Glossary

Acceptance Date

The date accepted Projects (and thus the GSoC contributors associated with those Projects) are announced on the Program Website.

Community Bonding Period

The period of time between when accepted GSoC contributors are announced and the time they are expected to start coding. This time is an excellent one to introduce your GSoC contributors to the community, get them on the right mailing lists, introduce them to the codebase, discuss how they will work with their mentors on their timeline for the program, etc.

Evaluation

A review by the Mentor of their GSoC contributor's work or a review by the GSoC contributor of their Mentor.

GSoC

Google Summer of Code

GSoC Contributor

A GSoC Contributor is a person accepted into the Google Summer of Code program who will spend their summer coding on a project under the guidance of mentors from an open source organization.

Ideas List

The list of ideas for Projects an Organization would like GSoC contributors to work on during the program. The list is published by an Organization on its website.

IRC

Internet Relay Chat - a communication forum used by many open source organizations. Basically a giant chat room where you can talk with other developers in the community in real time.

Members

The Organization Administrators and Mentors for a given Organization.

Mentor

A member of an organization who oversees the progress of a GSoC contributor. Mentors are required to be actively contributing to an open source project before being assigned a GSoC contributor.

Organization

An open source, free software or technology-related project that mentors GSoC contributors for Google Summer of Code. Also known as a mentor organization.

Organization Administrator (Org Admin)

An organization administrator oversees the progress of a mentor organization and its GSoC contributors throughout the program. Duties include creating org application, inviting mentors, making sure all evaluations have been completed, and dealing with organization stipends.

Program Administrator (Program Admin)

Google employees who run the program.

Project

An open source coding project to be worked on by a GSoC contributor as an individual. Once a GSoC contributor’s proposal is accepted it then becomes known as a project for the remainder of the program.

Proposal

The written document a GSoC contributor submits describing the project they would like to work on during the program with a particular organization. Most organizations have templates or specific items they want included on the proposal.

UTC

Coordinated Universal Time

Umbrella Organization

A larger project/mentor organization that includes some smaller, related open source projects as part of their community. Examples of an umbrella organization include the Apache Foundation and Python Software Foundation.