“VALS Semester of Code” after “Google Summer of Code”, or “Do you have an open source project?” “Freebie developers are coming to you!”

If you are an author, co-author or an active developer of the opensource project, then most likely you have already heard about the Google Summer of Code program (if not, there is a good article on Habré ). The program has been running for 10 consecutive years, every summer, and most recently (August 18) its 10th season, Google Summer of Code 2014 , ended , in which as many as 190 organizations participated (including the KolibriOS project ).

Encouraged by the example of Google, envious of the success of the United States , the European Union Agency Virtual Alliances for Learning Society (abbreviated VALS ) decided to "gash" its Summer of Code with blackjack and whores, and called it VALS Semester of Code . In contrast to GSoC, participating students here will write the code not during the summer holidays, but during the semester, and they will not be paid with money, but with elephants with academic loans .

You can participate in the program as a student only if you are lucky to study at one of these universities located in the EU, so 99% of students reading Habr, I will have to disappoint. But I have good news for organizations: VALS Semester of Code accepts open-source organizations from all over the world, and without any competition. In other words, if your organization was denied participation in the Google Summer of Code (as KolibriOS refused last year , or Radare2 in this), or if you learned about GSoC too late and did not manage to submit an application, then it's time to participate in the VALS Semester of Code.

The only requirement is to register on their website before 3:00 a.m. September 12, Moscow time , i.e. Only a little more than 2 days are left until the end of registration ( Yes, I know that it would not hurt to publish this news earlier, but only half a day ago I read the rules of participation myself, so that, as they say, “better late than never” ). The description of the registration process in English is available at this link . KolibriOS is already on the list , and the Ice Bucket Challenge is waiting for ReactOS .

UPD: By popular demand, the deadline for filing applications from organizations was extended to 3:00 a.m. September 17, Moscow time.

Dates of VALS Semester of Code:

• August 1 - September 17: Open-Source projects register on the site and publish their ideas
• September 17 - November 14: Students apply for published ideas
• September 17 - November 21: Projects select applications from students
• Friday, November 28: Final announcement of [selected applications]

Unlike Google Summer of Code, there are no fixed deadlines for the selected requests. Instead, mentors, students, and academic curators should set contractual deadlines. VALS recommends a project length similar to GSoC (i.e., about 3 months) .