Dos and Don'ts from over five years within the GSoC program. Part 1 in a series of Google Summer of Code topics: this time, advice for Contributors on crafting proposals.
Biggest 2026 update: PLEASE DO NOT SEND UNMITIGATED AI SLOP. Not to be dramatic, but yes, it is coming up tremendously in the internal GSoC Mentor community. It will reflect poorly on you. I may do an update specifically around this; it is ok to say "I have used GenAI here to fill in some gaps", in a responsible and sincere disclosure, but auto generating, and submitting several rapid pull requests with particular changes that you don't know what is actually happening, is a tough look. So, be mindful of that. If you can communicate your real vision and real values about what you want to do with projects - this will shine through, especially this year!
Biggest 2026 update: PLEASE DO NOT SEND UNMITIGATED AI SLOP. Not to be dramatic, but yes, it is coming up tremendously in the internal GSoC Mentor community. It will reflect poorly on you. I may do an update specifically around this; it is ok to say "I have used GenAI here to fill in some gaps", in a responsible and sincere disclosure, but auto generating, and submitting several rapid pull requests with particular changes that you don't know what is actually happening, is a tough look. So, be mindful of that. If you can communicate your real vision and real values about what you want to do with projects - this will shine through, especially this year!
Thank you, this helps a lot!
Good luck with GSoC!
Thanks :)