Libcloud Google Summer of Code 2014 Call for Participation

This is call for participation / proposals for all the students who are interested in working on Apache Libcloud project during the Google Summer of Code 2014 program.

Before diving further, I just want to give a short disclaimer. We (Apache Software Foundation and Libcloud as a project) haven’t been accepted into Google Summer of Code 2014 yet, but we will apply, cross our fingers and hope we get a spot.

We will know if we have been accepted on February 24th when Google publishes a list of the accepted mentoring organizations.

What is Google Summer of Code?

Google Summer of Code is a program where Google sponsors students from around the world to spend their summer working on open-source projects. Student is paid 5500$ if they successfully complete all of their evaluations. More information about the program can be found on the project website.

This year is also special, because it’s a tenth anniversary of the program. To celebrate the anniversary, Google is, among other things, giving out 5500$ for successfully completed projects instead of the usual 5000$.

Google Summer of Code and Libcloud

Apache Software Foundation is not a stranger to Google Summer of Code since it has already participated in this program multiple times over the past years.

We (as in Libcloud project) have also participated in GSoC 2014 with one project. I have mentored a student Ilgiz Islamgulov from Russia who has worked and successfully completed (yeah, software is never really done, but in this case completed refers to him passing all the GSoC evaluations) a project called Libcloud REST interface.

If you want to know more about his project and our GSoC 2012 participation, you should check the following links:

Why should I participate / What do I get out of participating in GSoC?

Before looking at our call for proposals, let’s have a look at why you might want to participate in Google Summer of Code program.

For a moment, lets forget about the money and have a look at a couple of other reasons why participating in GSoC is great for you:

  • Instead of spending your summer flipping burgers (or similar) you can spend summer flipping bits (fun!)
  • You will learn how open source projects and communities work
  • You will get experience with working in distributed / remote teams
  • You will get experience with working across different timezones
  • You will make new friends in the open source community
  • It’s a great thing for your C.V. You will be able to show potential employers some concrete things you have worked on.

Libcloud Google Summer of Code 2014 Call For Proposals

This is the part where you, dear students come in. We would like to invite all the students who are interested in participating to start thinking about the things they could work on and start reaching out to the community.

It doesn’t matter if you are already using or contributing to the project or not, everyone is welcome (people who have or are already contributing to the project have a slight advantage though since we already know what they are capable of)!

Only pre-requisite is a good knowledge of Python, HTTP, REST APIs and a basic familiarity with different cloud services such as Amazon EC2 and others.

As noted in the opening paragraph, we haven’t been accepted yet and the student applications will open in about a month. The reason I’m already posting this is because we want to give potential candidates plenty of time to get familiar with the project and the community.

If you would like to participate, now is the right time to start exploring the existing ideas (you are also more than welcome to propose your own ideas), start thinking about the things you could work, getting familiar with the code base and start reaching out to the community.

Other links you might find useful: