Hype for GSoC

In the world of no one cares, I would like to tell everyone that being an open sourcer lover I would be contributing this year to Open Mainframe Project(OMP) and Google Summer of Code(GSoC). I am just telling this so that you might be interested in what I have to say in the next few paragraphs.

Some few things I would like to say for the GSoC program. It is an awesome thing what google is doing to encourage young developers to work in the open source community. Students learn some real valuable skills while doing that. Whatever I will be saying next has nothing to do with the program, i.e I would not be criticizing about the program.

The BIG Misconception

I am awesome developer because I got selected to GSoC

First of all, Big NOOOOO. No, no. I mean serious no. It’s awesome you got selected to GSoC but please don’t think that. There is an useless hype created by everyone that if anyone has done or has been selected for GSoC they are good developers. I am not saying that no one is not, but if you have applied for the program you might understand what I am trying to say. Let me try to explain by going a little bit deep.

There are more than 200 organizations selected every year for the program. What GSoC organizations try to see is that the student is interested in contributing to open source, they are active during GSoC selection period, they have basic coding skills and most important thing is that they have a good knowledge about the project they are applying. Now the main part where all goes south is, each org has different kind of projects every year according to their requirements like some have website building, working on an existing packages, creating a whole new software for the org etc and each project has it’s own level of difficulty. So the project you are working on might be easy than the others but they won’t admit the project is easy and they would go like “If it’s so easy can you do it”? Again I am not criticizing anyone, just putting the bitter truth out. A student’s selection depends from org to org. Every org has different selection criterion.

Now the misconception is started by people because they hear the term Google. Let me be clear on that Google just sponsors the program, it has nothing to do with working for google. Another encouragment is made by some students who got seleted by showing off all over the place. If you have reached upto here you might have continue reading this because maybe you saw I was selected for GSoC(I said maybe). That’s what I am trying say. The program is exploited by Indian community and many good developers go not get through. One should also look at the student’s project quality rather than just the GSoC tag.

For those who did not get selected

There are some awesome developers out there who applied but did not get selected. One of which is my best friend. Now, he did not get selected not because he did not work for GSoC period or because of proposal was bad(his mentor loved his proposal). But only because the org which he applied for(CNCF) did not give slots for the project. This is another important reason for which students do not get selected.

Some motivation for you guys out there. Last year same thing happened to me but I forgot about it and next day I started working on some personal project and wrote this article. Not getting selected to GSoC is not the end, there are other awesome opportunities out there for you. Also I see most of students who only consider open source only for GSoC and if they are not selected they stop it. I would like to request, please don't do that. Open source is so awesome that it had taught me most of my developer skills. This is a community where you learn and help others learn. So don’t think of open source for GSoC period only. Even if you are not selected, continue contributing to other orgs and learn invaluable skills from the community.

P.S:- Please mind my english and again I would like to emphasize on that I did not criticize any selected student or the program. Just putting out my views out there and some things people should know regarding the hype for GSoC.

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