I agree with you and think you're well-intentioned. One thing I'd point out is that if you're a project maintainer, who would you rather mentor: - the inexperi

I agree with you and think you're well-intentioned. One thing I'd point out is that if you're a project maintainer, who would you rather mentor: - the inexperienced person who uses the software themselves, has an issue with it, and wants to fix it, or - the inexperienced person who wants to boost their CV and picked a bug off a "starter task" list. Assuming they are otherwise equal, I'd certainly prefer the first one, because chances are much higher that they'll stick around. Motivations matter. Now if a patch just appears out of nowhere, obviously I don't apply a litmus test where I try to divine what the person's motivation is. However, this logic has turned me off initiatives like GSoC. GSoC is great when there's a student who's already working on a project anyway, and it enables them to up their contributions during summer as an alternative to working a more boring job. However, my impression of GSoC with randoms who specifically scan GSoC for a project to work on has been disappointing.