Hi all,
this thread is tightly related to [GSoC 2025] Ada's participation?
Google has a program, called Google Summer of Code (GSoC for short) that pays new open source contributors to work on topics for selected projects. Some of these projects could potentially see some work done in Ada. Here is a bit more information for those interested.
- GSoC will accept proposals from contributors (more about what is a contributor later) to any project as long as the mentors/administrators accept it.
- Here is the thing: the administrators of projects and mentors submit a list of ideas for GSoC to fund. BUT, in the end, it is the contributor the one that has to make a proposal and write it down. This means that even if the administrators do not create a specific project idea/proposal about Ada, if they find the proposal from a contributor interesting, they may accept it. This means that someone could contribute to projects such as GCC/GNAT, RTEMS, etc; as long as there is a serious proposal, there is someone willing to mentor and the administrators accept it.
- What does it mean/take to be a contributor? Well, anybody nowadays can be a contributor, you no longer have to be a student… HOWEVER, there is a catch, not everybody can be one.
- The goal of GSoC is to promote new open source contributors. This means, that people with great experience on a topic cannot participate on that topic. AND people who have already contributed to open source projects on a somewhat serious manner, CANNOT be contributors within GSoC. So mainly, it is for young people who are new to the open source world and for professionals who would like to get started in this world. Here is more information Get Started | Google Summer of Code
- There are three types of potential project proposals depending on their time/complexity/size: small (90h), medium (175h) and large (350h). Only projects that could fit in those categories more or less can be carried out.
- And all proposals and potential contributors need to be serious. Students with finals and thesis defenses will most likely not be accepted as they will most likely not have time. Working people with children may not be accepted as they may lack the time. There needs to be a clear commitment and a real possibility of pulling it off!
- Being a mentor takes time and effort! So if you want to mentor someone, take it very seriously! Though you are not an helicopter, the contributor is there to learn.
All the information can be found here What is Google Summer of Code? | Google Summer of Code Guides (student guide) and here What is Google Summer of Code? | Google Summer of Code Guides (mentor guide).
From what I know, someone could propose the following projects (but feel free to add your own ideas!):
- Adding
parallelkeyword support to GCC/GNAT. @sttaft said that he would be willing to mentor the person. This sounds like a rather complex but fun project. I know Tucker did already some work here in Parasail. Here is GCC’s GSoC page - Upstreaming NetBSD/OpenBSD/other OS support of GNAT to GCC; I may be willing to mentor a person here. This could be a fairly small project, but it requires quite a bit of knowledge! Here is NetBSD’s page, FreeBSD’s
- Improving Ada support in RTMES. I do not know of any mentor, but maybe someone from the RTEMS team may be willing to help. And these are the kinds of projects that GSoC wants, the ones that help everybody but the main maintainers may not have enough time of willingness to do it themselves. Here is RTMS’s GSoC page
- Adding Ada support to the Zephyr RTOS. I do not know of any mentor here, but an Ada user or potentially a Zephyr maintainer may be willing to help. This is very interesting as Zephyr is a rapidly growing RTOS and we could use that! Here is Zephyr’s GSoC page
- The Unikraft microkernel, which is specialised in quick startup environments to run targeted tasks. Here is Unikraft’s GSoC page
The deadline for submissions starts on March 24th and ends on April 8th.
Best regards and lets see if someone benefits and steps up!
Fer