GSOC mentors that don't care about the project

Question

I am asking on behalf of FluxBB, an open-source project I'm contributing to: We would love to offer "jobs" for this year's Google Summer of Code, but we completely lack the resources or the man-power to let somebody from our team be a mentor.

So my question is: are there any mentors who would take on mentoring for other projects or are completely free of any organization behind them that wants to benefit from the program itself?

Answer 1

Not a good idea:

• For GSoC to work well, you need experienced mentors who have had commit rights for some time. On the application form you are asked about your mentors. You have to be honest there. With inexperienced mentors you are unlikely to get accepted.
• There is considerable work involved in getting ready for GSoC, with the work peak being during student selection. You need people in your team doing this. It doesn't sound like you have the resources to do this.
• The time shortage in your community also means you will not have enough resources to review code from the GSoC students as it is being written. New people from outside can't do this properly. So either GSoC code will have to be parked in a branch, or you will commit code that is not properly checked. This will cost you dearly downstream.

Your best bet is instead to try to persuade your potential in-house mentors to reconsider, and go in under an umbrella php org. Aim for your in-house mentors to mentor one student collaboratively, with one mentor taking point position. People in the umbrella org will help a bit, mostly with admin, and reduce that part of the workload.