On Fri, May 16, 2014 at 11:02 AM, Bryce Harrington <bryce@...2...> wrote:
Do I understand correctly that the lottery is for an access pass, but
doesn't cover travel or room costs?  How many people do you think we're
likely to get?

Yes, you understand correctly. I can't speak for likely numbers. That depends on interest within our project as well as luck of the lottery.

What I can tell you is that we have had basically ~3 people interested each year for the past couple years from our mentors and admins. Obviously this is a little different though since it doesn't have the requirement of participation this year.

The only thing I can supply is their estimate which is ~220 total lottery winners (there will otherwise be ~380 people funded to attend by Google). Their numbers are ~14,000 past participants (no clue if that includes people multiple times for multiple years).

 
How much money per person would we be funding for this?  Is it located
in the Bay Area?

That is a great Q. I have next to no experience with international travel, so I don't know what reasonable costs would be. My guess is that the up to $1100 for travel that Google does is probably based on something more than a guess. Yes, the reunion is located at the Google HQ in Mountain View, CA. The hotel rates for where they have deals (at 2 hotels I believe) is $129 a night and it's a 3 day event. Based on that, I would think something like up to $1500 for travel and room would be reasonable. Most of the money we have is from SoC, so it doesn't seem unreasonable to me at least.

 
I think sending admins and mentors makes sense, particularly ones that
have served multiple times and especially ones that have served
recently.  For students, if the student ended up becoming part of the
Inkscape project and kept participating and contributing, that's a no
brainer.  But if the student is a drive-by contributor, well I think we
could spend our money better.

I feel the same way. It's worthwhile to reinvest in those who have invested so much into us. For those that did the drive-by, I don't really feel as compelled to make it happen. Perhaps we put a stipulation on who we would choose to fund such as they must have participated (and completed successfully) with us multiple years or otherwise continued contributing outside of GSoC?

Cheers,
Josh