In ~9 hrs, the student application for GSoC opens. So far, I have not
seen a single draft of a proposal from potential applicants.
This is not necessarily a big problem, since you can upload your
proposal straight to Melange when the application process starts.
However, I recommend you don’t, but rather put your proposal up on
github, ask for feedback, and then post a link to Melange. This way,
more people than the registered mentors can see and review your
proposal, and give feedback. Your initial proposal on Melange will
then be better.
You can leave out personal information on publicly available
proposals, of course – no negative points for doing that!
Don’t worry about other students copying your ideas. We keep track of
these things, and since you have it on github, your ideas are
timestamped. If your great project plan appears somewhere else
suddenly, we will notice.
That said, you should look at other student’s applications for
inspiration. Perhaps you feel that, holy guacamole, that guy’s
proposal looks so much better than mine! Well, then get back to work
on yours.
There are examples of old proposals on our wiki pages, which you
should all read thoroughly anyway.
I admit this is a hard part of GSoC, but noone ever said that
participating would be easy. Remember, you are trying to convince us
to get a slot, and we are just volunteers!
Writing a good proposal is a bit like writing a good email on the
mailing list: You must make sure you’ve made it easy for the volunteer
at the other end to answer.
Final point: Personally, I will not vote to take on a student without
an excellent proposal, I’ll rather give that slot to other
organizations. So, please make an effort!
M