> Before going too deep into incentive programs, though, I'd encourage > checking out Stormy Peters' talk: "Would you do it again for free?" > > http://stormyscorner.com/would-you-do-it-again-for-free > > tl;dr - incentive programs don't always wind up generating long-term > involvement.
This is my concern with GSoC - while it has produced some rockstars (and we even have someone who was involved in GSoC working on CloudStack, my experience is that unless the folks were previously involved with a project before GSoC they are gone after the fact, which is a huge loss for the investment needed. In general mentoring new folks is a huge timesink: If you look at the statistics pointed out by Dave Neary: in the first half of this blog post: http://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2011/05/31/effective-mentoring-programs/ You'll note that generally speaking they assume only 25% of mentored individuals will stay around, and that for the project mentoring students appears to be a net loss. My personal experience with students in Fedora has been less than encouraging, to the point I stopped my efforts in that area altogether. My experience was that the people who were interested would come looking on their own, would be easy to help, and would stay around much longer; going out recruiting, particularly among student populations (people who by definition are going through lots of change in a very rapid time period, have shifting priorities, etc) rarely yields any long term (more than a semester) contributors. Not trying to discourage you (or even say you shouldn't do it) just a heads up on some of the experiences of others. --David
