Hello, another year has passed, Google has announced there will be again Google Summer of Code (GsoC) in 2026 and the deadline for organizations to apply is already approaching (February 3rd). I'd like to volunteer to be the main org-admin for GCC again but let me know if you think I shouldn't or that someone else should or if you want to do it instead. Otherwise I'll assume that I will and I hope that I can continue to rely on Thomas Schwinge and David Edelsohn to back me up and help me with some decision making along the way as my co-org-admins.
======================== The most important bit: ======================== I would like to ask all (moderately) seasoned GCC contributors to consider mentoring a contributor this year and ideally also come up with a project that they would like to lead. We are collecting proposal on our wiki page https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/SummerOfCode - feel free to add yours to the top list there. Or, if you are unsure, post your offer and project idea as a reply here to the mailing list. Additionally, if you have added an idea to the list in recent years, please review it whether it is still up-to-date or needs adjusting or should be removed altogether. ========================================================================= At this point, we need to collect list of project ideas. Eventually, each listed project idea should have: a) a project title, b) more detailed description of the project (2-5 sentences), c) expected outcomes (we do have a catch-almost-all formulation that outcome is generally patches at the bottom of the list on the wiki), d) project size - whether it is expected to take approximately 350, 175 or just 90 hours (see below about the last option), e) difficulty (easy, hard or medium, but we don't really have easy projects), f) expected mentors, g) skills required/preferred, and... h) [this is new] ...pointers to things applicant should study in order to learn about the topic. Please think also about a way to verify they can get basic stiff done (post test results, look up basic stuff in a gdb session... etc) though these do not need to be listed, these can be requested when they approach us. (See notes from Cauldron 2025 GSoC BoF: https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2025-October/246780.html). Project ideas that come without an offer to also mentor them are always fun to discuss, by all means feel free to reply to this email with yours and I will attempt to find a mentor, but please be aware that we can only use the suggestion it if we actually find one or ideally two. Everybody in the GCC community is invited to go over https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/SummerOfCode and remove any outdated or otherwise bad project suggestions and help improve viable ones. Finally, please continue helping (prospective) students figure stuff out about GCC like you have always done in the past. GSoC 2026 should be quite similar to the last year, the most important parameters probably are these: - Contributors (formerly students) must either be full-time students or be "beginners to open source." - There are now three project sizes: roughly 90 hors (small), roughly 175 hours (medium-sized) and roughly 350 hours (large) of work in total. The small option was introduced in 2024 but because our projects usually have a lengthy learning period, I think we will almost always want to stick to the medium and large variants. - Timing should be pretty much as flexible as last year. The recommended "standard" duration is 12 weeks but depending on contributor's and mentor's needs and circumstances, projects can take anywhere between 10 and 22 weeks. There will be one mid-term and one final evaluation. For further details you can see: - The announcement of GSoC 2026: https://opensource.googleblog.com/2025/12/shape-future-with-google-summer-of-code.html - GSoC rules: https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/rules - Detailed GSoC 2026 timeline: https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/timeline - Elaborate project idea guidelines: https://google.github.io/gsocguides/mentor/defining-a-project-ideas-list Thank you very much for your participation and help. Let's hope we attract some great contributors again this year. Martin
