Google's Summer of Code is one reason why Google keeps Microsoft
executives awake at night.

Summer of Code is one of Google's most active hosted sites for open
source development. Google's strategy is clear -- give students a
stipend and in return they'll code their tails off and contribute to
the open source community....

According to Mountain View, Calif.-based Google, the project has
attracted about 1,500 developers and almost an equal number of mentors
over the last four years. [NUI project and others...]

Students can work on game libraries, protocols, cluster computing,
codecs.... At its present course, the project will certainly attract
many more thousands of new developers. This development model might
create a new generation of dedicated developers to write solely for
Web 3.0 technologies and even kneecap Microsoft's hold on corporate
development....


http://www.crn.com/software/208800011