Benefit of Participating

Google Summer of Code is an exciting opportunity for students to "intern" with an open source project for a summer. The FreeBSD Project, as one of the most successful and oldest open source projects, is an excellent place to do this internship. Founded in 1993, the project now consists of several hundred "committers" and tens of thousands of contributors. FreeBSD is the foundation for many commercial products, including Apple's Mac OS X, NetApp's OnTap/GX, Juniper's JunOS, as well countless other products, and is widely used in the Internet Service Provider and corporate IT worlds. Many of these sponsors participate daily in the FreeBSD community, and students have the opportunity to develop software ideas in an exciting environment with many real world applications, and under the mentorship of experienced developers.

After the summer ends, many of our students are sponsored by Google or the FreeBSD Foundation to attend operating systems and open source conferences to present on their work, and a significant number go on to become FreeBSD developers. It's also a great job networking opportunity!

Current Student Projects

We've recently announced the - successful students from the Summer of Code 2008.

All GSoC 2008 projects have been completed, and we are eagerly awaiting + applications for GSoC 2009.

Past Student Projects

For a complete list of student projects from previous years, visit:

See also our wiki pages for student projects [2008, 2007, 2006, and 2005].

Example Proposal Ideas

The application period for this year has closed, but students and - interested developers can always find interesting work that needs - to be done on the FreeBSD Project Ideas - list.

The following example project ideas are a subset of the general + FreeBSD Project + Ideas list that we think are the most suitable for Summer of + Code projects. You are not required to submit a proposal using one of + these ideas - original ideas, if of interest to the project, are + most welcome.

+ + +

+ +

+ + ./ideas/index.html#p- + + + +

For additional ideas about upcoming development projects in FreeBSD, take a look at recent Developer Status Reports.

+ +

Proposal Guidelines

+ +

Students are responsible for writing a proposal and submitting it + to Google before the application deadline. The following outline + was adapted from the Perl Foundation open + source proposal HOWTO. The objective of the proposal is to identify + what is to be done, explain why this needs to be done, and convince us + that:

+ +

You are qualified to do this project. This means both having the + necessary background and demonstrating a general understanding of the + problem.
You have the resources (especially time!) needed to complete the + project within the working period of the Summer of Code.

+ +

A strong proposal will include (at least):

+ +

General Information

Name
Email
Phone
IM/IRC
Availability + + How many hours per week will you spend working on this? How many on + other things? What other obligations (work, school, vacation, weddings, + etc) do you have this summer? Be as specific as possible: when will the + project begin and and? You should be ready to produce a day by day + schedule before the program starts.)
Bio + + Who are you? What skills do you bring to this project? What is your + past involvement with The FreeBSD Project? (Past involvement is not + required, but ideally you will have at least installed FreeBSD and + perhaps fixed a bug or two) If your project includes programming in a + particular language, such as C, or in a specific environment, such as + the kernel or an embedded platform, what experience do you have working + in that area? Are you familiar with or a user of revision control + systems? Have you completed courses that will be relevant to your + project idea? What do you think you will need to learn to complete + this project?
Possible Mentor + + Optional, but highly recommended. Do not put a name here if you have + not contacted them.
Project Title

+ +

Project Information

Project Description + + A few paragraphs describing your project. Direct copies from the ideas + page will be rejected - proposals should reveal that you have done + some research into the problem and its solutions. Include both what + you will be doing and why it is a good thing for The FreeBSD Project. +
Deliverables + + A list quantifiable results and related code milestones. We suggest at + least two milestones before the mid-term evaluations and two after. + Where appropriate, this schedule should include multiple committable or + releasable points so people can benefit from and/or test your work as + early as possible.
Test Plan + + What parts of your code need testing and how do you plan to test them? + This might include both functionality and performance tests.
Project Schedule - How long will the project + take? When can you begin work?
Availability - How many hours per week can + you spend working on this? What other obligations do you have + this summer?
Bio - Who are you? What makes you the best + person to work on this project? Do you use FreeBSD already?

Mentors

A number of FreeBSD committers are willing to mentor students. A good place to start is the 'Technical contacts' listed with the example projects on the Ideas page.

Infrastructure Provided to Students

In previous years, the FreeBSD Project provided access to the FreeBSD Perforce revision control infrastructure in order to facilitate student collaboration, provide public access and archiving for the on-going student projects, and to help mentors and the community monitor on-going work. It is expected that students participating in future programs will be offered the same facilities. Students will also be asked to maintain wiki pages on their on-going projects. In the past, e-mail, IRC, and instant messaging have proven popular among students and mentors, and students participating in the FreeBSD summer program are encouraged to use these and other electronic communication mechanisms to become active in the community.

Frequently Asked Questions

I wasn't selected for funding by Google as part of the Google Summer of Code, can I still participate?
+
When are proposals due, and how do I submit mine? +
+ +
At the time of writing, Google has announced the following dates of + interest relating to the application process:
+ +
- 18 March - Google to announce what open source + organizations will participate in Google Summer of Code 2009.
- 23 March - Student application period opens. +
- 3 April - Student application period closes. +
- 15 April - Organizations finish reviewing + applications an mentors registered.
- 20 April - Accepted students announced.
  +
+ +
Note that these dates may change, and the Google FAQ timeline is the + authoritative source of detailed schedule information:
-
Yes! By all means. Each year we have many more talented - student applications that there are available places and we are - very happy when students choose to get involved with FreeBSD. - Please mail soc-mentors@FreeBSD.org about how to proceed with - your project.

GSoC FAQ: Important Dates

All students must register with, and submit applications via, the + Google Summer of Code home page:

Google Summer of Code Home Page

What advice do you have for a student who might want to + submit a proposal?
+ +
Experience suggests that the strongest proposals come from students + who contact FreeBSD developers and potential mentors well in advance + of submitting their proposal, seek feedback on their proposal ideas, + and write proposals that reflect time spent exploring and understanding + the problem area to be addressed. Even if the FreeBSD developer(s) you + contact aren't the eventual mentor of the project, their feedback can + be invaluable.
Can I submit multiple project proposals to the FreeBSD + Project?
+ +
Yes, but do make sure you invest adequate time in each proposal so + that we can evaluate them properly. We will only be able to accept + one proposal from any given student, so you may do better writing just + one or two detailed proposals than submitting lots of less detailed + ones.
Will the FreeBSD Project accept more than one student for + the same idea?
+ +
In general, we will accept only one student for any given proposal + idea, as most proposal ideas in our ideas list are sized with a single + student summer project in mind. This is a good reason to consider + coming up with your own idea, or at least, making sure that your + proposal for one of our project list ideas reflects your unique + contribution and viewpoint. If you plan to submit multiple proposals, + you might consider doing one with an idea from the list, and another + with an original idea.
What if my proposal is not selected in the application + process? Can I still participate?
+ +
Unfortunately, we always have more good applications than student + places, but that doesn't mean you can't do the project anyway. The + FreeBSD Project always welcomes new volunteers to work on projects, and + is generally happy to provide mentoring and support for students whose + proposals could not be selected in order to allow them to work on their + project anyway. You will need to work with the FreeBSD Project GSoC + administrators to identify a possible mento. However, Google will not + fund that participation.
What projects were completed successfully by students - last summer?
+ in previous summers?

Please see the 2008 FreeBSD Summer of Code page, as well as older project pages from 2007, 2006, and 2005 for a list of the completed projects from previous years.
How can I learn more about FreeBSD?
+ +
The FreeBSD Project Home Page + is the best way to learn more about the project -- from there you can + reach the FreeBSD Handbook, FreeBSD Developer's Handbook, project + mailing list archives, regular project status reports, and more. If + you have questions about specific project ideas, e-mail the technical + contacts for those ideas. If you have general GSoC questions relating + to FreeBSD, such as if you are unable to reach a project technical + contact, need help finding documentation, or want to know who might be + a good person to talk to about your idea, send them to soc-admins@FreeBSD.org.
+