Look at our Project_Suggestions page for possible projects. There is a special section for Summer-of-Code projects, which are ones that we thought would be manageable as summer projects. They are nearly all open-ended, but can be organised as a series of steps so that at the end of it all there is always something worthwhile to show for the summer's work.

There are other projects ideas on the page, and you are obviously free to suggest a project of your own. Either way you need to give enough detail in the application to convince us that you understand the project. If one of the suggestions seems too big to you, you can certainly describe a subset that seems more sensible to you. (There are several suggestions where that is probably sensible.)

If you are interested in a project, you should obviously browse through the material on our web site, read through the user group wiki, look at the experiments in The Inferno Programmer's Notebook, browse the source code itself on Google code (noting the other Links there), and download the software to have a play with it, if you haven't done so already. You could also join the Inferno discussion list.

Summer-of-code projects must apply for mentoring through the mentoring group Plan 9 from Bell Labs, but please discuss it on the Plan 9 SoC Google discussion group, or the Plan 9 or Inferno lists, so we can offer advice and avoid wasted time.

If you're interested but not a student, and have some free time, feel free to have a go anyway, but again it would be best to discuss it beforehand, so your choice does not unknowingly clash with a Summer-of-Code applicant.