[Evergreen-governance-l] Google Summer of Code Fund

[Dan Scott]

On Mon, May 16, 2011 at 05:55:59PM -0700, Lori Bowen Ayre wrote:
<snip> 
> I'm writing because I would like to get something on the agenda or at least
> to begin discussing an idea.  The idea is that we establish a fund that we
> can use this year and in subsequent years to fund interns for the Google
> Summer of Code.

To be clear, this would be "funding something _like_ the Google Summer of
Code" - an "Evergreen Summer of Code" or the like.

> The developers applied and got two interns through this program, which I
> understand is very impressive.  It takes an established open source project
> of some note to garner Google's attention (or something like that...Dan can
> probably fill you in).

Over 400 projects applied worldwide, and we were one of 175 that were
accepted. If you look at the list of organizations that were accepted at
http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/accepted_orgs/google/gsoc2011 there
are many high-calibre projects on that list. Organizations in the first
year of the Google Summer of Code (GSoc) are generally allotted two
student slots. There is no guarantee that organizations will be accepted
in subsequent years, although if the students do well this year and we
do an equally good (or better) job of applying next year, then our
chances of being invited to participate again are reasonable.
 
> To take advantage of Google's contribution, we are supposed to try to match
> the amount of money that Google pays the intern or at least get something
> reasonably close, as a stipend.  I believe the range is $3000-$5000 per
> intern.  I believe one intern is paid for and I have $1500 to contribute
> from the IMLS Grant Partners for the second intern (who is evidently slated
> to develop an Android app for Evergreen).  We need at least another $1500
>  to be able to fund this second intern.

Per
http://www.google-melange.com/document/show/gsoc_program/google/gsoc2011/faqs#administrivia
the amount that Google provides per student is a $5500 stipend; $5000 goes to the
student, $500 to the mentoring organization. (BTW, Galen and I agreed to
direct the organizational $500 / student to the earmarked Evergreen
account that our Fiscal Sponsor will set up for us once everything is
finalized).

> The  IMLS Grant Partners feel that the Google Summer of Code provides an
> excellent opportunity to increase the potential developer pool for Evergreen
> so we're looking for a way to institutionalize community participation.  A
> special fund seemed like one way to do that.

For what it's worth, several years ago Evergreen applied for the GSoC
and were turned down. It took Equinox and Laurentian University a very
short amount of time (a week or so) to turn around and fund two
Laurentian University students to work on Evergreen for the summer.
Kevin Beswick brought the magic of autotools to our installation
process, and Craig Ricciuto brought internationalization support to a
great deal of Evergreen's interfaces.

> Could you discuss this and let me know what you think?  Anyone have any
> suggestions for additional funding for this year?   I'll be asking on the
> general mailing list too, of course, but thought it would be even better if
> I could seek funders AND announce the establishment of a Google Summer of
> Code Fund for next year at the same time.

Timing is critical; when we hired Kevin and Craig, it was early in the
spring. We should be aware that part of the attraction of the Google
Summer of Code for students is that you get exposed to Google (a huge
potential employer), the prestige of being part of the GSoC (looks great
on a resume), as well as bits of swag (t-shirts and the like) - along
with the awesome experience of working on code that people actually use
and putting software engineering theory into practice. Students who
weren't offered a position in the GSoC this year may already have landed
other positions for the summer - and for those students who have not
already found other employment for the summer, they may be less
enthusiastic about an "Evergreen Summer of Code".