Google Summer of Code Just Around the Corner

If April showers bring May flowers, what does May bring? That's when student developers in the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) program buckle down and get to work. The popular volunteer program drew almost 5,900 proposals from nearly 3,500 applicants who are no doubt pacing the floor until Google posts the list of accepted candidates. They'll have to wait until April 20 to find out.

Now in its fourth year, Google Summer of Code is open to student developers worldwide and offers a chance to write code for open source projects under the tutelage of mentors from participating projects. Students get valuable learning experience and the projects get a look at promising new developers. Of course, a huge pile of source code is created along the way, which benefits the entire FOSS community.

Although the total number of applicants is down from about 7,000 last year, the pool this year is made up of students from 93 countries. Once accepted into the program, the students will have about a month to get to know their mentors and prepare to work on their projects. They leave the starting gate on May 23 and return the final project no later than August 24.

Polish student and 2008 GSoC participant Adam Rakowski, is still very enthusiastic about the opportunity a year later. He put together an entire presentation about the program, then held a meeting last month at Poland's University of Technology in Szczecin that was attended by over 100 potential GSoC students. See the presentation for yourself, check out the program's timeline, and keep up-to-date on announcements at Google's open source news blog.