Joomla Project to Apply for GSoC 2013

The spring time is drawing upon us, and for student developers, this is an exciting time of year. Google has again announced that it will be running the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) program. Continuing on the successes of previous years, the Joomla! Project will once again apply to participate in this program.

What is GSoC?

As listed on their homepage, Google Summer of Code is a global program that offers post-secondary student developers ages 18 and older stipends to write code for various open source software projects. In not so technical terms, college students are given the opportunity to work with open source projects like Joomla!, developing new features and improving their selected product, and pays them for their efforts. For the students selected to participate in this program, participating in GSoC is like a full time summer job, but much more fun than the traditional job.

Past Success

Joomla’s participation in GSoC has been a very positive experience for the community and the code base, and many students have remained active with the Joomla! Project and Community following their summer of coding with us. Past examples of the successes of the program include the Hathor accessible administrator template (and subsequent improvements to accessibility in the overall code base) and the integrated language installer. Three students have also demonstrated a long term commitment to the Joomla! Project and have gone on to serve as members of the Production Leadership Team.

Preparing for 2013

As anyone who has participated in GSoC will tell you, time will move quickly over the next several months. From an administrative perspective, there is much to accomplish and the project needs your help in this. Over the next several days, further announcements will be coming detailing the project’s needs, but this can be summarized in three general statements: students to participate in the program, mentors to guide the students on their projects, and an ideas pool for prospective students to form project ideas from.

Student Interest

We encourage students interested in participating in GSoC to “do their homework” about the program now so they can make an informed decision. Past participants, both students and mentors, constantly speak of the demanding time requirements but the rewards from the program are worth the challenge. Here are some resources for students to get familiar with the GSoC program:

Eligibility requirements
Advice for Students (contains numerous links to program resources)
FAQ
GSoC Student Guide

Mentor Interest

Mentors play a crucial role in the program by guiding students while working on their projects. They will be expected to help students set realistic goals, review their code as it is developed, and should be familiar with the Joomla! code base. As with students, mentoring for GSoC will require a dedicated commitment and time during the eight week project period. Here are some resources for mentors to become familiar with the GSoC program:

Advice for Mentors
GSoC Mentors Guide

Project Proposals

Part of the requirement for the GSoC application is to have an ideas page for students to gather suggestions from. Community members are welcome to add their suggestions to this page and detail the types of projects they would like to see the students work on for the CMS and Platform. Please keep in mind that these projects should realistically be able to be accomplished within an eight week period, so consider this when suggesting ideas.

2013 Ideas Page - https://docs.joomla.org/GSOC_2013_Project_Ideas
2012 Ideas Page (provided for reference) - https://docs.joomla.org/GSOC_2012_Project_Ideas

GSoC Discussion

Joomla! has a dedicated Google Group dedicated to discussion of the project's participation in GSoC. In this thread, we welcome interested parties to ask questions, discussion of project ideas, and any other comments. Feel free to join us at https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/joomla-gsoc-2013.

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