GSoC 2025 Roadmap

Google Summer of Code (GSoC) is an annual program that gives students the opportunity to contribute to open-source projects under the guidance of mentors.

If you're completely new to the idea of open-source and GSoC, don’t worry! We are going to provide you the complete roadmap that will walk you through the complete process from start to end. 

By the end of this article you’ll have a clear roadmap to participate in GSoC.

So, without a further ado let's get started with the GSoC 2025 roadmap.

What is GSoC?

GSoC, short for Google Summer of Code, is an open source project run by Google for the past 19 years. In GSoC Google invites the organizations with their projects and also invites the students who contribute to those projects.

This program lasts for 12 weeks and is similar to any other internship.

There are 3 types of projects:

1. Small
2. Medium
3. Large

Depending upon the size of the project your work hours and stipend will also vary. In India for small projects you will get $700, for medium $1500 and for large projects it's $3000.

If we convert this stipend amount into Indian rupee it's around 2.4 lakhs, catching the eyes of most of the students. But if you really want to contribute to the project this amount should not be your primary objective while preparing for GSoC.

Your primary objective of applying in GSoC should be the kind of opportunity it provides and the experience it gives you. You get the opportunity to work on good projects with experienced developers around the world.

GSoC is a kind of project for which every college student should try atleast once.

One of the important thing about the GSoC is going to be its timeline, you can check the timeline here : click here

In the given timeline there are 3 important dates:

1. Announcement of Organizations : the organizations and the projects that are going to participate in GSoC 2025 will be announced at the end of February. After the announcement of the org’s and projects we have nearly 1 month to study about the organizations and the projects, and to understand the code base.
2. Submit proposal: proposal is like the resume in which you tell about yourself and the plans that you have for the project. For submitting the proposal you are given enough time i,e from March end to early April. 
3. Contributors announcement : one of the most important date, In early May the list of selected contributors is announced who are going to work on GSoC projects.

Taking these dates into consideration, you have to prepare accordingly. We recommend you to start early because the students who got selected in GSoC start early.

Key Highlights:

• It’s open to students globally.
• You’ll work with mentors who are experienced developers from organizations across the world.

First thing to start with, for either GSoC or for any other open-source project would be to learn something on our own first. 

If you are a complete beginner you have to learn a few things to start off with because the majority of the open-source maintainers don’t like to spoon feed you. You should be able to contribute to the project in an impactful way.

Don't worry, we will cover everything that you would need to learn. Below are the things that you learn before contributing:

1. Learn a Programming Language

First step in the preparation journey is to learn a programming language. Python, javascript, Ruby, PhP, Java are the most popular languages. You can learn one of the languages. 

But if you are interested in learning c, c++ you can. Even if you want to go into the field of Data science, Machine Learning, there are projects in GSoC that are oriented to these fields.

If you want to learn about AI/ML you can read our detailed guide “How to build a career in AI/ML as a student”

Now, if you are a complete beginner you can start off by learning either Python or Javascript. Most of the projects in GSoC use these two languages.

After completing the first step you can move to the next step which is,

2. Build Projects

By just learning the syntax of a language nothing is going to happen, instead you should build projects on your own. By building projects you will understand things properly like you would understand how different products are built using technology.

Most of the beginners learn the syntax of a programming language and then directly jump into understanding the code base of the project. 

You have not to do this, instead start by building small projects that would take you a day or two, and then you can start building the complex projects with time and experience. 

Now when you have made the projects and have the basic understand of how things work then you can move to the next step which is going to be,

3. Learn about Version Control

Version control is a system that helps developers manage changes to source code or any files over time. It helps you to track changes in your project code.

In version control there are various tools like git, Gitlab, Github and many more but you don’t need to learn about all. 

We recommend you to start by learning git and Github as these are the widely used tools and majority of the projects will be available on Github.

Learning git and github means you should have solid knowledge about the basic concepts like Branches, versioning, commits, pull and push.

You can learn these things alongside when building the projects by keeping track of your project code and making the changes in your code.

To learn git and github you can watch the video on YouTube: click here.

Now moving onto next step in your preparation journey, which is going to be,

Contributing to open source will change your life - Notedup.in

Contributing to open source will change your life | How to start Right now open source contributions are being used as the new resume.

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4. Open Source Contribution Experience

To learn about open source you can read our article “Contributing to Open Source”. This article will help you understand the basics of open source.

If you know about open source you can go to github and contribute to any random project or either you can contribute to the GSoC previous year projects.

To know about the previous year organizations you can check them here. For beginners most of the organizations have labels called “good first issue” and “newbie friendly” in their projects. 

These labels will be having the issues that can be solved by beginners. But to increase your chances of selection in GSoC you have to start targeting “high impact” issues. It can be like adding any new feature in the project, any enhancement, or a bug fix.

So, start making those PR’s (pull requests) that will make the impact. Making changes to the readme.md file is not going to help.

So these were the 4 steps you have to complete before the official start of GSoC. Because knowing these things are going to help you in understanding the projects as well as in making contributions to organizations in a positive manner.

Now coming back to our main topic , specifically for GSoC there are two things to do.

1.Picking an Organization

To increase your chances of getting selected in GSoC you can pick an organization a few months before by analyzing the previous year participating organizations.

What you can do is look for the organizations that participated every year in GSoC and by picking one or two you can  start contributing a few months before. In these months you can showcase your skills and  make meaningful contributions. This will definitely increase your chances of getting selected.

Why did we tell you to pick more than one organization? This is because most of the students would be doing the same things. The organizations that participate in GSoC frequently, the majority of the students start targeting them and start contributing, resulting in increasing the competition. 

So, to make it possible to get selected in GSoC you have to pick a couple of organizations. 

Sometimes there are projects in GSoC to which a lot of people are not working. So, try to find such projects and start contributing.

2. Connecting with Maintainers

It’s very important to connect with the maintainers of the project and be in touch with them especially during the official GSoC period. Because if you are stuck somewhere you can ask for help but make sure not to ask about everything and also don't ping the maintainers unnecessarily. 

Always remember to ask meaningful doubts and keep in mind that less is more.

Now, moving to one of the most important thing about GSoC,

Contributing to Project

The contributions you are making should be impactful as well as meaningful. Before the official start of the GSoC in the month of February, if you make some of the meaningful contributions then at the time of proposal you don't have to worry, as the organizations have already decided which candidates will be selected based on the contributions you made.

So contributing to an organization in advance increases your chances of getting selected because the organization knows that you are already familiar with the code base. If you have made some PR’s and solved some of the issues then definitely it's easy for maintainers to trust you.

Now if you have completed all these things, 80% of the efforts are done. After this comes the final stage.

Submitting the Proposal

If you have followed all the above things properly then submitting the proposal is just going to be the formality for you.

Make your proposal attractive and be specific i,e make it easy to understand. You can look at the proposals of those students who were already selected in GSoC in previous years.

Here are some of the proposals you can take a look at: click here

Now one important tip from our side would be don't stop contributing to a project after submitting the proposal as it would lead to negative impact. After submitting the proposal you will have enough time till the selection announcement as it is the time to keep working.

conclusion

These were the things that you need to consider while participating in GSoC and now you know the strategy so don’t waste your time, just keep learning the things and gain the experience so that you will make it to the selection.

This was our complete GSoC Roadmap 2025. If you found this article helpful then do share it with a friend of yours so that they can also know the strategy to participate in GSoC.

If you have any queries do let us know in the comment box below. Thank you so much for reading till here.