Dr. Dobb's Journal December, 2005
Google's Summer of Code was a unique and exciting program in which student programmers were provided stipends for creating new open-source projects or helping established ones. Over the summer of 2005, Google funded more than 400 projects to the tune of $5000 each, with $4500 going to the student and $500 to a mentoring organization. DDJ will be profiling some of the student participants over the coming months. Google's open-source programs manager Chris DiBona and engineering manager Greg Stein led the Summer of Code project. DDJ recently talked to DiBona about the program.
DDJ: What was the original goal of the Summer of Code?
CD: The original impetus behind the program was to ensure that budding computer scientists wouldn't let their programming skills diminish over the summer while working in a noncomputer-related job. We thought that if we could make it possible for these students to work with the open-source community then they would be exposed to a whole new, very real, class of problem. This would then lead to more open-source software developers, programs, and better developers overall.
DDJ: Did the final results meet your expectations?
CD: From the very beginning the students far exceeded Google's and my personal expectations. The quality of the applications alone caused us to double the number of accepted students from 200 to 419, and I think that easily a thousand of them proposed acceptable applications. Now that the program is over, the early results are pretty terrific, showing around 80 percent of the students having succeeded to execute on their projects to their mentors' satisfaction.
DDJ: What was the biggest surprise coming out of SoC?
CD: Just how advanced some of the projects ended up being. I remember thinking when I saw some of the projects that there was no way someone new to a project could pull them off. One, a CIL back end for GCC, which allows for the creation of CLR code from any GCC front-end language, should be preposterously difficult to do, but the student not only completed it, but did it in such a way that amazed his mentor, Miguel De Icaza.
DDJ: What was the geographic distribution of participants?
CD: We had 419 students taking part in the program from 49 countries. In the U.S. alone, we had students from 38 states.
DDJ: Are they representative of open source as they are today, or are they signs of things to come?
CD: I think that they are a little bit of the present and a big part of the future. Open source can be a little intimidating for the newcomer, and I think the Summer of Code helped to mix things up a bit and keep things fresh. Happily, a good number of the students have indicated that they intend to continue working on their open-source projects.
DDJ: Where does SoC go from here?
CD: Into the Fall, of course! We're going to examine the feedback and make sure that the program was successful; if so, we may do another one next year.
DDJ