I've advertised a GSoC project under Debian for improving voice, video and chat communication with free software.

Replacing Skype, Viber and WhatsApp is a big task, however, it is quite achievable by breaking it down into small chunks of work. I've been cataloguing many of the key improvements needed to make Free RTC products work together. Many of these chunks are within the scope of a GSoC project.

If you can refer any students, if you would like to help as a mentor or if you are a student, please come and introduce yourself on the FreeRTC mailing list. If additional mentors volunteer, there is a good chance we can have more than one student funded to work on this topic.

The deadline is Friday, 25 March 2016

The student application deadline is 25 March 2016 19:00 UTC. This is a hard deadline for students. Mentors can still join after the deadline, during the phase where student applications are evaluated.

The Google site can be very busy in the hours before the deadline so it is recommended to try and complete the application at least 8 hours before the final deadline.

Action items for students:

• Register yourself on the Google Site and submit an application. You can submit applications to multiple organizations. For example, if you wish to focus on the DruCall module for Drupal, you can apply to both Debian and Drupal.
• Join the FreeRTC mailing list and send a message introducing yourself. Tell us which topics you are interested in, which programming languages your are most confident with and which organizations you applied to through the Google site.
• Create an application wiki page on the Debian wiki. You are permitted to edit the page after the 25 March deadline, so if you are applying at the last minute, just create a basic list of things you will work on and expand it over the following 2-3 days

Introducing yourself and making a strong application

When completing the application form for Google, the wiki page and writing the email to introduce yourself, consider including the following details:

• Link to any public profile you have on sites like Github or bug trackers
• Tell us about your programming language skills, list the top three programming languages you are comfortable with and tell us how many years you have used each
• other skills you have or courses you have completed
• any talks you have given at conferences
• any papers you have had published
• any conferences you have attended or would like to attend
• where you are located and where you study, including timezone
• any work experience you already have
• any courses, exams or employment commitments you have between 22 May and 24 August
• anybody from your local free software community or university who may be willing to help as an additional mentor

Further reading

Please also see my other project idea, for ham radio / SDR projects and my blog Want to be selected for Google Summer of Code 2016?.

If you are not selected in 2016

We try to make contact with all students who apply and give some feedback, in particular, we will try to let you know what to do to increase your chances of selection in the next year, 2017. Applying for GSoC and being interviewed by mentors is a great way to practice for applying for other internships and jobs.