Welcome To Melange

Melange is the software that administers the Google Summer of Code and Google Code-in programs and their respective websites. Created in 2008, Melange was first used to run Google Summer of Code in 2009 (earlier Google Summer of Code programs were managed with a Google-proprietary web application). As Google Summer of Code and Google Code-in grew in size and features each year, Melange grew with them to support their needs. Today Melange is a mature, actively maintained open source software project.

Melange, Google Summer of Code, Google Code-in...Huh?

Google Summer of Code and Google Code-in are two sister programs (respectively project-oriented and task-oriented) run by the Google Open Source Programs office. Melange is the software behind the websites that are used to administer these two programs. The Melange landing page shows both Google Code-in and Google Summer of Code as options — click on the Google Summer of Code box to take you to the program homepage.

Is this book for me?

This manual is intended for people who have questions about using the Melange-driven Google Summer of Code website itself. For the Google Code-in website you can try the book at http://en.flossmanuals.net/gci-melange instead. This book should be especially helpful for Students, Mentors, Organization Administrators and Mentors. Please see the section specific to each of these roles for more information.

Please also note that we have existing user manuals for Students, Mentors, and Organization Administrators who are participating in Google Summer of Code. If you have general questions about the program or how to participate in a certain role, we recommend that you look at those user manuals instead. You can find the Google Summer of Code Student manual at http://en.flossmanuals.net/GSoCStudentGuide/ and the Google Summer of Code Mentor and Organization Administrator manual at http://en.flossmanuals.net/gsocmentoring/.

Can I use Melange for my own projects?

Probably! Melange is open source software, and we welcome you to deploy the software to use in whatever ways are applicable to your projects. Melange has a lot of features that are specific to Google Summer of Code, so please note you may need to change the code to suit your needs. Feel free to reach out to the Melange developers at melange-soc-dev@googlegroups.com if you have any questions about your deployment. 

I want to volunteer to help develop on Melange

That's great! Melange is an open source project that can always use patches and additional contributing community members. We have an active developer base that you can get in touch with at melange-soc-dev@googlegroups.com. You can also visit the general project page at http://code.google.com/p/soc.