2010 is the third year in which the gEDA Project has participated in Google's Summer of Code program. Through our experience, we have learned a couple of things about running a successful program. Here are the things we ask of our students to help make the GSoC experience a success for everybody.

• Please get involved with the gEDA Project before the summer begins. We are more interested in having new developers join (and stay with) our community than we are in simply giving away easy summer jobs. Therefore, get involved now! Join our mailing lists, check the code out of git, and fiddle around with it. We will rate your application more highly if you are already a participant, and not just a new face when GSoC application time rolls around.
• Participating in Google Summer of Code is meant to be a full time job. We expect that you will work on your project 8 hours/day from Monday to Friday. Summer of Code is not meant to be a side job. Please do not try to work on both Summer of Code and a different job during the summer – you will tire yourself out, your work quality will suffer, and you won't enjoy the experience at all.
• Students and mentors should use the geda-developer mailing list for (almost) all communication about their GSoC project. There are several reasons for this:
  • Oftentimes, a different developer on the list can answer a question before the mentor even realizes that he's been asked.
  • It increases the sense of community for both the GSoC student, and the rest of the gEDA developers. And the gEDA Project is a community of developers, so community building is a benefit to all.
  • It provides transparency into what's going on with the project.
• Students and mentors should also hold a weekly progress review. This review session can take place on IRC, Skype, telephone, or whatever medium is amenable to both. The reason is to make sure that the student is making progress, and isn't falling behind.
• Students should make at least one code check-in per week. Again, this helps ensure that the student is making progress, and isn't flailing around with a problem he or she can't solve.
• It would be useful if the mentor could post a summary of the weekly progress review somewhere, either on a project blog, a wiki, or just to geda-dev. This summary doesn't need to be more than a couple of sentences, but it helps give everybody a sense of what is going on.
• The gEDA Project holds occasional code sprints, typically on a Saturday. GSoC students should show up and participate at these code sprints, either in person (where possible) or via IRC.

Remember – the point behind working on the gEDA Project under the GSoC program is to join a community of developers, hack code, have fun, and make some money while doing it! Following the above practices will help make sure that you become part of the community, which is good for everybody!