Round 15 (December 2017) Sponsors
Four interns are doing internships with the Linux kernel this round. Collabora and Intel are sponsoring one internship each. Two other internships are sponsored from Outreachy's general funding provided by Bloomberg, Google, Intel, DigitalOcean, the Linux Foundation, Shopify, and Tidelift.
Round 9 (December 2014) Sponsors
We are looking for companies to sponsor Outreachy kernel interns for the next Outreachy round. Sponsorships will be billed at the end of October or early November and will be due by December 9, 2014. Please contact Karen Sandler <karen AT gnome DOT org> and Julia Lawall <Julia.Lawall AT lip6 DOT fr> if you are interested in sponsoring Outreachy internships.
Round 8 (March 2014) Sponsors
Promoters (3 interns sponsored):
Includers (1 intern sponsored):
Info for Sponsors
What is the FOSS Outreach Program for Women (OPW)?
According to a 2002 survey of open source communities, only 1.1% of participatants are women. In order to increase diversity in open source, the GNOME Foundation created the FOSS Outreach Program for Women (OPW). The program provides a three-month paid internship, where participants are paired with mentors from one of 19 different open source projects. The Linux kernel is one of those projects.
The GNOME Foundation coordinates the overall program and pays the interns. Karen Sandler and Marina Zhurakhinskaya coordinate the overall OPW program. Each separate open source project has a coordinator that communicates with project applicants, interns, and mentors. Sarah Sharp is the coordinator for the Linux Kernel project in OPW.
How can I help?
There are several different ways companies can support OPW. Companies can choose any or all of these options.
1. Donate money to fund OPW interns. The sponsorship per intern includes $5,000 (USD) stipend, $500 travel allowance, and a small administrative fee for the GNOME Foundation. The donation levels are:
- Ceiling Smasher - $47,000 - 8 interns
- Equalizer - $29,000 - 5 interns
- Promoter - $17,250 - 3 interns
- Includer - $5,750 - 1 intern
Sponsors who are interested in hiring past OPW kernel interns should email Sarah Sharp <sarah.a.sharp AT intel DOT com>. Past and current sponsors who have expressed interest in hiring will be notified at the end of each OPW round with the names of interns who are looking for jobs.
If you are interested in sponsoring OPW interns, please contact Karen Sandler <karen AT gnome DOT org> and Sarah Sharp <sarah.a.sharp AT intel DOT com>.
2. Donate employees' time to help out during the application process. During the month-long application process, applicants work through a first-patch tutorial, and submit a patch to the Linux kernel. People who wish to help out with the application process can review patches, and answer questions about kernel development and git on the OPW IRC channel. If you're interested in code review during the application process, please contact Sarah Sharp <sarah.a.sharp AT intel DOT com>.
3. Donate employees' time to be an OPW mentor. Mentors participate in code review during the month-long application process, and mentor interns for three months. Mentors will need to come up with a small project suitable for a new contributor, that can be completed within three months, and is not critial-path.
Typically, mentors meet with their interns for an hour a week. They may meet more frequently or longer as necessary. Mentors will need to set aside extra time to answer their intern's questions, and review and merge their code. Interns work full-time on their OPW projects, so mentoring an intern is as time-consuming as ramping up and mentoring a new employee. If you're interested in being a Linux kernel mentor, please read our mentoring FAQ and then contact Sarah Sharp <sarah.a.sharp AT intel DOT com>.
4. Add a new project to OPW. If your open source project isn't listed on the OPW project page, you can contact Karen Sandler <karen AT gnome DOT org> to discuss adding your project to OPW. This requires the most amount of time out of all these options.
Your project will need to provide a tutorial for applicants that to submit a small contribution to your project. This tutorial will need to walk applicants through creating the right build environment, making a change, and contributing that change back to the project. Your project will also need to provide a coordinator to manage deadlines, communicate with mentors, and answer applicants questions. Finally, your project will need to find funding for at least one intern ($5,750), and find one mentor (ideally a different person from the coordinator).
Past Sponsors and Mentors
Round 7 (November 2013) Sponsors
Promoters (3 interns sponsored):
Includers (1 intern sponsored):
Round 7 (November 2013) Mentors
Intel:
- Josh Triplett
- PJ Waskiewicz
Red Hat:
- Andy Grover
- Rik van Riel
Round 6 (May 2013) Sponsors
Promoters (3 interns sponsored):
Includers (1 intern sponsored):
Round 6 (May 2013) Mentors
Linux Foundation:
- Greg Kroah-Hartman
Intel:
- PJ Waskiewicz
- Carolyn Wyborny
- Anjali Singhai
- Sarah Sharp
Oracle:
- Konrad Wilk
Citrix:
- Stefano Stabellini
How interns are selected
Based on available Linux kernel intern funding, we find community members who want to volunteer as OPW mentors. Mentors propose a three-month project that interns can work on. Applicants to the program are asked to rank projects in the order that most interests them. All mentors and the Linux kernel OPW coordinator (Sarah Sharp) collaborate to match interns to the project that best suits their interests, skills, and background. In order to be considered for an internship, applicants must complete the tutorial to create a patch for the Linux kernel, and get that patch accepted into the mainline kernel.
What are the positive outcomes of OPW?
In April 2013, the Linux kernel joined as an OPW project for the first time. We created a tutorial that walks applicants through creating and submitting their first kernel cleanup patch. This tutorial can be used by anyone (not just OPW applicants) to ramp up on kernel development. This accomplishes our goal of improving our documentation for all newcomers to the Linux kernel.
The Linux kernel project proved to be the most popular project within OPW. We had over 41 women apply, proving that women are interested in Linux kernel development. Of the 41 women who applied, 11 of them were successful in getting a patch merged into the Linux kernel. Due to a shortage of funding, we were only able to accept 7 of those women as OPW interns. In round 7, we accepted 4 kernel interns, again based on funding. Similarly, we accepted 5 kernel interns for round 8.
The Linux Weekly News (LWN) site tracks statistics about Linux kernel development. Each kernel release, they crunch numbers and reveal which developers and employers are the most active in modifying the Linux kernel. The number of OPW patches merged during the application process earned the program the #13 employer spot in the 3.11 kernel statistics, beating Google, Oracle, and ARM:
Most active 3.11 employers (By changesets) |
|||
Rank |
Employer |
Number of Patches |
% of patches submitted |
1 |
(None) |
976 |
9.1% |
2 |
Intel |
970 |
9.1% |
3 |
Red Hat |
911 |
8.5% |
4 |
Linaro |
890 |
8.3% |
5 |
Samsung |
485 |
4.5% |
6 |
(Unknown) |
483 |
4.5% |
7 |
IBM |
418 |
3.9% |
8 |
Vision Engraving Systems |
333 |
3.1% |
9 |
Texas Instruments |
319 |
3.0% |
10 |
SUSE |
310 |
2.9% |
11 |
AMD |
281 |
2.6% |
12 |
Renesas Electronics |
265 |
2.5% |
13 |
Outreach Program for Women |
230 |
2.1% |
14 |
224 |
2.1% |
|
15 |
Freescale |
151 |
1.4% |
16 |
Oracle |
137 |
1.3% |
17 |
ARM |
135 |
1.3% |
18 |
Cisco |
132 |
1.2% |
The OPW interns and alumni have continually made the top kernel contributor's list since the 3.11 kernel. As of 3.17-rc1, the OPW interns have gotten 1,092 patches accepted into the Linux kernel, deleting six times more code than they have added.
Past kernel interns have also found jobs at our sponsor companies, including Lisa Nguyen, who now works for Linaro, and Teodora Baluta, who works for Intel. Three other OPW alumni have found jobs at Citrix, Oracle, and OnApp.