The FreeBSD Project is pleased to participate as a mentoring organization in the Google Summer of Code 2007. This program funds students to contribute to an open source project over the summer break. We had dozens of successful students working on FreeBSD as part of this program in 2005 and 2006.

• Past Student Projects
• Example Proposal Ideas
• Possible Mentors
• Proposal Guidelines
• Infrastructure Provided to Students
• Frequently Asked Questions

Past Student Projects

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

• Summer of Code 2006 FreeBSD Projects Summary
• Summer of Code 2005 FreeBSD Projects Summary

See also our FreeBSD SoC2006 Wiki and the Google FreeBSD SoC 2006 pages.

Example Proposal Ideas

Please see the general FreeBSD Project Ideas page. The recent Developer Status Reports are also a good source of information about upcoming projects.

Mentors

A list of potential mentors will be posted here shortly.

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. A strong proposal will include:

• Name
• Email
• Project Title
• Possible Mentor (optional)
• Benefits to the FreeBSD Community - a good project will not just be fun to work on, but also generally useful to others.
• Deliverables - It is very important to list quantifiable results here e.g.
  • "Improve X modules in ways Y and Z."
  • "Write 3 new man pages for the new interfaces."
  • "Improve test coverage by writing X more unit/regression tests."
  • "Improve performance in FOO by X%."
• 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?

Infrastructure Provided to Students

In 2005 and 2006, 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

• Am I eligible?

  Please see the Google FAQ for all questions about eligibility.

• Where can I find more information about being a student or mentor in this program?

  Please see the program wiki here.

• When does the application period begin?

  March 2007.

• Where do I send my proposal?

  Proposals must be sent directly to Google when the application period begins.

• What projects were completed successfully by students last summer?

  Please see the 2006 FreeBSD Summer of Code and 2005 FreeBSD Summer of Code pages for a list of the completed projects from previous years.