I think the overall GSoC experience is a positive one. I do get the impression that GSoC projects tend to delay stable releases though, because the code has growing pains after integrating all these new features. To avoid releasing 1.14 in two more years, maybe we should consider alternating a feature-adding GSoC with a refactoring/documenting/unit testing/bugfixing one? Just throwing the idea out there.
We could even have some GSoC projects pitched like this: "Your job is to understand, document and debug X part of the code, as well as to propose and prototype two different ways in which it could be refactored. If your project is deemed successful, you will then be admitted into the wesnoth dev team and become the official maintainer for that code area." (No, we can't force people to stick around, but if the project goal is basically to become something's maintainer, it might help a lot.) Aside from that I agree with shooting for smaller projects. This should naturally give the student more time for test-driven development, playtesting and bugfixing. As regards mentoring, I'd be interested in mentoring again this summer, but I'm not yet sure if I'll be able to.
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