On Mon, Dec 05, 2011 at 03:35:17PM -0500, Bradley M. Kuhn wrote:
Ted Gould wrote on the 23th of November:
+1, I don't see any reason not to give Google a loan, they seem like they might be reliable.
I haven't heard from anyone else on this, and Ted is opining only on the issue of fronting the money for Google, not whether or not we should pay mentors the funds, although I suppose he's implicitly endorsing that idea.
Note that I wrote back on the 21st of November:
It is indeed the project's leadership discretion about sending funds out to the mentors. From Google's perspective, the mentor payments are a donation to the project. That said, I think it's a good idea for the project to use the money to pay the mentor, but note that's not because Google wants it to be so. I think there is some confusion about this namong mentors: there seems to be a belief among mentors that the money is theirs to keep in any event, when in fact it belongs to the project, who then decides (quite correctly, IMO) to pay the mentor the funds. It's a subtle distinction that I think is worth bringing up again so that expectations are set correctly.
Can you all confirm that you want the Inkscape Project to give the mentors the option to receive $500/each for mentoring in the SoC in 2011?
As a mentor from previous years I would like to say that the time(s? I can't remember now) when I've been paid the money was very much appreciated. I'm not convinced the money going to the inkscape kitty has much direct value for the project - mentors put in a lot of work for the $500 which in turn leads to successful SoCs which lead to a) better inkscape and b) a higher chance of continued involvement from the student and the mentor. We're not paying oncosts or a mortgage, so sitting on cash doesn't really make sense, it is better to spend it while it still has value.
njh