Last year, as you may recall, Rails got thread safety and a new core committer thanks to our participation in the Google Summer of Code program under the auspices of Ruby Central. This year, we’re pleased to announce, Ruby on Rails has been accepted into Google Summer of Code as a sponsoring organization in its own right.

What does this mean to you? Potentially, if you’re the right person, you can get paid to work on the Rails core code this summer!

The “right person” in this case is one who is at least 18 years old (sorry, Google’s rule, not ours!), a full- or part-time college student, and passionate about improving Rails. We’re building a potential list of project ideas on the Rails wiki, but we welcome other interesting proposals. We’re especially interested in work that meshes well with the plans for Rails 3.0, which will be in full swing by the time GSoC launches. If your proposal gets accepted, Google will pay you $4500 over the course of three months to work on the code.

If you’re interested, head over to the GSoC site and start reading about the process. Student applications can be submitted starting March 23.

What if you’re not a student? You can still help out by brainstorming ideas on the Rails wiki. Or if you’re a Rails guru and ready to make a strong commitment to help out the next generation of developers, you can apply to be a mentor.

We’re looking forward to working with this year’s students, and expecting some outstanding contributions to Rails as a result!