Obf

Google is committed to run the Summer of Code program again this year. It will be for the 5th time.

In broad strokes, the program funds what you might call remote summer internships for students to contribute to an open-source software project. Projects (or umbrella organizations) wishing to participate in the program apply during the organization application period (March 9-13 in 2009). Those accepted into the program provide project ideas and supply mentors that guide the work on those. Students apply to a project within the program with specific project ideas, based on those suggested or based on their own idea, get ranked by the mentors of the project, and those accepted into the program get paired up with mentors. Projects are chiefly about programming, the coding period is 3 months (Jun-Aug), and there is no travel required by either student or mentor. The program is global; other than the US trade restrictions that Google is under, there are no restrictions as to where student or mentor reside. The main motivations behind the program are to recruit new contributors to open-source projects, and to produce more open-source code. See the program FAQs for more information.

O|B|F News feed is now available in Twitter! You are welcome to follow us.

Cheers, The O|B|F Admins.

The minutes of the November 2008 O|B|F Board of Directors meeting have been posted. The most important result of that meeting is that Kam Dahlquist was elected to the Board, bringing the number of Board members back to four. Please join us in extending a warm welcome to Kam!

We aim to elect additional Directors this year, please contact the Nominating Committee if you are interested in serving, or if you know people who might be. Suggestions of people we should tap to serve are also welcome and appreciated.

The OBF Conference call is scheduled for 12:30PM to 2PM PST on Wednesday Nov 19, 2008.  Members of the Open Bioinformatics Foundation and those interested in the decisions are invited to listen in and participate.  A brief agenda is available here.

Please email Hilmar Lapp at hlapp _AT_ gmx.net for call in number and codes if you wish to participate or listen to the discussion.  Those official members should have gotten an email via the  OBF members email list.

The OBF board meeting will be held via conference call on Nov 19, from 12:30PM to 2PM PST.  Agenda items and information about participating is available on the agenda webpage. We anticipate this call primarily to manage administrative tasks for the foundation. We welcome input on including more members in the OBF leadership and helping set the direction for the foundation.