I did GSoC over a decade ago (Wow!) and if the stipend was halfed I wouldn't have bothered -- any bottom of the barrel internship would've been more lucrative.

Not that the money was the primary driver for GSoC, but being able to dedicate a significant chunk of my summer to a project while being being able to pay the bills was a prerequisite for applying.

I have no idea how I'd juggle a GSoC project with another job, for that matter.

It used to be 12 weeks, not 20 as your comment implies: https://opensource.googleblog.com/2019/05/google-summer-of-c...

The main thing that changed was not the project length, but that the projects are now supposed to be part-time (4 hours per day) instead of full time (8 hours per day).

I'm curious to see how it's going to work out. Halving the student's stippend and the scope of the projects is going to be a big change. On the other hand, it might make it easier for students outside the USA to participate. In other countries the GSOC coding period often overlaps with part of the school year, including final exams.

I wonder if this is to make it more inline with a traditional internship, I believe that's about how long my internships were.

You are now supposed to work 4 hours per day instead of 8, so I don't think that is it. I feel the changes this year is going to decrease the quality of the whole event.

it's an experiment. if it fails, they'll change it back after a few years

it's good to try new things once in a while.

the part time schedule allows participation by a different group of students. it also allows weaker students to participate who may feel they need more time to deliver the expected results. now they have a buffer to do that.

whether that's a good thing or not remains to be seen. but the only way to find out is to try it.