NetBSD participated successfully in the following Google's Summer of Code programs (see our results of 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 )

This page contains a list of concrete suggestions for projects we would like to see applications for in the next Summer of Code. Note that they vary a lot in required skills and difficulty. We hope to get applications with a broad spectrum.

In addition, you may wish to discuss your proposal on IRC -- look for us on Libera.chat's #netbsd-code or for pkgsrc-related discussions, #pkgsrc. If you want to just meet the community, visit #netbsd.

We encourage you to come up with your own suggestions, if you cannot find a suitable project here. You can find more project ideas on the NetBSD projects page). These are not directly applicable to Summer-of-Code, but may serve as ideas for your own suggestions. You might find other ideas in src/doc/TODO and pkgsrc/doc/TODO.

Deadlines and directions for students' applications to the Google Summer-of-Code can be found on the Google pages.

Application process

To make the job of sorting out proposals and applications for NetBSD-related projects, e.g. in the Google Summer-of-Code, easier for us, there are a few questions that we would like to see answered.

If you are interested in working on any of the projects below, please contact the mailing list referenced on each item, and possibly answer as many questions from our project application guidelines as possible. The interested developers will be glad to respond to you there.

Please note that Google Summer-of-Code projects are a full (day-) time job.

A positive mid-term evaluation is only possible if usable code has been committed by that time. Make sure your schedule allows for this.

Kernel-level projects

Easy

Medium

Hard

Userland projects

Easy

Medium

Hard

Code Quality Improvement projects

Easy

Medium

Hard

pkgsrc projects

Easy

Medium

Hard

Other projects

Medium

Comments

We are trying to be fair; expect easy projects to require less knowledge and skill, but quite a bit of work.

Medium and hard projects are hard enough to qualify as practical part of a master's thesis (it'll qualify as thesis topic if you can add sufficient quality theoretical parts). We had the honor to mentor several in past GSoCs. Talk to your adviser(s) if and how you can claim academic credit for the project you do with us.

We have not yet failed a student who worked hard and actually talked (and listened) to their mentors and the community. If unexpected roadblocks make your project goals too hard to reach in the time given, the goals can be re-negotiated. They will not be for rampant slacking, though.

What we expect from contributors (both GSoC students and generally) is that they cooperate, that they are able to communicate (this will mean some English skills, sorry; we will try to support with mentors speaking the same contributor language if that can be a problem), and that they meet a minimum of good manners towards other people on our lists and other venues. Note that being a specific color, gender, nationality, religion, etc is not listed: If you are willing and able to contribute in a constructive manner, you are welcome.