I know the name sounds a bit awkward and geeky, but GHOP is a masterpiece move by Google in the endless game against Microsoft. I may just be a pawn, but that doesn’t bother me one bit.

For those of you that missed it, Google announced GHOP (Google Highly Open Participation) about two weeks ago. The contest works something like the following:

1) High school students sign up and work on tasks for open source projects. (A google account is obviously a requirement.)

2) Google pays the students up to $500 and gives all participants (as the google website says) “the all important t-shirt.”

3) GHOP ends in January and the top ten contributers win a trip to Google hq.

4) Students continue to work on open source projects and are a pain to Micro$oft.

I’m working with GNOME for the contest. So far I’ve just written an article for Gnome Journal on GConf, but hopefully I’ll get to do some coding soon.

Anyway, its time for me to get some sleep…  If you’re a high school student, go head over to the website and check it out!