openSUSE Joins Google Summer of Code

The openSUSE project will be working with students from around the world to develop new code and improve existing projects

13 May 2008

The openSUSE® project today announced it has 10 projects being funded through the Google Summer of Code this year. Through Google Summer of Code, openSUSE will be working with students from around the world to develop new code and improve existing projects. Google Summer of Code offers student developers stipends to write code for various open source projects to inspire young developers to begin participating in open source development and to help open source projects identify and bring in new developers.

"I'm very pleased that Google has chosen to provide us with 10 slots in the Summer of Code program," said Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier, openSUSE community manager. "It's a great program that allows community projects to develop new features or applications, and more important, to provide a way for new contributors to learn how to work with open source projects. We not only get valuable code, but we are also able to work closely with the next generation of contributors."

According to Brockmeier, interest was high as the openSUSE project received more than 50 applications for its 10 allocated slots, and he is confident the students they're working with will be valuable contributors in the long run.

The projects funded by Google include:

  • LTSP GUI management for openSUSE; by Jan Weber, mentored by Jigish Gohil
  • Interactive crash analysis; by Nikolay Derkach, mentored by Jan Blunck
  • Face-based authentication; by Rohan Anil, mentored by Alex Lau Chun Yin
  • Grub4ext4: enable ext4 file system as boot partition; by PengTao, mentored by Coly Li
  • New approach for (RPM) packages creation; by Andrei Oprisan, mentored by Stanislav Brabec
  • Libzypp download failover; by Gerard Farràs i Ballabriga, mentored by Peter Poeml
  • GNOME Build Service client for openSUSE; by Mario Đanić, mentored by Rodrigo Moya
  • Integration of OpenID Consumer to Build Service; by Hameedullah Khan, mentored by Cornelius Schumacher
  • Migration assistant reloaded; by Peter Libič, mentored by Pavol Rusnak
  • Build Service-Eclipse integration; by Long Hong, mentored by Michal Marek

Google Summer of Code has funded more than 1,500 students and 2,000 mentors from 90 countries over the past three years. This year the project is funding 1,125 students with 175 open source projects, including openSUSE. For more information on openSUSE's activities in Google Summer of Code, visit http://code.google.com/soc/2008/suse/about.html.

OpenSUSE is a community distribution sponsored by Novell to promote the use of Linux* everywhere. OpenSUSE delivers everything Linux developers and enthusiasts need to get started with Linux. Hosted at www.opensuse.org, the project features easy access to builds and releases. It also offers extensive community development programs for open access to the development process used to create SUSE® Linux Enterprise.

About Novell

Novell, Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL) delivers the best engineered, most interoperable Linux platform and a portfolio of integrated IT management software that helps customers around the world reduce cost, complexity and risk. With our infrastructure software and ecosystem of partnerships, Novell harmoniously integrates mixed IT environments, allowing people and technology to work as one. For more information, visit www.novell.com.

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