General Google Summer of Code Information

See also: Ideas for GSoC 2016, 2015, 2014.

Tox, or Project Tox, is a FLOSS (Free/Libre/Open Source Software), distributed, and secure instant messaging application aimed to replace Skype. Tox's goal is to be an easy to use, all-in-one communication platform (including audio and video chats in the future) that ensures users' full privacy and secure message delivery. We seek adoption among everyone from the tech savvy to the tech uninclined, by dealing with the complicated stuff in our core library and providing attractive and intuitive interfaces for all sorts of platforms.

All participants should be familiar with the GSoC timeline shown on the Google Summer of Code website and be aware of the deadlines.

It's also important to read through FAQ from the Google Summer of Code website, since it contains many useful information.

Students should be aware that we are looking for people who have a legitimate interest in Open Source Software and are participating because they support what we do. We are not looking for a person with the best code and attending the best school, nor for someone who is going to run away after the 3 months are over.

You should start familiarizing yourself with the components that you plan on working on before the start date. Our developers are available on IRC for help. GSoC reserves a lot of time for bonding, so use that time wisely.

Go over Common information for all participants.

You might find it useful to read GSoC Student Guide.

• Produce something complete in the 3 months.
• While some projects might require more time than others to complete, we expect you to be able to work 40 hours per week, as if it was a full time employment.
• Communicate with your mentor every working day. Just say “Hello” if you like.
• Commit code early and push to the repository often, so that your mentor could see the progress you are making and comment on your code.
• Write short weekly progress reports for the entire organization to see answering the following questions (don't be afraid to add many details)
  • What did you get done this week?
  • What do you plan on doing next week?
  • Are you blocked on anything?

Failure to meet any of these expectations will result in the student failing GSoC.

Proposals are what you will be judged upon, so try to keep them as clear as possible. Proposals must be written in English.

Proposals must be submitted directly to the google-melange website, so that all of our mentors would get notified and could leave comments. The google-melange website allows you to use HTML, so take the advantage of that for formatting you proposal (headings, tables, bullet lists, etc). Make sure to post a comment when you edit your google-melange proposal, since we don't get notified of edits! You can also ask your mentor for an extension in case you need to edit your proposal past deadline, provided you have a good reason.

Here are some things to address in your proposal:

• Who are you? What are you studying? What degree are you perusing?
• What is your e-mail address? What is your IRC nick? What is your account on GitHub or other collaborative websites?
• What exactly you are intending to do? What will not be done?
• What components/modules will be modified or created by you during the GSoC?
• What components/modules you plan on using to achieve completion of your project?
• How much are you familiar with the software you are proposing to work with? Have you used it? Read its source code? Modified the source code?
• Why are you the right person for the project?
• Do you have past experience with the open source world as a user or as a contributor?
• If available, please provide a links to your contributions to Tox or other open source projects.
• How many hours per week are you going to work on the project? 10? 20? 30? 40?
• Provide a schedule of your work during GSoC, with dates and important milestones.
• Estimated last day of classes/exams.
• If applicable, estimated first day of classes.
• What time commitments such as school work, job, vacation, etc. will you have during GSoC period?
• What is your native language? Would you be comfortable working with a mentor whose native language is English?
• What time zone do you live in? Maybe we could assign you a mentor that lives closer to your time zone, so that you won't have to wait too long for mentor's reply.
• Have you participated in GSoC before?
• How many times? Which year? Which project?
• Have you applied but were not selected? When?

Submit early, revise often
Early proposals get more attention from developers and allow for more developers to go over them. Usually near the end of the student proposal deadline organizations get tons of proposals, which they can't go over as thoroughly, not to mention giving feedback and bounding with students. If you are submitting near the student proposal deadline, it's also likely that there is already a preferred student for the project at this point, so submit early — this will increase your chance of being accepted in GSoC.

Keep it simple
We don't need long essay on you and on the project. Just be concise and precise.

But don't keep it too simple
We often receive proposals which are just student's resume and a couple of sentences about the project on top of it. Please spend time on working on your proposals and put some thought into it, otherwise you are wasting everyone's time.

Be realistic
You should be able to complete the proposed project in 3 months, don't propose huge projects you don't think you will be able to finish in 3 months.

Start early
Contact mentors, set up the development environment and try to submit a patch for a project you are willing to be working on or make some small demo/ui mockup of your proposal (don't spend much time on it). This shows your interest in the project and ability to use developer tools, which will make your proposal much more noticeable by mentors.

Come speak to us beforehand
You are much more likely to be selected if you discuss your project idea with mentors through email or IRC. Simply submitting your proposal and doing nothing is a very bad idea.

Don't stop on us
We get hundreds of proposals for just a few slots, so we advise you to send proposals to several organizations. This will increase your chance of being accepted in GSoC.

If you are a Tox developer and wish to participate in Google Summer of Code as a mentor, with all of the consequences and responsibilities, feel free to submit ideas to the ideas page and/or add yourself as a mentor to already existing ideas, given you are have sufficient knowledge and qualification to mentor a student that will choose the idea.

Come up with a list of small bugs that you could assign students to fix.

If you have a strong student applying to work on an idea, redirect other students coming for the idea to some other idea instead.

You would need to register on the GSoC website as a mentor for the organization.

Make sure you go over Common information for all participants.

You might also find it useful to read GSoC Mentor Guide.