Initially, no one considered the possibility. The necessary infrastructure was never built out. The owners of the repos became gatekeepers. So I'd create patches and then spin my wheels trying to get them submitted, reviewed, triaged, merged, released, etc.

Consequently, a problem with anyone who maintains a fork is familiar with, keeping my patches up to date as upstream dropped new releases became ever more work.

Ever hear of Pieter Hintjens, of ZeroMQ fame? I've since read most all of his (public) writings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_Hintjens His books are very good.

Hintjens advocates the very open, generous policy of accepting and merging patches by default. Then do the hard work of review and finesse.

I'd love to find and talk to maintainers who have experience with Hintjens' strategies. How does it work IRL? Of course ZeroMQ is a huge success. Is that success reproducible?

Thanks for the followup question. I'd love to brainstorm with others about the practical challenges of FOSS orgs, maintenance, and so forth.