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Google summer of code project is a very good opportunity to recruit new contributers to KDE and get someone to work in important area in KDE.

I suggest to KDE e.V to establish "Community Summer of Code" for next year. I should be similar to Google summer of code but founded by KDE community (i.e donation).

For next year, the target is 10 project which will need $40000. I should start the donation campaign from now to secure enough money for next summer.

+1!

Don't be Google-Slaves!

It would be a nice idea, so that we don't get /short/ on the number of projects accepted to GSoC. Though, I'm not optimistic about the collecting the finances.

@The User
Please don't write things like "Don't be Google-Slaves!".

Firstly because in this context (GSoC) Google is a super-good guy. They are giving money for a lot of free projects and not getting anything for it (except publicity amongst us geeks).

The second reason is that Google has no involvement in the decision making about KDE projects which are a part of GSoC. Not in a slightest sense of the word. And even if that wasn't the case, the major part of KDE development is outside the GSoC. That is, even without GSoC, KDE would have been developed with the same pace it is now.

I know you didn't mean to say anything bad, but there are people who could take your words to literally and start some kind of flame war. ("let's fork KDE and reimplement all things made during GSoC" )

@ ivan

Securing the finances could be a problem. But let us try. We will not know till we try it. Maybe, we can encourage some companies and organizations to donate like:
KDE e.V.
Nokia
Canonical
Redhat
Novell

ivan wrote:Firstly because in this context (GSoC) Google is a super-good guy. They are giving money for a lot of free projects and not getting anything for it (except publicity amongst us geeks).

Man, I have to disagree Google rises value of its Goodwill. And goodwill is barely most valuable part of this corp. Its a fact (anyone could buy a server plant and it is possible to create analogue software, but if somebody would do this, they wouldn't compete google). Also all software in GSoC is opensouce. IT is good for anyone, including google itself, tehy also could reuse some code.

However if e.g. M$ would have done anything like this many years ago, whole IT world would have looked entirely different.

In other words I personally totally agree with GSoC

But I would agree more with brand independent KSoC Who wouldn't?

--

About NOKIA.
Some Nokia phones uses QT. Does it mean, they could (at least in near future) run most KDE apps?

--

As for financial part, might be e.g. paypal could work as an official secure bank of KSoC? Also for goodwill

Also EU are supporting and financing projects in research and development in IT sector too. And they are talking about M, not K.
Example. Recently travel.lt site "for SEO" got ~250k Lt (~85k EUR). Yep we have a small problem of corruption, but this only shows that it could be possible to rise even 1M or 10M EUR.

@Lukas
Goodwill = publicity amongst geeks
As for the code, they *can* use it, but only in Free/Libre projects (as far as KDE code is concerned). But AFAIK they don't, so they still don't get anything. (albeit they /could/ theoretically )

@ivan
Of course GSoC is great for projects like KDE. But I think there should also be alternatives. Google primary develops proprietary applications - competing with free solutions. You're right: "slavery" is a wrong term, but Google should be viewed critically, too. (you've also said "in this context", so we don't have to argue)

@Lukas
I think the next Maemo-version should also support a lot of KDE-applications. And there are already KDE-application-ports to S60.
<ironically>Any connections to some corrupt functionaries? We collect a few k from Nokia and "invest" it into functionaries from Lithuania. </ironically>


Any ideas how to organize it?
KDE e.V. could manage the money. Main developers would have to accept this. Few of us should ask companies... And then we need developers.

There was also a "winter of code" idea in Brainstorm.

To follow this idea, I've send an email to KDE e.V. Marketing team. Today I get this replay.

"we already have Season of KDE. Do you know that? It is run in parallel
to GSoC and gives students the opportunity to get into KDE development
with a mentor by their side. They do not get paid though. Running this
with money involved is a huge task, especially with students from all
around the world. (Just to name legal reasons for one.) Besides that I
don't know if the KDE eV has money for this and if it does if this
would be a good way to spend it."