Questions on how to begin with a GSoC project

[Gunnar Wolf <gwolf@debian.org>]

Hello!

I am registered as a GSoC mentor, but this is my first year doing so... and I
fear I'm missing some information; I don't want to adversely affect the process
or do anything against the rules, so I'd better ask some questions here.

Please do note: I have asked this already by IRC, where I was suggested to come
to this mailing list. I have several points, not necesssarily in logical
succeession of each other, please excuse my mental mix 😉

① I have received contact from a couple of possible students. I was very busy
  this last week, so told them to wait a bit, and I'll start chatting with them
  soon. But, how much and how should I be advancing with them?  I don't know how
  much I want to assess without getting them to start tackling real problems...

② I want to make sure there is no conflict of interests and that I'm not doing
  anything wrong: I have also talked with a student at my lab at the university
  who is interested in participating. Given I commit to rating the potential
  students fairly, would there be a problem if I had him in the group?

③ how many students can a program have? I would guess that "as many as needed,
  as long as they don't step on each other's toes", but there is serious money
  flowing from Google into this...

  → gargantua_kerr answered on IRC that each accepted idea will have only one
    student accepted. They quoted
    https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/help/slot-allocation

    I understand that for "project", they mean the Debian project's allocation
    in GSoC; an "idea" is each of our project proposals; and "each accpeted
    proposal will ultimately fill a project slot".

④ Also, the mentioned page speaks about stages, but don't mention actual
  times... When should I start interviewing candidates? How much should I wait
  to be at ease of having the full list of applicants?

Anyway, thanks for any further explanations other list members can give for my
questions!