In fact, personally speaking, I would be more willing to do so outside of GSoC than within the confines of a Summer of Code program. Usually because it indicates a slightly greater level of interest, and more importantly we're not under a time pressure to get things done. It's more relaxed this way making the whole process more enjoyable.
Hit me up and I can introduce you to multiple projects within the GNU ecosystem that would love to have a new contributor.
I am not a beginner but not an expert too. I love to contribute to open source communities when I am free. I also lead an open source community in my institute to introduce my juniors to use and contribute to open source .
You can also try to get in touch with multiple projects via the gnu-soc mailing list on the gnu domain.
If you'd like to contact me directly, you can reach me on my username on the gnu domain.
If you like OSs, and you're looking for a low barrier to entry, my guess is that you could try working on Wine. I remember seeing fixes that are the addition of a constant or so (but I have no experience in the field, so I'm not sure). This could give you some basics, and pave your way to contribute to ReactOS.
I was referring to the entry barriers due to technical difficulty.
To restate with better terms, I believe that the GSOC projects have a generally high entry barrier, due to the fact the they require knowledge in the field. I think the students are hardly beginners.
However, I may be wrong. Something very interesting is that one can open the organizations for the past years (https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/archive/2020/organizatio...), pick a project (ie. https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/archive/2020/projects/62...) and see the detailed report ("GET THE CODE" button).
I work on listenbrainz.org [0] by the MetaBrainz Foundation [1]. We use Python, React, Spark and a bunch of other stuff. I'm happy to help you get started with one of MetaBrainz's projects if you want. My email is in my profile.
2. Are people who are not students allowed to work on these ideas/issues now or in the future? I have found these "ideas" to be available only during gsoc, but orgs in general I'm finding it hard to find these starter level ideas to get going.
If people are available for mentoring please let me know. I would be really grateful to learn from you guys. I'm open to learning languages as necessary. I'm good with Python, exposed to C and Java, able to read go.
I like the projects - django, mariadb, postgresql, python, git, kde - but i'm open to other projects as well.