Mailing the story:

Season of KDE is a community outreach program, much like Google Summer of Code that has been hosted by the KDE community for six years straight. It is meant for people who could not get into Google Summer of Code for various reasons, or people who simply prefer a differently structured, somewhat less constrained program. Season of KDE is managed by the same team of admins and mentors that takes care of Google Summer of Code and Google Code-in matters for KDE, with the same level of quality and care.