Not that another GSoC Journey
2020. I know what comes first in your mind when I write it. I will not mention it. It doesn’t deserve to be on this blog. It doesn’t deserve to be on this planet. However, it still lives and dwells amidst us, fighting for its survival. It is evil. It should die. The world is against it. It still fights. It still lives. Who is it? No, I will not name it.
Taking out something this positive from something that negative — You know me now :-) So why am I writing all this in a blog where I should rather preach to you about contributing and ‘cracking’ GSoC? I will suggest you that — flow with the blog for a beautiful journey and you will reach the land of your reasons and conclusions.
Before the journey begins let’s know the destination first! Ever had that long-standing summer dream of learning, contributing and being a part of an Open Source Community and also being paid for it? Then, my dear friend, Google Summer of Code (aka GSoC) is the place where that dream turns to reality! Google Summer of Code is a global program focused on bringing more student developers into open source software development. It will be our destination for this journey and now that you know it, let this journey unravel revealing latent ways for you to reach there :-)
The Journey
Part 1: No road ahead
I entered the arena of Computer Science Engineering in 2018 but not in the premier college I dreamt to be. The journey ahead was looking cold and remote with no road ahead. Looming darkness refrained my eyes to see that amidst all this — the sky had stars too!
It took me around 1.5 years to look at the sky and realise that the stars were busy gazing me and it was I who could not realize my inner potential. What happened after this changed Mritunjay-and for the better! After becoming a Microsoft Student Partner and getting the scholarship to attend Open Source Summit + Embedded Linux Conference Europe 2019, nothing was stopping Mritunjay to move ahead now. This period taught me a lot of things but the things that I want to highlight is that — It’s not your college, it’s not your grades, it’s not ANYTHING but YOU and YOU alone to decide what you can achieve. You need to just unshackle the boundaries defined by YOU, for YOU!
Part 2: The Awakening
The thing that awakened me to try for Google Summer of Code was scripted to be done in Lyon at the OSS Summit by Vaibhav Gupta!
I met Vaibhav Gupta there and got a friend for life in return. My apprehension that GSoC is meant only for Web and Mobile Developers was busted by this man and he encouraged that even if I am comfortable in C, C++ or Python, I should try and apply. He gave his example of being just comfortable in C and getting into GSoC 2019.
Where’s the key then? Yes, in finding the right organisation :-) And what did I learn here? Networking! It’s not a lie when they say, “Your Network is your net worth.”
Part 3: The Endgame
This is going to be the most important part for you to read and for me to write. Let’s follow the GSoC 2020 timeline to narrate what challenges I faced on the road to GSoC 2020.
The Timeline is more or less the same for every year. The causes of worry are also more or less the same for every year. Questions like ‘When Should I begin?’; ‘Which Organisation should I choose?’; ‘Will my Organisation be selected?’; ‘My GitHub is not green, will I be selected?’. These questions can envelop any sane person’s mind and drive her/him crazy, including me (lol!)
Using solely my personal experience to answer not only these questions but also what next you have to do after the organisations have been announced, here I proclaim (haha!):-
Step 1: Identify yourself
Are you a web developer? Or you are into making some cool mobile apps? Neither? Don’t worry then. You are my mate. Yes, GSoC is possible even if you know a basic programming language like C, still haven’t created a single Pull Request and your GitHub is still not green. Vaibhav did it, I have done this time and you can do it too! Identify your strengths and work on them and don’t worry about the projects. GSoC covers almost every basic tech stack that you have learned or are willing to learn. So just identify yourself and PREPARE!
Step 2: Identify your Organisation
Now that you know yourself, the next thing that you need to find is the organisation. This is one of the most crucial and deciding factors of your journey ahead. Before choosing the Organisation, let me first answer ‘When to Choose the Organisation?’ I feel that December is the best month when you should at least begin looking into the past organisations that had projects matching your skills. Here’s the link that will help you to dig deep in the past: https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/archive/.
Based on your interests and the frequency of organisations acceptance, I will suggest you move with two organisations till the time the Accepted Organisations are announced.
Even though the writer is suggesting you all begin from December, he did all this as late as in February and just 10 days before the Organisations were announced! To satisfy you with the reason — the writer can go to the extent of drawing a false equivalence between him and Nawazuddin of Sacred Games — “Apun ko Kuch daring Karna tha!” (Translating to: I wanted to something daring!) but he refuses to indulge in such a banishing mimicry to hide his failure of multitasking with end-semester exams, Smart India Hackathon Internals and GSoC(lol!)
After deep contemplation, the writer finally chose only one organisation — RTEMS and moved!
Step 3: What after Organisations are announced?
It can be a heart-breaking step if the organisation you were willing to apply is not selected. However, if you are willing to learn and are passionate to apply for GSoC, you can very well learn the de-facto course of crisis management, send a PATCH to fix your broken heart and get ready for GSoC already :-)
Yes, even if your organisation is not accepted, it’s not an end of the road for your GSoC. What do you need to do next? Go back to Step 2 and choose another organisation! It will be different this time because you already know the accepted ones and you have that experience with another one that can make a significant difference in your proposal and communication with mentors.
What I am going to tell you now is valid for both — whose organisations were accepted and for them as well who selected the accepted organisations! Communication, yes, communication is the key and let me go an extra mile to tell you an unpopular opinion — it is way more important than your Contributions.
Whether it is the mailing list, IRC channel, Slack or any other communication media that your organisation is working with — Just stay active there and ask! Ask what you need and you will be helped. That’s the essence of Open-Source Communities after all.
You will not believe but let me tell you that I did not make a single contribution to the RTEMS project until the Proposal deadline of 31st March. However, I selected my project in Feb itself and regularly engaged with my mentors on improving the draft of my proposal. They also gave me certain tasks related to my project like creating the environment for the project and other related tasks (they were not at all easy though).
The thing you need to remember is that Contribute if you can but Communicate you must!
Step 4: Making and Refining the Proposal
As I said earlier communicate with your organisation and specifically the mentors of the project you have chosen. Please make yourself aware of the template that your organisation follows and strictly adhere to it. Take regular feedback from mentors and ask them how you can improve ahead. Try to listen to the signs they want to give and implement it.
When you are confident and mentors say that it’s good to go, upload it on the official website and keep your nerves relaxed for the waiting period :-)
Step 5: Waiting Period and Acceptance
After you are done with the submission of your proposal, you should not think that your work is finished. You should instead become all the more active in your organisation’s communication channel. If you have been contributing, contribute more and if you still haven’t try to do your first contribution. Believe me, it is not as difficult as it looks. Your first contribution can be a simple fix of a typo in the docs of the organisation. Documentation contributions are really easy and are highly appreciated by the organisations.
My first two contributions for RTEMS were related to improving the Documentation and they came during this waiting period.
May 4th, 11:32 PM IST
‘Welcome to GSoC 2020!’ which was seen as a dream in Lyon stood in front of me as a reality while I was still in a state of shock and sheer bliss. And while I write this, I am yet again emotional, and so I think that this journey should end here as another journey begins from here. And for those who haven’t reached the destination this time, don’t you dare think that the journey has ended :-)
This was the GSoC journey of a person who was dissed by the small world around him after a few failures. All that this person learned is that Everything is possible if you start believing the most important person in your life — YOU!
Never give up! Never Stop! And yeah, Bon Voyage, for your journey never ends!
Want to connect? Ping me here for all the help you need :-)
LinkedIn Profile- http://linkedin.com/in/mritunjay394
Twitter Handle: https://twitter.com/mritunjay394
Facebook Profile: https://www.facebook.com/mritunjaykumar.sharma.18
Medium Profile: https://medium.com/@mritunjaysharma394
📝 Save this story in Journal.
👩💻 Wake up every Sunday morning to the week’s most noteworthy stories in Tech waiting in your inbox. Read the Noteworthy in Tech newsletter.
