One of our OpenGarden members, Umair, recently asked if MindTouch would help participate in the Google Summer of Code (GSOC). I’ve heard wonderful things about GSOC in years past, and it’s really exciting to be in a position to actually participate as a mentoring organization!

In case you don’t know, “GSOC is a program that offers student developers stipends to write code for various open source projects.” But this isn’t just a bounty program - each student developer gets a mentor (who doesn’t have to actually work for MindTouch!) who will help the student developer reach his or her project goals. And since GSOC is only for OSI-approved license, the work done gets released back to the community, free of use!

This benefits everybody involved: students get experience and money for their work and mentors get a chance to contribute back to their favorite open source projects. Oftentimes, development at MindTouch is heavily influenced by our internal milestones, so sometimes improvements to Deki Wiki that our community wants get neglected. This is your chance to help a student developer and help Deki Wiki at the same time!

So what do we need from you, the community? Well, if you’re a developer, please consider being a mentor for GSOC! The possibilities to build off of the API are endless, and I’m sure some of you have some fantastics ideas that we haven’t considered.

We’re also looking for feedback on potential projects we can submit to GSOC, so submit those ideas!

I’ve created an open thread on our forums for feedback, or feel free to contact me at royk@mindtouch.com if you have any questions.

Unfortunately, the GSOC deadline is March 12th, so please act quickly

Read more about GSOC, volunteer in our threads, or submit possible project ideas!

categories: MindTouch