GCC GSoC 2022: Call for project ideas and mentors

[Martin Jambor <mjambor@suse.cz>]

Hello,

another year is upon us and Google has announced there will be again
Google Summer of Code 2022 (though AFAIK there is no specific timeline
yet).  I'd like to volunteer to be the main Org Admin for GCC again so
let me know if you think I shouldn't or that someone else should, but
otherwise I'll assume that I will.

There will be a few important changes to the GSoC this year.  The most
important for us is that there will be two project sizes: medium-sized
projects which are expected to take about 175 hours to complete and
large projects expected to take approximately 350 hours (the size from
2020 and earlier).  I expect that most of our projects will be large but
I think we can offer one or two medium-sized ideas too.

Google will also increase timing flexibility, so the projects can run
for longer (up to 22 weeks) allowing mentors to go on vacation and
students to pause and focus on exams.  Talking about students, Google is
going to open the program to all adults, so from now on, the
participants working on the projects will be called GSoC contributors.

Slightly more information about these changes can be found at
https://opensource.googleblog.com/2021/11/expanding-google-summer-of-code-in-2022.html
I am sure we will learn more when the actual timeline is announced too.

======================== The most important bit: ========================

Even before that happens, I would like to ask all (moderately) seasoned
GCC contributors to consider mentoring a student this year and ideally
also come up with a project that they would like to lead.  I'm
collecting proposal on our wiki page
https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/SummerOfCode - feel free to add yours to the
top list there.  Or, if you are unsure, post your offer and project idea
as a reply here to the mailing list.

=========================================================================

Eventually, each listed project idea should have a) a project
title/description, b) more detailed description of the project (2-5
sentences), c) expected outcomes, d) skills required/preferred, e)
project size and difficulty and f) expected mentors.

Project ideas that come without an offer to also mentor them are always
fun to discuss, by all means feel free to reply to this email with yours
and I will attempt to find a mentor, but please be aware that we can
only use the suggestion it if we actually find one.

Everybody in the GCC community is invited to go over
https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/SummerOfCode and remove any outdated or
otherwise bad project suggestions and help improve viable ones.

Finally, please continue helping (prospective) students figure stuff out
about GCC like you always do.  So far I think all of them enjoyed
working with us, even if many sometimes struggled with GCC's complexity.

I will update you as more details about GSoC 2022 become available.

Thank you, let's hope we attract some new talent again this year.

Martin