It's that time of year again. The Drupal project has the opportunity to participate in the Google Summer of Code (SoC).  For anyone new to the SoC concept the basics are that the Drupal provides mentorship and leadership for a group of college students to apply for the program and be paid to spend their summer working on a summer open source project. In addition to the code produced the most valuable thing that comes from SoC is the opportunity to bring some great new contributors into the Drupal project.

Background material on past Drupal SoC projects and the program in general can be found here:
- http://drupal.org/google-summer-of-code/2007
- http://drupal.org/google-summer-of-code/2006
- http://drupal.org/googlesummerofcode2005

Although it is a "Summer" project (in the Northern Hemisphere anyway) a lot of the community effort needs to happen THIS WEEK. And for this we need YOUR help!

To make the most of the SoC we need thoughtful project proposals and a dedicated group of mentors. 

If you'd like to sign up as a mentor visit <http://groups.drupal.org/soc-2008-mentors> and subscribe to this private group.

In order to post your project ideas round up your ideas for something that would make a summer project that would advance Drupal and post it as a new discussion to <http://groups.drupal.org/soc-2008>. The other important step is to discuss the projects already posted. While it is not strictly necessary to be willing to mentor your project it is a good idea to help identify willing mentors for your project idea to be successful.

In 2007 Drupal was awarded 20 slots by Google so we need lots of ideas with mentors to make as much from this year's project as possible.

The pages from past years can give you several ideas of both projects from the past as well as past mentors who could be resources in deciding how you want to participate in the project.

Our final ideas list needs to be completed by March 12, 2008 at noon PDT/19:00 UTC.

Extremely condensed version:

    Go to http://groups.drupal.org/soc-2008 and lend a hand :)

Thanks,
Josh

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Joshua Brauer

Our lives as we lead them are passed on to others, whether in
physical or mental forms, tingeing all future lives together. 
This should be enough for one who lives for truth and service 
to his fellow passengers on the way. --- Luther Burbank