[ak217]

As a former GSoC mentor, I think it's important to have an onboarding pipeline in your project, and disagree with the notion that the mentor/student relationship is somehow atypical - such relationships pop up all the time in the natural course of projects, and are key to the health of most of them. It's up to you to select the students who you think will stick around. Given that, taking the time to onboard junior people is a really rewarding investment in the project.

(My student ended up going on to work for Red Hat. I don't presume I had a lot to do with it, but I think the culture did.)

[stsp]

What I think is unnatural is the situation where the student is being paid, and where the mentor has a formal responsibility for the student and acts as the person who ranks the student and thus decides upon their salary (fail the student -> no money).

In a normal situation, new contributors show up and are self-motivated, and receive guidance from others so that over time they become equals. The mentor's role is spread among several people, and it is informal and temporary. There is no money involved.

Many (not all!) GSoC students do not experience what the normal situation in open source feels like.

I am happy that your student is an open source enthusiast and got a job in open source. That is great.

I have seen this kind of good experience, but also more disappointing ones. In one case, a student simply disappeared after the first payment (in the middle of the summer) had been issued.