GSOC 2009 at the ASF: Looking for students interested in Lucene
SummerOfCode2009 – General Wiki
It’s that time of year again. Time for students to sign up for Google Summer of Code. Gist of it: Get paid to work in Open Source for the summer.
I’ve signed up to mentor for Apache Mahout. We are looking for students interested in implementing cutting-edge machine learning algorithms, optionally using Hadoop or other techniques for scaling. For my Mahout announcement, see here.
Assuming there are mentors, I would love to see students for Lucene, Solr, Tika and any of the other Lucene ecosystem projects. Just know up front, the competition is pretty tough. Last year, for Mahout alone, we had many good applications, so bring your ‘A’ game.
My tips for getting accepted and having a successful Summer (especially if you are implementing new ideas and not just fixing bugs):
- Write a good proposal. Well-thought out, well-referenced. Realistic.
- Don’t bite off more than you can chew. I’m sure you are the greatest programmer since Knuth, but it is a community effort. It isn’t just about producing code, it’s about participating in the community and learning about how open source works. You will be failed if you think that you can just throw up the code at the end of the process and collect your money. Instead, post patches early and often and solicit feedback.
- Engage the community on your ideas before, during and after the proposal process. Don’t just throw your application up there and disappear.
- Be honest about your time and your efforts. We really don’t like having to fail students, but if you routinely aren’t showing up and doing your job, you will be let go. Sorry to be so harsh, but that’s the real world.
- Show you have the chops by putting up some bug fixes or other improvements during the proposal process.
- Stick around. Open source is like one giant job application. See my career advice post for more thoughts.
Good luck! I am looking forward to reading many good proposals.
