Google Summer of Code 2026

Development
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Are we applying for Google Summer of Code 2026?
@ice0 @rodolforg @KonstantinDmitriev

GSoC-Vertical
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Yes, we will.

We were first organizing some stuff here. :slight_smile:

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Yesss. Please I’m new to it, how do I register.

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Hey everyone,

My name is Abdelrahman Emad, and I’m a third-year Computer Engineering student from Egypt. I’m excited to participate in GSoC 2026 and contribute to Synfig, especially to the Exporter to Spine file format project.

Over the past period, I’ve been exploring the Synfig codebase and understanding how bones, animations, and value nodes are structured internally. I’ve also submitted a few PRs to get more familiar with the workflow and contribution process.

I’m currently working on my proposal for the Spine exporter project, focusing on correctly extracting skeleton, bone hierarchy, and animation data and converting it into Spine JSON format.

I’m really looking forward to learning more and collaborating with the community. Any guidance or feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you :slightly_smiling_face:

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Hi everyone,

My name is Menna Jaheen, a 4th year computer science student from Egypt. I’m excited to be here and apply for GSoC 2026. Currently I’m exploring the codebase and about to make my first PR.

I’m also interested in the New audio backend project and currently preparing for the proposal.

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Hello everyone,

My name is Ahmed, and I am a Computer Engineering student from Egypt. I’m really excited to collaborate with you all and contribute to the project.

I’ve already submitted one pull request, and I’m currently working on preparing a proposal for one of the project ideas that I’m particularly interested in.

I reviewed the ideas list, and I would like to focus on the Synfig Android Version project.

I would appreciate any guidance on how to best prepare for this proposal and which areas I should focus on while getting more familiar with the codebase.

Thank you, and I’m looking forward to working with you!

@mohamed.Adhamc @rodolforg

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I doubt that nowadays an Android version of Synfig (GPLv3) would be compatible with the new restrictions imposed by Google for Android ecosystem.
If we don’t have the freedom to compile, distribute apk and execute your code on the device you want without to request Google to give you the permission to do it, it is against the purpose of GPLv3.
Even for F-Droid, a lot of devs are giving with Android platform since it is becoming a closed box.

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Thank you for your explanation — I really appreciate the insight regarding GPLv3 and the broader ecosystem concerns.

I also wanted to clarify that my interest in the Android version came from the ideas list (I believe it was mentioned in the GSOC 2026 ideas). I didn’t intend to propose something that conflicts with the project’s philosophy — I simply selected it from the previously suggested ideas.

That said, I completely understand that project priorities and ecosystem realities evolve over time.

I would be very happy to redirect my focus toward an area that better aligns with Synfig’s present goals. If there are specific components or challenges you think would be valuable for a student contributor to work on, I would greatly appreciate your guidance.

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Just note that I’m not an “official decider/maintainer” for the project.
I bring my point of view to the debate for things that may not be so obvious for newcomers and new devs.
I don’t forbid anything, I’m only asking to think deeper to the consequences instead of rushing into code and have new problems to fix afterwards ^^

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Yes, unfortunately I agree to a certain extent as well. I first proposed this project I believe two years ago. Lots has changed since, and it seems like the android ecosystem is getting more and more uptight…

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Hello Everyone,

I’m Rohan Sharma, a 3rd-year Computer Science student at National Institute of Engineering, Mysore, India. I’m passionate about open-source development and software design, and I’d love to contribute to Synfig through the “Exporter to Spine file format” project. This project interests me as it involves structured data handling, animation processing, and enhancing Synfig’s interoperability.

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Kind reminder about GSoC before to have a rush of candidates:
https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/faq?hl=en

Eligibility

  • What are the eligibility requirements?

    • 18+ years old at registration
    • Eligible to work in your country of residence
    • Student or Open source beginner
    • Accepted into GSoC no more than once previously
    • Not residing in a U.S. embargoed country

  • Who is considered a “beginner”?
    Someone with minimal open source experience.
    You would still be considered a beginner if your experience only includes:

    • Personal or class projects, including boot camp projects.
    • Open source projects that are only used at a single institution. (example: a club website or research that happened to be published as open source at your old university)
    • Opening a small number (<10) of issues or pull requests against various open source packages.
    • Continued involvement in an open source project that you joined as part of GSoC preparation.

    Regular contributors to an open source project are not beginners.

  • Can current open source contributors participate?
    Only if they are beginners. GSoC is not for experienced open source developers.

  • Will Google make exceptions?
    No. Requirements are strictly enforced to ensure fairness.

  • Can I be both a mentor and a contributor?
    No. You must choose one role.
    Once you have been a Mentor or Org Admin in GSoC you can not go back to being a GSoC contributor.

Read also about AI generated code:
https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/resources/ai_guidance?hl=en
Remember that using a prompt doesn’t make you a developer.
AI should be used only to spare typing time on trivial and well-understood programming logic by experimented developers (like to refactor spaghetti of hundreds of if/then/else lines to unordered_map calling lambdas…).
Not in the creative/algorithmic design.
If you can’t explain step-by-step how works your code and why you have made the choice to implement like this, there is a problem.
Plus the risk of copyright issues.

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