Google Summer of Code 2026

Development
21

Hi Bob :waving_hand: , Iā€™m really interested in Gsoc 2026 and want to be a part of it.

Since GSoC is often considered beginner-friendly, I was wondering what criteria Synfig team usually use when evaluating applicants. In particular, what makes a strong proposal in your opinion?

Are there specific aspects you (or the mentors) pay the most attention to, such as technical depth, prior contributions, implementation plans, or something else? (^- ^ )

Iā€™d really appreciate any advice on what applicants should focus on to write a high-quality proposal.

22

For everone wanting to apply, I would like to share one of the main concerns among admins and mentors in GSoC email exchanges: AI and everything around this trend.

This has nothing secret but I will publish only the Subjects:

  • [GSoC Mentors] Fun of being a mentor is significantly reducing with AI
  • [GSoC Mentors] AI for admins and mentors
  • [GSoC Mentors] Notes from todayā€™s Discussion on Managing AI Spam and the Influx of Applicants
  • [GSoC Mentors] Thoughts on requiring video proposal walkthroughs?
  • [GSoC Mentors] How are people handling obvious copy/paste or LLM generated proposals because I saw at least 2, possibly 3.
  • [GSoC Mentors] We need to have deep, fundamental discussions about GSoC goals, incentives, alignment and roles

There are a few others but as you can see, a lot are about AI ā€œplagueā€ and and the loss of purpose of GSoC (which is to wake up some interest for contributing to open-source for people who never did it before, including professional devs having only worked on closed-source)

There are also guidances (Vital Info and for all GSoC 2026 Mentors and Org Admins) which could look like funny but are indeed true:

Managing Contributor Inquiries:

You can expect a very high volume of inquiries as GSoC ramps up. Use these guidelines to manage the influx effectively while maintaining your sanity and sleep schedule:
(ā€¦)

Mentoring in GSoC requires significant effort, and burnout is a major concern.

Helpful Links

How to avoid, identify, and quickly sort through AI generated contributor proposals

So donā€™t forget to read and understand fully the rules, duties, implied things and expectations of enrollement in this program.
The temptation of AI is a threat for the spirit of GSoC, if used or abused, it could lead to the end of such a program.

And as I say every year, you can still contribute even though you are not taking part to GSoC :wink:

1 Like
23

Please understand:

  • GSoC is about bringing people to Free/Open Source communities - to make code contributions and - we hope - keep contributing to open source ecology after the GSoC period;
  • If you insists/wants to use an AI tool for coding for you, maybe you should go somewhere else:
    • itā€™s really boring/annoying to review AI-generated code for many reasons
      • specially if the tool user doesnā€™t understand the slopped code - we cannot help him/her to understand what s/he didnā€™t write
      • verbose
      • codes that do not do as the tool commented right above
      • often does not compile or doesnā€™t work
    • if you donā€™t invest/spend time studying and writing code, why should I do it for you?
    • how can we know you are not infringing any copyright license if the AI-tool is essentially made from (not always authorized) copyrighted code? Our code is GPL-licensed and we shall obey this license.
    • ā€¦

Please donā€™t believe it is a whole new world era. This stuff exists for 10 years at least, there was even a TED talk about it thenā€¦

1 Like
26

Thank you for everyone who sent a project proposal :slight_smile:

Weā€™ll evaluate them ā€˜soonā€™*! :wink:

* ā€˜soonā€™ means ā€˜until the deadlineā€™ :smiley:

5 Likes
27

Hello everyone,

We are happy to announce that we got two contributor slots again this year. :slight_smile:

Thank you for all the participants, it was a difficult choice ranking up the candidates this year. For those not-accepted, please donā€™t give up on participating in this program (for Synfig or not). Also, of course, you are always welcome to contribute to our opensource software!

The two GSoC contributors for this year:

  1. Ahmed Fathy ( @ahmedfathy0-0 ) with the project ā€œ2D Free-Form Deformation (FFD) Layer for Synfig Studioā€
  2. YUKTA ( @y_ukta ) with the project " Per-Character Text Animation Layer "

:tada: Congratulations, guys! :partying_face:

Please, @ahmedfathy0-0 and @y_ukta , create new forum threads (if you havenā€™t already) and present your project goals (and yourselves, if desired). The subject can be ā€œ[GSoC 2026] your project nameā€.

6 Likes