By: Darien Hirotsu, Redapt
A few short weeks ago, the Tungsten Fabric community received some exciting news: our community is officially a 2019 Google Summer of Code (GSoC) organization. This is an awesome opportunity for Tungsten Fabric, and our community members can’t wait to get started. Given that, we wanted to take some time to share what this news means and why we are taking it seriously. Let’s make sure everyone in the Tungsten Fabric community is aware to ensure our first foray into GSoC program is an amazing success. First though, here is some background.
What is GSoC?
GSoC is global program focused on connecting students to open source organizations. Global really is a key word in describing GSoC since students apply from all over the planet. Google graciously provides stipends to incentivize students to work hard and contribute to a variety of open source software projects. Also, GSoC students operate independently of any company which allows them to truly own their work and experience. Mentors from open source communities actively engage GSoC students to ensure their success through the project and to give them a foundation to jump start their careers.
Also, GSoC has a long history of success. Starting in 2005, GSoC has seen impressive growth including the latest contribution numbers for 2018 shown below.
- 2018
GSoC Statistics
- Coding Dates: May 14th – August 14th
- 1,264 students accepted from 62 countries
- 2,117 mentors with active projects from 73 countries
- 206 open source organizations
- 86.24% overall success rate
Why is this so great?
Here are some reasons why the Tungsten Fabric GSoC team is excited for the 2019 program.
- Our projects cover skillsets for a wide variety of future industry
professionals.
- Clearly code is at the forefront of GSoC. That said, some of the projects have a heavy networking focus (Segment Routing). Some require knowledge of distributed systems (Cassandra). We have something for everyone! See our project list for more information.
- Being accepted as an organization is a privilege.
- GSoC is a competitive program. Being accepted as a student or an organization is a privilege.
- There is a diverse group of open source communities that participate.
- The 2019 GSoC organizations is a diverse mix of open source projects that over a wide variety of use cases and technologies.
- As Tungsten Fabric members, we all want to see community diversity
and growth.
- All contributions are valuable, so we can’t wait to onboard new members into Tungsten Fabric.
Am I eligible?
If you read this far, hopefully you are getting excited about participating! Note that you do need to be an active student in an accredited university to participate in GSoC. That said, if you don’t qualify or you don’t feel like you can participate this year, start planning for next year. Remember that GSoC is competitive, and it requires planning. Additional information on eligibility can be found here.
Kudos to the GSoC Team
Special thanks to our GSoC volunteer, participants who made this happen.
Vicky Brasseur: GSoC Admin
Valentin Sintisin, Syed Ahmed, Darien Hirotsu: GSoC Mentors
How do I learn more and how do I get started?
GSoC has a lot of great references and resources for students and mentors to make sure everyone knows what is expected. To learn more about our GSoC projects, take a look at our project page to see what we are working on. Here are some tips on how to get engaged. For prospective students, put a reminder on your calendars for April 9th; that’s when all GSoC applications are due! We look forward to seeing you all on our message boards and Slack channel.
