Google Summer of Code 2008

Over the past three years, Google has spent millions of dollars to pay over 1500 talented individuals to work on open source software projects through their Summer of Code program. Google has now officially announced they're repeating it this year, offering a comprehensive overview.

If you'd been following our blog posts last year you will know how much of a success the Summer of Code was for SilverStripe; from usability work, through to OpenID support, online image editing and multiple-language capabilities, a lot of what you take for granted in SilverStripe was produced last year by our dedicated Google coders.

While Google has not yet announced the projects that are involved, it is safe to say from observation that many projects in past years have been successful at being included again. If you're a university student who would like to be involved with us this year, there's no reason to wait until the successful applicants are announced.

In fact, by producing a theme, writing a widget, offering a new translation, or submitting a patch to one of our numerous feature requests and known bugs, you make it easier for us to have confidence in inviting you to be included. Bear in mind that there are plenty of contributors to SilverStripe who are not involved with Summer of Code, so to the students who unfortunately cannot participate, we still really value your help and enthusiasm.

If you are interested in being involved with Google Summer of Code, keep the last week of March free, as this the only time when your applications can be made.