Not accepted into GSoC? Here’s what to do…

GSoC acceptance/rejection emails have been sent out not long ago. Congratulations to everyone who was accepted. Now if you are among those who received a rejection email this blog has a few things for you. None of these are GSoC or directly affiliated with it. Each of them however is pretty damn cool 😉

So first of all: Pretty much any GSoC org will accept you outside of GSoC if you are dedicated and they have someone who can help you a bit. Ask them! A few orgs have dedicated programs though:

• Haiku with Haiku Code Drive (not confirmed yet for this year)
• illumos with illumos Students – You get mentoring to work on a cutting-edge operating system at your own pace and get a t-shirt, recommendation and other prizes, possibly even internships.
• KDE with Season of KDE – You get to work on cool stuff all over KDE and get a t-shirt and certificate if you are successful.
• Umit with Umit Summer of Code – Your chance to work on networking tools and get a t-shirt, certificate and recommendation letter.
• X.Org with X.Org Endless Vacation of Code – You can get paid to work on X.Org and you can do it at a time that suits you and your mentor.

All of these programs allow you to work on really cool software with a mentor over a longer period and create something you can be proud of. So ask your org and see what you can do outside of GSoC with them. It’s in your hands. And if they don’t have enough mentors for example, there are a lot more projects out there waiting for you. Don’t be shy and ask.

If you know of more GSoC orgs running similar programs this year please mention them in the comments.