[ros-dev] Google Summer of Code

[Aleksey Bragin]

Hi,
I'd like to let you know our application has not been accepted into  
Google Summer of Code, for the third time in a row. I attached an  
(autogenerated) reply, which encourages us to reapply for future  
instances of the program. I would not find a better way to express  
sarcasm than asking us to reapply in future.

Amongst accepted organizations there are:
WinLibre - a distribution of opensource software for Windows platform.
Battle for Wesnoth - a free turn based strategy game.
Umit - a frontend for a network scanner (one of their GSoC ideas is  
to create a "Umit Assistant" which would look like a Clippit - the  
animated assistant that features Microsoft Office).
TurboGears - a web framework written in Python.
Thousand Parsec - a bunch of games based on a common framework for  
building turn based space empire building games.
Systers: Woman in computing - a community of women in computing. For  
some strange reason the founding person is "Robin".
Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence - non-profit org  
founded to develop safe artificial intelligence software and to raise  
awareness of dangers of AI technologies.

I just stated a few examples. I highly value those projects, however  
I just can't understand that yet another framework in python, or a  
game engine for a turnbased strategies, or a collection of FOSS  
software for Windows with a package manager (which we already have,  
and which could have been improved), or an institution which believes  
that AI takes over the world and tries to stop that are way more  
important than supporting an organization whose product would be of  
use for millions of people, and would create a real alternative  
operating system compatible with the vast majority of existing  
software and hardware.

Our friendly OS project Haiku gets accepted every year, so being an  
OS is not a problem.
Wine is certainly accepted every year from the beginning, and this  
year is not an exception. So it's definately not a problem of "legal  
fear" of Microsoft.

What is the problem then? I leave it to you to decide what's the  
problem. However, as for me, I see Google Summer of Code is nothing  
close to supporting free software world, but rather an expensive way  
of advertising.

I want to hope I am wrong.


With the best regards,
Aleksey Bragin
ReactOS Foundation President.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <socghop.noreply at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 12:48 AM
Subject: Thank you for your application
To: xxx at reactos.org


Hi Aleksey Bragin,

Thank you for submitting "ReactOS" organization application to Google  
Summer of Code 2009. Unfortunately, we were unable to accept your  
organization's application at this time. We received many more  
applications for the program than we are able to accommodate, and we  
would encourage you to reapply for future instances of the program.

Best regards,
Google Open Source Programs
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.reactos.org/pipermail/ros-dev/attachments/20090321/b1f32536/attachment.html