The Google Summer of Code is a fantastic program that pairs new contributors up with mentors and pays them to work on open source projects.
MariaDB has been part of Google Summer of Code for 10 years and we are happy to announce that we are officially part of the program this year, too!
Traditionally, GSoC has only been open to university students, but now it is available to anyone! I’m a big fan of this, because talented people who do not have the opportunity to go to university can get involved. It also benefits those who are working towards a change into a career in software development.
How it works
We have a list of projects available for potential candidates to choose from:
- Five projects for MariaDB Server that will require some knowledge of developing in C++.
- Four for MariaDB ColumnStore which will also require some C++ knowledge.
- One for our CI system called Buildbot which will require some Javascript and Python knowledge.
If you find something else in the MariaDB space that you would rather work in instead, then feel free to reach out to us.
The contributor will work with the mentor over the Summer to develop the project. There will be regular evaluation periods to make sure that everything is going ahead smoothly. In the end, the results are announced, and the code you write could end up being part of MariaDB.
How do I get started?
Although there is still a week to go until signups officially open, you have the opportunity to get started right away.
The first thing we recommend is trying to compile MariaDB Server using the instructions here, or these instructions if you are using Windows.
Then pick a ticket in Jira to work on. We highly recommend those tagged as beginner-friendly. But feel free to contact us on Zulip if you think there is another ticket you would like to get started on, we can let you know if it is a suitable one to start with.
Once a ticket has been decided on, simply follow our contributing guide. This process will help you get up to speed with our code base and how our code submission and review process works.
Other useful links
We highly recommend you join the MariaDB Developers mailing list, more information about our mailing lists can be found here. We have a wiki page where you can see our previous GSoC entries here. Finally, more ways you can navigate and communicate with the community are available here.
Google Summer of Code logo used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.