Anthony M. Rosequist wrote:
I'm very interested in participating in the Google Summer of Code Project this year, and I came across XWiki while going through the mentor list. Unfortunately, I've never used XWiki before, but I would like to get involved.
Well, most of the students come with no prior experience, and this is the goal of the SoC program, to get students introduced to Open Source development and to Free Software projects. As Ludovic said, if you prove that you can learn something really fast, you'll increase your chance of being accepted.
I am currently finishing up a 2-semester internship at a transportation company working almost exclusively in J2EE / web applications. I've also done some small projects (personal and in school) using GWT.
This is good, can you list the technologies you think you understand the most?
There are a few proposed ideas that I'm especially interested in (Calendar application, Cross-Browser WYSIWYG Support, Survey application, Import/Export, and Photo Album application). Do you think I would be in over my head to submit my application for XWiki GSoC? I would have to catch up with XWiki (from an end-user standpoint as well as the code base), but I guess that's what part of the "orientation" time is for. I just didn't know if there was already enough interest from developers with experience in XWiki to fill all of the spots.
Well, not all the students will be accepted, and not all our proposed projects will get a slot, but we do a Pareto evaluation considering the importance of the projects, the enthusiasm of the students and the chances of success.
I'll be out of town the next couple of days, but I'll be working on my application proposal. The registration opens on Monday, and I'd like to submit it shortly after -- I read that some projects will give feedback and allow you to re-submit if you're being considered for acceptance but need some changes.
Yes, we have a long evaluation procedure, expect to be contacted several times before the selection process ends.
I'm sorry -- this was more of a story than a question. I just wanted to express my interest in GSoC and was wondering if you've already got a large turnout of people more experienced than myself.
Well, the experience alone is not all that matters. Last year we rejected a very experienced person because we considered that the learning and initiation part of the program was useless for him. Enthusiasm matters as much as experience. -- Sergiu Dumitriu http://purl.org/net/sergiu/