The second Google Summer of Code is starting to accept applications from May 1st.

Unfortunately, last year I missed the application deadline, but I'm intending to participate in the coding this year.

The Perl Foundation is already on the mentoring organizations' list, so I know they are counting on applicants, but searching on the monastery didn't turn up any significant discussion about either last year's or this year's contest. Let's change that. ;)

2005's results didn't put TPF to shame, but maybe this year can be even better by more discussion about the subject. There has been a list of ideas put together for 2005 and I think|hope it will be updated soon to reflect already completed|changed and new ideas. If someone "in charge" is looking at this post, one of the things which I'd personally appreciate is more Perl coding ideas compared to C coding for perl|parrot (although please don't make me hurt for this suggestion ;))

So, I'd like to ask the monks, if you have an idea or suggestion which could be implemented, but hasn't been due to lack of time or for some other solvable constraint, please come forward and if it is within my capabilities (or maybe someone else will feel motivated to try SoC?) I'll try to take it on if I find it interesting and/or worthwhile.

I have a few ideas already for my application, like my interest in internationalization (Lingua modules/framework, particularly hungarian ones as it's my mother language) and testing (some ideas from the TPF page), but SoC is not about me, I hope this post can generate some attention to it and new ideas and applicants can emerge.

On the tangent a bit, allow me to talk about motivation. I consider motivation and reasons an important factor when dealing with open source, so I'd like to talk about my reasons of why I'd like to participate. I would not be honest if I would say that the $4500 is not motivating me at all (and the $500 for TPF). No, it does. I'm a university student after all who has to think about living. But the important thing for me is that I think about the funds as allowing me to do what I _like_ and allowing me to contribute something for others to use. That is kind of the dream situation of mine to do what I like while not having to worry about basic necessities or I can even get payed for doing what I like. If there will be an idea that catches my imagination I'm going to work on it anyway whether my application to SoC gets accepted or not.

Thank you for listening, it is time for me to step down from my soapbox. :)

Update: added a missing word

Update 2: It seems my application to SoC has been accepted. Yay!

In reply to Google Summer of Code 2006 by szbalint

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