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Google Summer of Code (GSoC) is an internal program which aims on promoting Open Source Software and teaching students contributing to it. For their efforts, students are rewarded with stipends provided by Google. During summer break students work on ideas for OSS projects while selected mentors from the projects help them, provide support and review.
Awesome! This is the right place to seek for more info. Keep on reading.
Apart from official requirements you will have to meet the following:
Successfully clone and compile libvirt
Subscribe to the list
Pass interview
Have a small upstream contribution
No worries. Interview is a great opportunity for both sides to ask questions. It is usually done via IRC. It consists of a coding exercise where you can prove your coding skills, and some generic chat about programming, the project and idea you applied for. Some examples of previous coding exercises can be found here:
As strange as it might look like, this is a proof that you've managed to clone and build your own libvirt and subscribed to the list. Don't worry, there are no requirements on the initial contribution when it comes to complexity or a size of the change. We keep a list of fairly easy tasks for newcomers. Before working on a patch, please read contributor guidelines and project governance.
Ideally, before applying for GSoC idea in the system you should contact the respective mentor for the idea to discuss the idea, its requirements and so on. A good application will require the following items:
Present yourself
Prove that you want to get involved into libvirt
Explain what you want to achieve
How do you plan to achieve it?
Why should we choose you?
Communicate with your mentor weekly or more often
Post some patches during community bonding period
Write blog posts about your work
Here is a nicely summarized list of student responsibilities.
They will be there for you
They will help you set up your development environment, answer technical questions
They will help you send your patches to the list
They will provide you with feedback on your progress
Here is a nicely summarized list of mentor responsibilities.
Wonderful! Send an e-mail to the mailing list in which you describe it and we will get back to you.