unworthy for KDE. Many factors come into play in proposal selection which do not depend on the skill set of a student, including slot availability and mentor availability. We had to say no to quite a few brilliant proposals.

For those students whose proposals have not been accepted for Google Summer of Code who still wish to contribute to KDE in a guided, mentored way this summer, KDE hosts the Season of KDE program. Season of KDE is much like Google Summer of Code: while the student doesn’t get paid, he does get a mentor and a T-shirt, and he gets to hack on KDE for the summer and beyond. My first summer with KDE was as a Season of KDE student, and it was a very rewarding and enlightening experience. Season of KDE will be officially announced shortly, stay tuned 🙂

Some other organizations also host programs similar to Season of KDE for students who did not find a place in Google Summer of Code or simply prefer a differently structured program. Such programs include Haiku Code Drive (not confirmed yet for this year), illumos Students (not confirmed yet for this year), Umit Summer of Code (not confirmed yet for this year), X.Org Endless Vacation of Code, Ruby Summer of Code and possibly others. All of these programs allow you to work on really cool software with a mentor over a longer period and create something you can be proud of. Other communities will likely also be willing to provide guidance if you contact them directly, so don’t be shy 😉