Best Open Source Internships For College Students

Brief: Looking for an internship in open source projects? Here we list the best open source internships with all the relevant information.

Are you a college student looking to learn programming as well as help Open Source projects? Good thing is that there are several organizations that offer internships to students to work on open-source projects.

I am going to list some popular open source internships here, both paid and unpaid.

Best open source internships for college students

Best Open Source internships

I have listed the most useful information as possible but it is always a good idea to check the project website. Do note that this is not a ranking of internships. It’s just a list with no specific order. Number 1 is not ‘better’ than number 11.

1. Google Summer of Code

GSoC -Google Summer of Code, the one which started it all.This time it got the highest number of students from India, in excess of 228+ students from India according to GSoC’s own stats.

The idea of giving those other GSoC programs is that almost all of the above projects were at one time or the other part of the GSoC program. GSoC is limited in the sense the program can run only from May to September while some want a whole-year around GSoC program and any limitations that Google has.

You can work with famous organizations like, Debian, Fedora, GCC, FreeBSD, Git (Not GitHub), Gnome, OpenSUSE Arduino, and other more top names in Open Source community.

GSoCDetails
Eligibility CriteriaNone.
Internship period3 months
Application Period Usually March to April
StipendIt depends on where you live, from $3000 to $6000.
LocationRemote

2. FSF

FSF – The oldest, mother of all organizations which started the free software movement. The Internship program runs thrice a year.

FSFDetails
Eligibility CriteriaNone
Internship period3 months ( September 11th to December 8th, 2017)
Application Period Can apply from April to May (April 30)
StipendUnpaid
LocationBoston, U.S. or Remote

3. X.Org Endless Vacation of Code

X.org – Project which develops, maintains, supports the free software stack for accelerated graphics for all graphics hardware.

X.orgDetails
Eligibility CriteriaNone
Internship Period4 months nearly full-time work
Application Period Throughout the year
Stipend$5000 in stages
LocationRemote

4. RGSOC

RGSOC – Project to entice/enhance women participation in Rust, Clojure, JavaScript, PHP, Python, Ruby on Rails, Rails web framework etc.

RGSOCDetails
Eligibility CriteriaFor Girls only.
Internship Period3 months (from 1st July to 30th September)
Application periodUsually February to April
StipendCase by Case basis
LocationRemote

5. SOCIS

SOCIS ESA – A pan-European organization working on exploration of space, human spaceflight etc.

SOCISDetails
Eligibility CriteriaStudents from the European Union
Internship period3 months (from 1st July to 30th September)
Application periodUsually May to June
Stipenddepends on each mentoring organization, see below for more details
LocationRemote

6. DataONE

DataONE – A project to collect, understand earth observational data using a variety of sensors, testing and making cohesive sense out of the data collected.

DataONEDetails
Eligibility CriteriaNone.
Internship period3 months (from 1st July to 30th September)
Application PeriodUsully from February end to March end
Stipend$5000
LocationUnited States

7. OpenDaylight

OpenDaylight – FOSS Project which works to use and promote software-defined networking and network functions visualization.

OpendaylightDetails
Eligibility CriteriaNone.
Internship period3 months (from May 30th to August 29th)
Application PeriodUsually from January to March end
Stipend$5000
LocationRemote

8. Deeproot

Deeproot started in 2000. Their main product is deepOfix Mail Server and is based on Debian.

DeeprootDetails
Eligibility CriteriaA desire to work hard on solving a practical problem using Free Software
Internship period3 months – 10 months
Application PeriodAll round the year
StipendUnpaid
LocationBangalore/Remote

9. ICFOSS

ICFOSS – An autonomous organization set up by Government of Kerala for development and promotion of FOSS in India.

ICFOSSDetails
Eligibility CriteriaNone.
Internship period1.5 months
Application PeriodUsually August to October start.
StipendUnpaid
LocationRemote

10. ICFOSS Fellowship

ICFOSS – An autonomous organization set up by Government of Kerala for development and promotion of FOSS in India.

FOSS Innovation Fellowship ProgrammeDetails
Eligibility CriteriaAge should not exceed 30.
Internship period3 months (from 1st April to July 30th)
Application PeriodUsually April to May
StipendINR Rs. 20k per month
LocationKerala, India

11. FOSSEE Internships

FOSSEE – An organization targeted towards development, maintenance and promotion of various FOSS projects based in the famous IIT-Mumbai.

Fossee InternshipsDetails
Eligibility CriteriaDepends on project
Internship period2 months
Application PeriodUsually January to February end
StipendUnpaid.
LocationMumbai, India, or sometimes remote.

12. The Center for Internet and Society

CIS – A Bangalore-based organization based organization looking at multidisciplinary research and advocacy at various levels.

The Center for Internet and SocietyDetails
Eligibility CriteriaDiverse Educational backgrounds but need to know LibreOffice
Internship period
Application PeriodThroughout the year
StipendUnpaid
LocationDepends, some remote, some Bengaluru, India and New Delhi, India

13. OPNFV

OPNFV – An organisation dedicated to network functions virtualisation

OPNFVDetails
Eligibility CriteriaNone.
Internship period3 months full-time or 6 months part-time
Application PeriodAround the year
Stipend$5500 in stages
LocationRemote

14. Outreachy

Outreachy -Outreachy started in 2006, wrapped up, and started up again in 2010. I did share an interview with Maria Glukova which shared her experience. Twice a year it runs and has in excess of 30+ interns per year from 20+ projects including Debian, Redhat, OpenStack, and many others.

OutreachyDetails
Eligibility CriteriaWomen, trans and cisgendered women
Internship period3 months
Application PeriodUsually from February to April
Stipend$5500
LocationRemote

15. Linux Kernel development program

The Linux Kernel Mentorship Program offers a structured remote learning opportunity to aspiring Linux Kernel developers. It can be applied through Community bridge.

TLKDDetails
Eligibility CriteriaNo Criteria. Should have completed their free prerequisite course.
Internship periodThree 12-week, full-time volunteer mentee positions, and two 24-week part-time every year.
Application PeriodSummer/Fall: March end/April
Spring program: December
StipendIt depends on Purchasing Power Parity, i.e. your location
LocationRemote

16. GNOME internship program

GNOME internships provide three-month internships for any person eligible by the eligibility rules. Interns are paid a stipend of $8000 per internship.

GNOME internship programDetails
Eligibility CriteriaFamiliarity with GNOME or contributed to GNOME.
Internship period3 months, Usually start in Sept
Application PeriodUsually from Sept to Oct
StipendIt depends on Purchasing Power Parity, i.e. your location
LocationRemote

17. Google Season of docs

Technical writers can spend three months working closely with an open-source community. Bring their technical writing expertise to the project’s documentation. Google uses Payoneer to pay a stipend to technical writers who have successfully completed their Season of Docs projects.

Google season of docsDetails
Eligibility CriteriaAt least 18 years old at the time of registration.
Internship period3 months, Usually start in Sept
Application PeriodUsually from June to Julay end.
StipendIt depends on Purchasing Power Parity, i.e. your location
LocationRemote

18. Girl script summer of code

GirlScript Foundation is a non-profit organization registered by the. Government of India. GirlScript Summer of Code 2019 witnessed an overwhelming participation of 1000+, from 4 countries. We had 150+ mentor applications.

GirlScript summer of codeDetails
Eligibility CriteriaAnyone
Internship period3 months, Usually start in January.
Application PeriodUsually from January to Feb.
StipendUnpaid
LocationRemote

19. Khan Academy

Khan Academy is looking for talented software developers to create a free virtual classroom for the world. You can work on developing web solutions, data analysis developing classroom content, etc.

GirlScript summer of codeDetails
Eligibility CriteriaAnyone
Internship periodN/A
Application PeriodN/A
StipendDepends on work
LocationRemote, On site.
About the author
Shirish

Shirish

I'm a vagabond, free-spirited soul who enjoys street food, sci-fi, fantasy, security, GNU/Linux, travel, cooking in no pre-defined order. You can find me at <a href="https://flossexperiences.wordpr

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