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Scaler School of Technology

Open Source

We put student names in the commit log.

Members ship code to projects the world runs on — and get paid by Google, the Linux Foundation and more to do it. Every claim here is a link.

See who got inJoin the club

What this is

A club is easy to start. Getting a stranger to merge your code is not.

Most student clubs count attendance. We count pull requests a stranger chose to merge.

Nobody reads your college projects. They read your commits — the one part of your CV a stranger has already checked for you.

A public record an employer can read

Right now your GitHub holds semester projects. One merged PR adds code a real maintainer read, argued about and accepted — with your name on it.

Senior engineers review your code, for free

Your reviewer might work at Google or Red Hat. They remember who ships — long after the programme ends.

Some of it pays, in your second year

GSoC, LFX and Outreachy pay stipends to people with zero work experience. Most students never apply because nobody told them.

The people doing it with you

We apply to the same programmes, review each other's patches, and swap notes on which maintainers reply. That's why the second selection comes easier.

ICPC sends three students per college per year to its World Finals. Nobody caps how many of you get code merged into Kubernetes. ICPC Regional Rules ↗

try it

Go on, press the green button. Everyone remembers their first one.

Open a pull request

base: main ← compare: fix/typo✓ Able to merge.
README.md+1 −1

- Contributions are welcome! Please read the the guide.

+ Contributions are welcome! Please read the guide.

In their words

Their words, not ours. Including the parts where it was confusing.

  • “Though I started GSoC prep later than usual, I did not make quick, surface-level PRs. I decided to go deep — truly understanding codebases, maintainer needs, and underlying architecture. That single mindset shift is what got me into GSoC. Open source isn't a race to start first; it's a marathon of building real engineering depth.”

    Kartik Deshpande

    Batch ’27 · GSoC 2026

  • “For me, open source is about building real engineering depth, not generating surface-level code. That's why I enforce a strict zero-AI rule across my contributions. When you rely on AI tools to write your PRs, you skip the most critical part of the process — reading documentation, debugging edge cases, and truly understanding the architecture. Open source exists to make us better engineers, not better prompt operators.”

    Ojas Maheshwari

    Batch ’28 · GSoC 2026

  • “My open-source journey was anything but a straight line. Between navigating intense FOMO, handling rejected PRs, and feeling lost in massive codebases, there were countless moments I felt stuck. But instead of walking away, I kept reading docs, fixing broken builds, and submitting code — even when progress felt invisible. Making it to GSoC wasn't luck; it was the result of showing up every day and staying relentless through every single setback.”

    Shubham Kapoor

    Batch ’28 · GSoC 2026

Why students join

College gives you a syllabus. This gives you a review thread.

Four things we run, all open to anyone — no selection at the door.

Build days

One evening, one senior beside you, one real change by the end.

Hackathons

Thirty people, one room, the same setup bugs. Nothing's ranked.

Programme track

GSoC and LFX prep, with a 1-on-1 mentor who got in last cycle reading your patch first.

*1-on-1 mentor pairs go to the people who keep showing up

Club projects

This site and the club's other repos — your reviewer sits in the lab.

New to open source?

You have been using it all day. Nobody told you that you could change it.

Software written in public, for everyone. These four run half the planet, and you can read every line right now.

  • Linux

    C

    Inside every Android phone, and behind almost every website you visited today.

    Built in public since 1991. Thousands of people change it every year.

    Read the source

  • Python

    CPython

    Probably the first language you came across.

    The interpreter, CPython, is public — source, bug tracker and design arguments included.

    Read the source

  • VS Code

    TypeScript

    The editor you almost certainly have open on the other monitor.

    The source is MIT-licensed. Microsoft's own build adds a few closed bits on top.

    Read the source

  • Git

    C

    The thing you type commands at without being sure what they do.

    Linus Torvalds wrote it in 2005 for the Linux kernel. Open from the first commit — you can read it.

    Read the source

Built in the open

Every change is a public proposal. Read the code, the debate, and why things got refused.

By anyone

No permission needed. A second-year in Bengaluru and a staff engineer in Berlin use the same door.

For everyone

Free for anyone — including the companies that'll interview you. That's why your commits matter to them.

How a change actually gets in

You do not edit the project. You propose a change to it.

  1. The grey line

    The project's history — every change, public, with names attached.

  2. The blue line

    Your branch. Your own copy — you can't break anyone else's work.

  3. The filled dot

    The merge. A maintainer said yes — your change is in the grey line for good.

Who reviews your PR, the jargon, and the commands to make one tonight →

The students winning are building open source.

Join the club →
Prateek SinghShubham Kumar

17 selectedthis cohort