From the 'everyone loves Paul Atreides' files:

PORTLAND. Google's Summer of Code (SoC) has been around since 2005 as a way to get students involved in open source. But according to Google program Manager Leslie Hawthorne the Google system used for managing the projects within the SoC hasn't been all that great. So Google is developing a new collaboration platform called Melange (based on the concept of Melange / spice from Frank Herbert's Dune novels). Google Open Source Program Manager Chris DiBona was creditted by Hawthorne for coming up with the name.

"We need to make a system that is useful as a method of interaction," Hawthorne told the OSCON crowd. " DiBona came up with the name. It's Melange as in the spice of creation."

 The Google Melange effort is currently being developed in the open on Google Code and is expected by Google to be the platform by which SoC is run in the future.

As a huge fan of Frank Herbert and Dune - I personally thing Melange is an awesome name for a collaboration project. In Dune, spice is the basis on which the Navigators are able to fold space-time and travel across the Universe, I'm not sure that Google Melange will enable users to fold space-time but a collaboration on projects is a key thing and it should be really interesting to see how this project matures.