Opportunities

This page is a list of financially supported opportunities (usually internships) for people (usually students) to work on free/open source projects.

Cross-project Programs
The following programs allow participants to choose among a large number of participating projects.

GNOME Outreach Project for Women

 * Link: program website
 * Who is eligible: Anyone assigned female at birth or currently identifying as a woman, genderqueer, genderfluid or genderfree. Participants to *not* need to be students, US citizens, or programmers.
 * Deadline: March 31st, 2014
 * Duration: May 19 to August 18
 * Stipend: $5500
 * Details: "The internships offered are not limited to coding, but include user experience design, graphic design, documentation, web development, marketing, translation and other types of tasks needed to sustain a FOSS project. The internship is expected to be a full-time effort, meaning that the participants must be able to spend 40 hours a week on their project. Participants will work remotely from home." Remote.

Google Summer of Code

 * Link: program website
 * Who is eligible: Students with "some programming experience at the university level". You do not need to be a CS or IT major.  You do not need to be a US citizen.
 * Deadline: March 21st, 2014
 * Duration: May 19 to August 18
 * Stipend: $5500
 * Details: "Google Summer of Code is a program that offers student developers stipends to write code for various open source projects. Historically, the program has brought together over 7,500 students with over 440 open source projects, to create over 50 millions of lines of code."  Remote.

Rails Girls Summer of Code

 * Link: Program website
 * Who is eligible: People identifying as female or socialized female are given priority. Not limited to students, but professional developers are excluded.  (See here for more details.)
 * Deadline: May 2nd, 2014
 * Duration: Three months, starting 1st of July 2014. Full-time commitment is encouraged but not necessary.
 * Stipend: $1500 per month; $4500 total
 * Details: "Just like in Google Summer of Code and Ruby Summer of Code, students will be paid so they're free to work on Open Source projects for a few months. Unlike those programs, the Rails Girls Summer of Code is about helping students to further expand their knowledge and skills by contributing to a great Open Source project (rather than producing highly sophisticated code)." Remote.

DataONE Internships

 * Link: Program website
 * Who is eligible: Undergraduates, Graduate Students and Postgraduates (of 5 years or less)
 * Deadline: Mar 18 2014
 * Duration: 3 months (May 26 - Jul 25th - some flexibility)
 * Stipend: $5000
 * Details: Interns undertake a 9 week program of work centered around one of the projects listed below. Each intern will be paired with one primary mentor and, in some cases, secondary and tertiary mentors. Interns need not necessarily be at the same location or institution as their mentor(s). Interns and mentors are expected to have a face-to-face meeting at the beginning of the summer, maintain frequent communication throughout the program and interns are required to work in an open notebook environment.

Summer of Code in Space (SOCIS)

 * Link: Program website
 * Who is eligible: Undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in educational institutions in certain European countries (see here for more details).
 * Deadline: May 15 2014
 * Duration: 3 months (June-August)
 * Stipend: 4000 Euros
 * Details: "ESA Summer of Code in Space (SOCIS) is a program run by the European Space Agency. It aims at offering student developers stipends to write code for various space-related open source software projects. Through SOCIS, accepted student applicants are paired with a mentor or mentors from the participating projects, thus gaining exposure to real-world software development scenarios. In turn, the participating projects are able to more easily identify and bring in new developers."

Single-project Programs
The following programs are for a specific project. Some of these organizations also have opportunities available through programs like the Outreach Program for Women or Google Summer of Code as well.

The X.Org Endless Vacation of Code (EVoC)

 * Link: program website
 * Who is eligible: Students, generally.
 * Deadline: Rolling
 * Duration: 3-4 months, "can be initiated at any time during the calendar year"
 * Stipend: $5000-$6000
 * Other details: Not limited to programming: "We will also consider a broader range of proposals than GSoC: technical documentation is a specific area of interest for us.". "Students are welcome to either come up with an idea on their own or work up a proposal for an idea suggested by someone else."

Open Source Robotics Foundation

 * Link: Internship posting
 * Who is eligible: Current or recent students. "Previous internships or other relevant experience is a plus, but not a requirement."  Two kinds of internships: UX/Design ("early-career UX or Interaction Designers with solid design and user research skills") and Technical ("early career engineers... We code primarily in Python and C++; knowledge of Java, JavaScript, and/or Ruby is helpful.").
 * Deadline: None: "We host interns year-round."
 * Duration: "OSRF internships are commonly 3-6 months, but other durations are possible."
 * Stipend: "Competitive salary, commensurate with experience/education"
 * Other details: "During an extended visit to OSRF, support and contribute to [] projects. We maintain a fun and collaborative work environment that offers many opportunities to learn new skills and techniques. If you're a current or recent student looking for an engaging and productive way to spend your next summer break or co-op term, let us know!"

Automattic (Wordpress.com)

 * Link: Internship posting
 * Who is eligible: "students currently enrolled in a program" are preferred, though anyone can apply.
 * Deadline: May 1st, 2014 (the earlier the better)
 * Duration: "The internship runs 8-10 weeks between June 1st and August 1st, 2014, but we are flexible on the dates."
 * Stipend: No details given beyond "paid".
 * Other details: Remote. Two positions: developer intern and communications intern.

Red Hat Summer Internships

 * Link: Internship posting
 * Who is eligible: Varies by internship. "You don’t have to be a coding expert to work at Red Hat. We have internships in many different fields, from finance to marketing to graphic design. What you need to know will depend on the internship you’re applying for."
 * Deadline: Unknown.
 * Duration: "In the United States, our intern program runs from mid-May to the beginning of August. If the intern is available and their team needs more help, sometimes we are able to extend the internship into the academic year. Outside the United States, our intern program varies by region and team."
 * Stipend: Unknown.
 * Other details: On location in Massachussets, North Carolina, Alabama, Brno (Czech Republic), Sao Paolo (Brazil), Pune (India) and more.

Center for Open Science

 * Link: Internship posting
 * Who is eligible: Unknown
 * Deadline: Unknown
 * Duration: Unknown
 * Stipend: Unknown
 * Other details: Located in Charlottesville, VA.

Fellowships
These fellowships are longer in duration (usually 10 months to a year) and generally not targeted at students.

Knight-Mozilla Fellows

 * Link: http://opennews.org/fellowships/
 * Who is eligible: unknown (seems to be programmer-focused, and not limited to US citizens)
 * Deadline: likely August 2014
 * Duration: 10 months, starting in Jan/Feb 2015
 * Stipend: $60,000 plus benefits
 * Other details: "Knight-Mozilla Fellows spend 10 months embedded with our partner newsrooms. Our Fellows are developers, technologists, civic hackers, and data crunchers who are paid to work with the community inside and outside of their newsroom to develop open-source projects. Fellows work in the open by sharing their code and their discoveries, helping to strengthen and build journalism's toolbox." "Fellows work on a range of projects including data, mapping, research, and analysis of impact."

Open Society Fellows

 * Link: http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/grants/open-society-fellowship
 * Who is eligible: "Applicants should possess a deep understanding of their chosen subject and a track record of professional accomplishment. Past and current fellows have included journalists, activists, academics, and practitioners in a variety of fields." World-wide, but proficient English is required.
 * Deadline: August 4th, 2014 (every six months)
 * Duration: unknown
 * Stipend: $80,000 or $100,000
 * Other details: "A fellowship project might identify a problem that has not previously been recognized, develop new policy ideas to address familiar problems, or offer a new advocacy strategy. Project themes should cut across at least two areas of interest to the Open Society Foundations. Among these are human rights, government transparency, access to information and to justice, and the promotion of civil society and social inclusion."

Code for America

 * Link: http://codeforamerica.org/fellows/apply/
 * Who is eligible: unknown
 * Deadline: mid-July
 * Duration: 11 months, starting in January each year
 * Stipend: $50,000 for 2015
 * Other details: "The Fellowship is a service-year program where civic-minded developers, designers, and product managers create small startup teams and partner with a local government for a year-long collaboration. Fellows and government staff work together to build apps, foster new approaches to problem solving throughout City Hall, and tackle issues the community is facing. In the past, teams have worked on solving for access to social services, alternatives to incarceration, and new avenues for public input."

Project Grants
Grants to support open source projects/proposals.

Wikimedia Individual Engagement Grants

 * Link: program website
 * Who is eligible: Criteria include "Individual or team of up to 4 individuals. Demonstrated involvement in the Wikimedia movement, with good community-standing. Willing to provide full legal name and address. Able to independently complete the project."
 * Deadline: Next round is 1-30 September 2014
 * Duration: "Scoped to 6 months, with potential to renew for 6 more if need is shown."
 * Stipend: "Maximum request USD 30,000. No minimum."
 * Other details: "We encourage projects that provide opportunities to reach the Wikimedia movement's goal of spreading participation in free culture across boundaries of language, gender, and geography. We seek out opportunities for growth in under-represented demographics, smaller and newer Wikimedia projects, and communities in the global south. We focus on providing individuals within these communities with tools to help them succeed." Remote.

OpenGov Grants

 * Link: http://sunlightfoundation.com/about/grants/opengovgrants/
 * Who is eligible: US residents, excluding government employees, employees of a public international organization, or any official or agent of a political party or political candidate.
 * Deadline: rolling
 * Duration: flexible
 * Stipend: $5,000 — $10,000
 * Other details: "The Sunlight Foundation OpenGov Grant program offers grants to organizations and individuals who are using technology to make government more open, transparent and accountable. Our grantmaking is designed to foster and expand the ecosystem of technology-driven transparency and citizen engagement or to deploy technology to make government and government data more accessible."

Drupal Community Cultivation Grants

 * Link: https://assoc.drupal.org/grants
 * Who is eligible: unknown
 * Deadline: rolling
 * Duration: unknown
 * Stipend: "from several hundred to several thousand dollars per project"
 * Other details: "We are looking for creative ideas that foster and support the Drupal software project and its amazing community. Specifically we are looking to fund projects that: Educate people about Drupal; Engage the community to learn more about and become more involved in the project; Engage current and potential community members in learning more about the community through events such as DrupalCamps, Drupal Jams, Code sprints, FOSS days, etc.; Unique projects that build the Drupal community; Expose new industry sectors to the benefits of the Drupal software and its community."

NLnet Funding

 * Link: http://www.nlnet.nl/foundation/can_do.html
 * Who is eligible: unknown
 * Deadline: rolling
 * Duration: unknown
 * Stipend: up to 30.000 euro for project grants
 * Other details: 3 categories of grants: Event sponsorship ("Eligible types of events include hack-a-thons, conferences, lectures, plugfests, and other technical or community building events"), projects ("NLnet can fund or co-fund various types of projects, such as software development or educational activities."), and travel grants ("NLnet can fund participation for qualified individuals to relevant international events such as IETF, OGF, W3C meetings, but also to developer meetings or conferences.").

OpenITP

 * Link: https://openitp.org/grants.html https://openitp.org/grants/call-for-grant-proposals-2013-round-1.html
 * Who is eligible: unknown
 * Deadline: call for proposals twice a year, once in Spring and once in Fall
 * Duration: unknown
 * Stipend: between $5000 USD and $30000 USD
 * Other details: "OpenITP project grants are meant to support specific technical efforts to improve users' ability to circumvent censorship and surveillance on the Internet. "Technical" doesn't have to mean software or hardware -- for example, we also consider efforts to improve user experience through translation, testing, projects to improve documentation, meetings that get developers together in person to solve specific problems, etc. The main thing we're looking for is that your proposed project is finite (e.g. has a deadline, is scoped) and contributes to OpenITP's core mission of enabling freedom of communication on the Internet."

The Perl Foundation Grants

 * Link: http://www.perlfoundation.org/rules_of_operation
 * Who is eligible: unknown
 * Deadline : grants are evaluated every two months i.e. January, March, May, July, September and November.
 * Duration : unknown
 * Stipend : from several hundreds to several thousands of dollars
 * Other details : A call for grant proposals is published with detailed dates here : http://news.perlfoundation.org/

Other Opportunities
The following opportunities do not quite fit the above categories. For instance, they may not be open source-focused (though they'll always be at least open source inclusive) or designed to support active work.

Anita Borg Pass-It-On awards
program website

"The Anita Borg Systers Pass-It-On (PIO) Awards honor Anita Borg’s desire to create a network of women technologists helping one another. The cash awards, funded by donations from the Systers Online Community and others, are intended as means for women established in technological fields to support women seeking their place in the fields of technology. The program is called “Pass-It-On” because it comes with the moral obligation to “pass on” the benefits gained from the award.

Pass-it-on Award applications are open to any woman over 18 years old in or aspiring to be in the fields of computing. Awards are open to women in all countries and range from $500.00 to $1000.00 USD. Applications covering a wide variety of needs and projects are encouraged."

Bithub
Created by WhisperSystems, an open source security system.

Bithub website

"We’ve written and deployed a simple service called “BitHub” that does two things:


 * Accepts Bitcoin donations and allocates them into a single pool of funds.
 * Distributes the Bitcoin donations from that pool to anyone who commits to our repositories."

Hacker School
Hacker School website

"Hacker School is a free, full-time, immersive school in New York for becoming a better programmer. We're like a writers' retreat for programmers. People come from around the world to spend 12 weeks writing code and growing as programmers. We run three sessions a year, called batches, and each batch has about 60 people."

"Hacker School projects are as diverse as the people who come here. The size, scope, and type of projects people build are largely dependent on their current programming level. We encourage people to work on things that are one or two steps beyond their comfort zone, which means newer programmers tend to work on a few small projects, and more advanced programmers tend to tackle larger projects. Everyone writes free and open source software, because it would be antithetical to Hacker School to write code that couldn't be read, used, and improved by others. Popular projects include networked games, BitTorrent clients, and simple AIs."

Hacker School is free to all attendees, with some female attendees receiving a $5000 stipend.

Stripe Open Source Retreat
Stripe annoucement

"We rely on a lot of open-source software at Stripe, and over time we’ve contributed back our own share of patches and projects. We decided we’d like to do more, though, so we’re launching an open-source retreat program."

"We’ll give a grant to a small number of developers to come to San Francisco to work full-time on an open-source project for a period of 3 months. They’ll have space in our SF office. We’ll ask that they give a couple of internal tech talks over the course of the program (ideally focused on what they’re working on), but otherwise it’ll be no-strings-attached."


 * Apply by 31 May 2014
 * Grant: USD7500 per month for three months (1 September to 1 December 2014)

"We’re targeting two participants to start, though we may end up with more or fewer depending on applications. We’ll select projects based on their importance broadly rather than importance to Stripe in particular."

"While decisions will be based on impact and merit, we’d be especially psyched to fund people from backgrounds often underrepresented in the open-source community."

More Resources

 * OpenTechFund's alternative sources of support
 * "Here are some grants you could apply for" by Sumana Harihareswara
 * NLnet alternative funding sources