GSoC 2010/Students

Important : Before reading this page make sure you have read all the Google summer of code FAQs(FIXME - 2010 link), in order to understand the program, and see if you are a eligible student.

How to apply to a Maemo project
You can apply to one of the ideas in the Maemo ideas pages, but you can also apply with your own ideas, in the last case you must discuss your ideas with some Maemo mentors or Maemo community members in order to evaluate if your ideas fits the Maemo Community goals.

We encourage the students to submit their own ideas of possible projects.

Further information after the announcement of the mentoring organization accepted list.

Students expectations

 * Students are expected to work hard on their projects, like a full-time job, of course that the project schedule can be flexible at some times, where students have University assignments.
 * The student are expected to be self-motivated. The mentors can help motivating the students, but if the student is not self-motivated to work, then the student probably won't get much out of participating in GSoC.
 * The student should schedule time to work on the project each day following the schedule accorded with the mentor. It's not acceptable to fiddle around for days and then work over night just before deadlines.

Benefits of GSoC for Students
Apart from the money and the goodies that Google offer to students, the benefits of the program are huge:


 * Chance to work with real Rock Stars developers in projects that will be used around the world;
 * The chance to become part of a global community, this can be lead to involvement in several project, social networks, make good friends around the world, and access to valuable resources;
 * The student's project can be used for resume material for future employers;
 * Summer of code is a really good thing to have on a CV.

Application selection process
All Maemo mentors and backup mentors will comment the students application, focusing in these aspects:


 * The general project idea;
 * What the project brings to Maemo;
 * The scope of the project (will be used for a large user base or just a minority);
 * The technical aspects of the project;
 * The chances that the project have to be concluded during the GSoC period.

After the initial application reviews, a group of mentors will choose the best projects based in the comments made previously. Some mentors can ask for small coding assignments during the selection period, in order to choose the best students.

Student resources

 * GSoC knowledge base
 * Advice for GSoC Students

Student application template

 * Project title
 * Project Abstract (short description)
 * Project full description
 * Project tasks and deliverables
 * Project schedule
 * Do you have other commitments during the summer of code coding period ? If yes, what kind of commitments ?
 * Why are you the right person for this project ?
 * What are the benefits of your project for the Maemo Community ?
 * Short Biography (academic work, open source background and other activities that you like to do)

Note : You can/should add more informations, beyond the asked above.

Contact us
The Maemo community have several channels of interaction, the IRC channel, community mailing list and the Talk forum are the more active (see info bellow), if you have questions about some of our project ideas or the Maemo community in general, feel free to contact us.

Web pages

 * maemo.org - Maemo Community site;
 * wiki - maemo.org wiki;
 * Talk Forum - Discussion forum for all Maemo related stuff.

Mailing Lists
Mailing lists are a great way to communicate with the Maemo Community. The mailing lists are archived and the archives are a rich source of information regarding prior discussions and decisions. Bellow you will find some advices regarding mailing lists etiquette:


 * Search through the archives for answers before asking on the list;
 * Be courteous at all times;
 * Be specific, cite data and references, use links when discussing technical stuff;
 * Be patient, don't expect an answer within minutes or hours, people often read their mailing-list messages once per day.
 * Avoid being rude;
 * Avoid writing with all capital letters and excessive punctuation;

IRC
The friendly Maemo Community can be found on #maemo@freenode

Student FAQs
If you have some questions regarding the Maemo organization, you can ask those questions in the maemo mailing lists, the questions will be copied to this page in order to help other students with the same questions.