Google Summer of Code 2017 @ the Python Software Foundation

Python is a popular high-level programming language. It is a general-purpose language used by scientists, developers, and many others who want to work more quickly and integrate systems more effectively.

Google Summer of Code (GSoC) is a global program that offers post-secondary students an opportunity to be paid for contributing to an open source project over a three month period. Since 2005, the Python Software Foundation has served as an "umbrella organization" to a variety of Python-related projects, as well as sponsoring projects related to the development of the Python language. It is our intention to apply again for the 2017 season!

The 2017 Python Software Foundation (PSF) GSoC coordinator is Terri Oda. (terri on Freenode IRC, terrioda at gmail.com, but please email gsoc-admins(at)python(dot)org if you are a mentor who wishes to contact an admin. Students should almost always visit Getting Started first, and email gsoc-general(at)python.org only if you get stuck.)

The other org admins include:

• James Lopeman (meflin on IRC)
• Florian Fuchs (florianf on IRC)
• Kushal Das (kushal on IRC)
• Stephen Turnbull (yaseppochi on IRC)
• John Hawley (warthog9 on IRC)

Getting in Touch

• Please note that Python has a Community Code of Conduct and mentors and students working with the PSF are asked to abide by it as members of the Python community.
• Sign up to the gsoc-general(at)python.org mailing list to get updates, reminders, and to discuss questions.
• This year, we have two realtime chat options:
  1. #python-gsoc on irc.freenode.net is our IRC channel. IRC is an older protocol very popular among open source projects, and it's worth learning to use it if you're going to be involved in open source long term. Please remember to stick around a while for an answer, as many open source people use IRC for work and aren't always available to respond immediately.
  2. We also have a Zulip server at https://zulip.python-gsoc.org. Zulip is open source chat software similar to the popular Slack. These channels are logged so that you can catch up on older conversations and see what people have already asked, and if you set up a valid email, the server will email you if someone answers your question after you've had to leave.
  3. We are working on IRC-Zulip integration so that chats will show in both places, but for now they are two separate chat rooms.
• Found a typo? Want to improve this page? The source code is on GitHub and we welcome pull requests!

Please try to read all the information on this page before asking a question. We have tried to answer a lot of common questions in advance!

Don't forget to be patient: Our mentors generally have day-jobs and are not always paying attention to IRC (especially during GSoC off-season: expect more active mentors after Feb 27th). Please ask questions directly on channel (you don't need to introduce yourself or say hi first) and please be patient while waiting for an answer. You could wind up waiting an hour or much longer for "realtime" answers if all the mentors are in meetings at work or otherwise occupied. If you can't stay that long, stay as long as you can and then send email to the mailing list instead so mentors have some way to reach you. We try to answer emails within 48h.

There are some great resources at http://irchelp.org/ if you need help finding a client or learning how to use IRC.

For mentors: All the gsoc admins can be reached at gsoc-admins(at)python(dot)org if you have questions about participating. (Students should email gsoc-general(at)python.org with all of their questions, unless they are of a sensitive personal nature.)

Getting Started

Here's 7 things you can do to get started in free and open source software:

1. Choose an organization to work with.
   See "How do I choose a project or a sub-org?" if you need help choosing. Don't forget, you can try working with more than one organization to see which one suits you best!
   • Experience with *any* open source group will help you prepare for GSoC. If you decide to write an application for GSoC you'll need to choose from our list of registered sub-orgs, but you can experiment before you get to the application stage.
   • Asking mentors to choose your project for you typically leaves a bad first impression, especially since mentors probably don't know you well enough to help guide you to a good choice. At least try to narrow down your choices a bit on your own, or let them know enough about what you like and don't like so they can help.
   • Look through our list of GSoC 2016 sub-orgs to get a sense of who might participate in 2017. Our ideas list will be updated as soon as orgs tell us they're interested in participating this year. If your favourite org isn't on the list and you'd like them to be, contact them directly! Assuming Google accepts us, we'll accept sub-orgs until the dates listed in our schedule.
2. Start communicating with the developers.
   Join the mailing list, IRC channel, or any other communication channels the developers use. Listen, get to know the people involved, and ask questions. Not sure where to find that contact info? Each sub-org for Python has their information listed in the ideas list.
   • If you want to make the best first impression, DO NOT start emails with "Dear Sir." Python has many mentors who are female and/or prefer other forms of address. Try "Dear developers" if you're sending a general email, or use whatever name they use on their email if you're addressing a specific person. Culturally speaking, first names or chosen nicknames are fine for most open source projects.
   • DO ask your question in public. Being able to participate in the open is a signal to developers that you're ready to participate in open source/free software, so it can improve your chances of being accepted to GSoC. It also means others can benefit from seeing your questions and the answers you get.
   • DON'T Ask to ask. Just get right to the point and ask your question without asking if you're allowed to ask a question first. See What does "don't ask to ask?" mean? for more explanation.
3. Set up your own development environment.
   This can be a lot of work the first time, so budget time for it, and don't forget that you're going to want to run the code you've written, so you'll need some sort of test environment. This is a good time to practice asking good questions and helping improve setup instructions!
4. Find some bugs and try to fix them.
   Many projects have bugs tagged as "easy", "bite-size", or "beginner-friendly" that will be easier for new contributors.
   • Note that if you apply as a student with the PSF you will be asked to submit a code sample, generally code related to your project. A few fixed bugs with code accepted upstream will make your application look great!
   • Some projects have beginner-friendly "bite-sized" bugs listed in the OpenHatch search engine, found here: http://openhatch.org/search/ but many do not, so try searching for tags like "easy" or "beginner" in your project's bug tree. Remember, competition for easy bugs is very high during GSoC so it can be hard to find one that's flagged. If you don't see anything, read through the bugs and choose a few that sound like something you can fix.
   • Having trouble figuring out which bugs are beginner-friendly? Try searching for terms like "easy" in the bug tracker. Or just choose a bug that sounds easy to you and try to get started on it! What's easy for you may not be easy for others, so take advantage of your own skills and experience where you can. Remember to ask for help if you get stuck for too long, "I'm a new contributor and was trying to work on bug#123456. I have a question about how to..." -- if people can't help, sometimes they will be able to suggest another bug which would be more beginner-suitable.
   • Other "easy" bug ideas: look for typos and fix them. Set up new tests -- even if your project decides they don't need the first one you write, the practice of writing test cases will be useful for other development (e.g. when you want to add a new feature and need to include tests for it). Try using a tool like pylint to find style issues and correct those. (But pay attention to your project's style guide! Not everyone cares about the same things.)
5. Find bugs and report them.
   It's always a good idea to get familiar with your project's bug reporting process. Writing excellent bug reports is a really useful skill, so try searching for "writing good bug reports" and learn to write really great ones. You might even be able to help improve other people's bug reports by duplicating their results and asking questions to fill in information they didn't provide.
6. Help with documentation.
   As a beginner in your project, you're going to see things that are confusing that more experienced developers may not notice. Take advantage of your beginner mindset and make sure to document anything you think is missing!
7. Help others.
   This is a great idea for many reasons: explaining things can help you learn them better, demonstrating your skills as a good community member can make you more memorable when your mentors have to choose candidates, and being helpful makes your community a better place!

Students

GSoC is basically an open source apprenticeship: students will be paid by Google to work under the guidance of mentors from an open source community. It's a really great opportunity to build new skills, make connections in your community, get experience working with a larger and often distributed team, learn, and, of course, get paid.

Students are expected to work at least 40 hours a week on their GSoC project. This is essentially a full-time job. Ideally, you should not attempt to do another internship, job, or full-time schooling while you're doing GSoC.

Remember that Google intends this to be a way for new contributors to join the world of open source. The students most likely to be selected are those who are engaged with the community and hoping to continue their involvement for more than just a few months.

To apply, you need to take a look at the mentoring organizations and the ideas that they are willing to sponsor. Typically, you'll choose one of their ideas and work with a mentor to create a project proposal that's good for both you and your chosen open source community. Sometimes, projects are open to new ideas from students, but if you propose something new make especially sure that you work with a mentor to make sure it's a good fit for your community. Unsolicited, undiscussed ideas are less likely to get accepted.

Note that Python is an "umbrella organization" which means that our team is actually a group of python projects that work together to do Google Summer of Code. If you're going to apply with us, you'll need to choose from one of those teams, because that defines which mentors will be helping you with your applications. Applications without any sub-org and mentor to evaluate them will be rejected. You can work with more than one sub-org while you're figuring out what you want to do, but you can only accept one job offer. Here's some resources so you can read up more on how to be an awesome student:

• The GSoC student Guide -- This is a guide written by mentors and former students. It covers many questions that most students ask us. Please read it before asking any questions on the mailing list or IRC if you can! New students in particular might want to read the section Am I Good Enough?
• Google's list of resources -- Note especially the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) which does in fact answer 99% of the questions we get on the main GSoC IRC channel.
• Python's SummerOfCode/Expectations also talks about what Python in particular is looking for in its students.
• Python's SummerOfCode/FrequentlyAskedQuestions answers the questions that we most often get about Python's projects. You might want to see How do I choose a project or a sub-org? or How many slots does Python get?

How do I apply?

1. Read the links and instructions given on this page -- All of it! we've tried to give you all the information you need to be an awesome student applicant.
2. Choose a sub-org (check the list here)
3. Talk to your prospective mentors about what they expect of student applicants and get help from them to refine your project ideas. Listening to your mentors' recommendations is very important at this stage!
4. Prepare a patch for that sub-org
5. Set up a blog where you will keep track of your GSoC progress
6. Write your application (with help from your mentors!)
7. Submit your application to Google before the deadline. We actually recommend you submit a few days early in case you have internet problems or the system is down. Google does not extend this deadline, so it's best to be prepared early! You can edit your application up until the system closes.

Mentors

Interested in volunteering with the Python Software Foundation?

The biggest job is mentoring students: Mentoring a student as a primary mentor can be a pretty big time commitment (we recommend around 0-10 hours a week for the 3 months of the program) but it's a very rewarding chance to basically give a student an open source apprenticeship. We mentor in teams, so if all you can handle is a few code reviews or taking over for a week while someone's on vacation, we'd still love your help.

The easiest way to become a mentor is to be part of one of the sub-orgs that plan to be involved, so get in touch with them directly if you want to help. If you're part of a group that would like to participate as a sub-org, please read the section for sub-orgs below.

But we also need other volunteers! We're also looking for friendly community members to help with other tasks! We'd love to have more people available on IRC/Mailing lists to answer student and mentor questions in various time zones. We are particularly looking for volunteers who can read and comment on student blogs, remind students if they haven't posted, and promote the work our students do to the larger Python community. Or maybe you have another skillset you'd like to contribute? (Proofreading? Recruiting diverse student applicants?) If you want to help, we'd be happy to find a way to make that happen!

If you'd like to volunteer, get in touch with a sub-org admin or email the Python org admins at gsoc-admins(at)python(dot)org

Sub-orgs

To participate under the Python umbrella, a sub-org must do the following:

1. Be a Python-based open source project that meets Google's requirements for GSoC.
2. Have one sub-org admin and at least two mentors who are willing to commit to the full GSoC period. (More is awesome, though!)
3. Accept the Python Community Code of Conduct for the duration of the program.
4. Send an email indicating interest to gsoc-admins(at)python(dot)org before the Python deadline (exceptions can be made if you get an amazing student applicant later and want to sign up just for them)
5. Have a good ideas page. Here's a template. Getting a really great page sometimes takes a few rounds of revisions; Meflin will work with you to make sure your page is ready!

We can't promise to take everyone who meets those criteria, but we do try to take any group that we feel will give the students a great experience. Terri has final say in which projects participate under the Python umbrella, but please send any queries to all the admins at gsoc-admins(at)python(dot)org to make sure we're all on the same page.

Python projects are welcome and encouraged to apply as separate mentoring organizations directly with Google. We're happy to help you in any way we can and we don't mind being your backup plan. We're also happy to help advertise python based organizations not under our umbrella: we want students to find projects that best suit them!

Project Ideas

This section will contain information about sub-orgs and their project ideas once they have gotten in touch with the PSF. If you're unsure whether your favourite Python-based project will be participating, ask them and encourage them to sign up!

Note that some of these groups may have applied as separate mentoring organizations. We're listing everyone who wants to be listed here to help students find great Python projects, and we'll separate out the listing to make it clear which ones are under our umbrella and which are participating on their own after Google makes their selections.

If you represent a new sub-org and want to be added to the list, contact gsoc-admins(at)python.org to get an ideas page review, and when it's ready you can make a pull request or file an issue on GitHub.