[RFC] FOSS Hack 2025 and Season of Commits

Hackathon
1

FOSS Hack 2025

Event Date: February 22-23
Mode: Hybrid (Online and multiple in-person locations)
Number of Partners: 10 (refer to the tentative partners’ list below)

Season of Commits

This is an introductory edition, details here.
It’s an 8-week online program designed for Indian students to contribute to Indian free and open-source projects under mentorship.

Date: May 15 - July 15 2025
Total Number of Projects: 10 (refer to the tentative partners’ list below)
Total Number of Students: 80-100
Mentors: 1-3 per project
Stipend:

  • Participants: ₹5,000-10,000, based on performance.
  • Mentors: ₹10,000-15,000, based on performance.

Tentative Project List

(Community projects only, mostly previous FOSS Hack partners)

  1. Amaze File Manager
  2. Vyakaran
  3. Frappe
  4. Internet Shutdown
  5. Listmonk
  6. Rethink DNS
  7. Circuit Verse
  8. Keyshade
  9. Kitty
  10. FOSS United Platform

We are open to include Indian commercial FOSS projects if they can contribute financially (open for suggestions). This support would help the FOSS United Foundation reduce the program’s overall costs, potentially around ₹2,00,000.

These two events are strategically scheduled for sustainability; FOSS Hack serves as an introduction to the partner projects. The 2.5-month gap between FOSS Hack and the Season of Commits provides students with ample time to learn more about the projects and prepare their statements of purpose on how they can contribute.

FOSS Hack continues its mission to encourage both students and professional developers to develop and contribute to free and open-source software. This year, FOSS Hack’s partner projects will also connect to the new program, Season of Commits, facilitating deeper contributions and engagements.

Budget

  • FOSS Hack Prize Pool: ₹500,000
  • FOSS Hack Hosting Costs: ₹500,000
  • Season of Commits Stipends (Participants): ~₹700,000
  • Season of Commits Stipends (Mentors): ~₹300,000
  • Total: ₹20,00,000

We request the community to share their comments before 15th of Dec. It will help us start planning these programs accordingly.

Links to the previous FOSS Hackathon:

  1. FOSS Hack 2024
  2. FOSS Hack 3.0 - Hack Online and Offline and win up to ₹10 Lakh cash prize
  3. FOSS Hack 2021 - Online hackathon on 13th & 14th Nov - FOSS United
  4. FOSS Hack 2020 - Online hackathon on 12 Sep - FOSS United
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Hi Vishal,

Season of Commits definitely sounds a wonderful initiative.
I am currently maintaining API Dash which is a FOSS API client and was one of the winning projects in FOSS Hack 3.0.
We have grown the project over time and built a community around it.
The project also participated in Google Summer of Code 2024.
We have guided a lot of students into making their first meaningful open source contribution and would love to participate in Season of Commits next year.

Can you kindly let me know how we can apply as a partner project.

Regards,
Ashita

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Thank you @ashita, for expressing interest in becoming a project partner for Season of Commits. We will soon open applications for partner projects.

For reference, the above list includes projects from the previous FOSS Hack. We welcome new partners through our upcoming application process.

Please stay tuned to this forum for updates.

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