Every year Google somehow finds a way to up its contributions to the open source community and 2008 looks to be no different.

For Google Summer of Code (SoC) 2008, Google is paying for 1,125 student developers, which is an increase from the 900 students the program took in 2007. Those students will work with 175 Free and Open Source Projects as mentors to  help improve and expand their development.

Google pays each accepted student developer a stipend of $4,500 and provides $500 to the mentoring organization. So doing the quick math for 2008 -- Google is pumping $5.625 million into open source this summer.

Full details on all the actual accepted individual developer projects has not yet been available, though the semi-complete list on the SoC page (click on ideas) is staggering. I've been covering Summer of Code (SoC) since its inception in 2005 and I'm excited to see it continue to grow.

Students are now in the 'bonding period' with their mentoring projects where it's hoped that they'll gain familiarity with process and code. The actual coding will run from May 26 through August 18.

Congratulations to all who were accepted, and I'm looking forward to tracking (and reporting) on your progress!