I filled out an application for the Google Summer of Code initiative, and have been reading/responding to some of the messages in the discussion group for it. It is an exciting thing. (Google is planning to sponsor nearly a million dollars of new Open Source development from College students, partly to entice more into joining the Open Source community in the long term.)
It's surprising to me, though, that I'm really not all that excited or incentivized about the money. I'm not desperate for money anymore; I've slaked that thirst. I really wouldn't have noticed that if it weren't for following the discussion group where I see some kids complaining about not being able to compete for the money and how much "age-ism" that is, and I remember when I was like that.
My major incentive has been the possible that with money involved in a contract I might be able to claim this with the co-op and avoid at least one semester of working for a giant uncaring corporation. To me, that is the real excitement about this initiative is that it puts up a monetary bounty to go out and do some of the philanthropy that I was planning to do anyway. I'm still planning to do as much as I can this Summer, with or without the stipend, but now the prospect arises that I might get a few bucks for the philanthropy that I think needs to get done. I've always known that there are a few groups I could go begging to once the concept was proven and the costs of running it got to be too much for me, but until SoC I saw no real prospect/need for charter funding.
Anyway, speaking of the project... Support Open/Free Mythoi: Read the Manifesto.