Status: Elixpo is applying to be a mentoring organisation for Google Summer of Code 2027. Google announces accepted organisations after the application period.

ElixpoGSoC 2027

Agenda

Our agenda

Elixpo takes part in Google Summer of Code to help one contributor become the supported owner of one part of a real project. This page sets out what Elixpo is, what it ships in public, how it decides what to approve, and what it commits to contributors.

What Elixpo is

In its own words, Elixpo is "an open-source project foundry where people build in public and release meaningful projects together." Its public line is "Build in public. Release as a project."

Elixpo works with active maintainers to build and release open software, reproducible research, and publicly operated services. Time-bounded Chapters give work a clear public story, prepared contribution pathways, accountable review, and a durable release record. Successful projects may continue as Elixpo Member Projects.

Source: elixpo.com and the Elixpo portal README.

What we want Google Summer of Code to achieve

Short contributions bring people into open source, but they rarely turn newcomers into maintainers. Our aim for Google Summer of Code is the longer path:

newcomer → first contribution → understands one part of a project → designs and ships it with review → helps review others → keeps it running

In 2027 that means one contributor who becomes the supported owner of one part of one codebase: with two mentors, results that can be measured, and an invitation to keep reviewing and maintaining that part after the programme.

What we ship in public

The ideas belong to five codebases, described on the projects page:

Packages released on npm, as listed by the registry in October 2026:

Package What it is Version Licence
@elixpo/lixblogs-cli Command-line tool for LixBlogs 1.8.0 MIT
@elixpo/lixeditor Block editor and renderer used by LixBlogs 2.8.12 MIT
@elixpo/lixsketch Whiteboard engine and canvas component of LixSketch 5.6.14 MIT
@elixpo/accounts OAuth and OpenID Connect SDK for Elixpo Accounts 1.1.0 MIT

How we decide what to approve

Contributions. The project governance documents (Elixpo, LixBlogs) set out how changes are accepted:

  • Maintainers review contributions, manage releases and decide what is merged. Project maintainers keep authority over their own repositories.
  • Material changes begin with an issue or discussion when early agreement would prevent wasted work.
  • Review matches the risk of the change. Passing automated checks is evidence, not approval to merge.
  • Changes to security, privacy, authentication, payments, moderation, migrations, package publication or deployment require a maintainer with access to the affected system.
  • Organisation-level changes, such as licensing, contributor attribution or sponsorship policy, go through a reviewable pull request with primary evidence. Automated checks may detect problems but do not make these decisions.
  • Contributor credit points to attributable work such as merged changes, reviews, releases and documentation. Commit count alone is not a rank.

Project ideas. Each idea for 2027 had to meet four rules:

  • One problem per idea, in one codebase, with what is in and out of scope written down.
  • Two mentors per idea: a primary mentor and a backup mentor.
  • Proof, not promises: every idea states how success is measured, usually with tests that anyone can run.
  • No private keys: every project can be set up from its public repository.

Proposals. Mentors assess every proposal against the published selection criteria.

Money and commercial interests

  • Elixpo does not sell anything through this programme. No Google Summer of Code idea involves payments, pricing or paid features; the contest-scoring idea lists payouts as out of scope.
  • The source code of the participating projects is published under the MIT licence. Project names, published package names and the official hosted deployments are reserved to Elixpo, as each repository's NOTICE file records.
  • Some hosted Elixpo services, including blogs.elixpo.com and sketch.elixpo.com, offer optional paid plans. Google Summer of Code work does not involve them.
  • Elixpo does not currently solicit, accept, hold or route organisation-level sponsorship funds. See the community partnership programme.

Care for contributors

  • Human review. Mentors review all work personally and make every decision.
  • Timely replies. Mentors aim to reply within 48 hours on weekdays.
  • Two mentors. Every idea has a primary and a backup mentor, so that the contributor always has support.
  • Credit. Elixpo publishes contribution records for attributable public work at elixpo.com/contributors.
  • Conduct. Everyone follows the Code of Conduct, and reports are handled privately.
  • Published commitments. Every mentor and administrator signs the commitments on the agreements page.
  • After the summer. The contributor is invited to keep reviewing and maintaining the part they built.

How we run the programme sets out these commitments in detail: the weekly cadence, mentor cover, evaluations, escalation and what happens after the programme.