KiCad EDA - https://kicad.org

KiCad is a popular open-source EDA tool used by engineers and designers across the globe. We're always open to contributions from experienced C++ developers, especially those who are also familiar with the world of electrical engineering / PCB design. Check out our developer landing page[1] to find the developers email list and contribution guides. We accept merge requests on GitLab[2] and try to keep a number of lower-scope issues tagged starter [3] for new developers to take on.

We're currently in our annual feature freeze as we focus on stabilizing features added in the past year and squashing bugs ahead of our planned 9.0 release at the end of January. Any help testing the nightly builds and surfacing bugs to fix is appreciated as well as actual bug-fixing!

[1] https://dev-docs.kicad.org/en/getting-started/index.html

[2] https://gitlab.com/kicad

[3] https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/?label_name[]=s...

OneBusAway

A suite of real-time public transit projects that are used by millions of people every day. OneBusAway helps people find out when and where their bus will arrive, and provides them with a trip planner, too. OBA is used by transit riders everywhere from Seattle to New York City; Adelaide, Australia to Buenos Aires, Argentina.

In addition to developers, we would also benefit greatly from product management and user experience assistance.

Tech stacks in need of help:

iOS app (Swift): developers, 2+ years of experience with iOS.

Android app (Java/Kotlin): developers, 2+ years of experience with Android.

REST API Server (Java): developers, 2+ years of experience with Java.

Docs: Java developers with an interest in technical writing who can help to document our backend systems.

Find all of our projects: https://github.com/onebusaway

Join our Slack: https://join.slack.com/t/onebusaway/shared_invite/zt-2jve26v...

Reach out to me directly: aaron@onebusaway.org

Plain Old Recipe: takes online recipes and removes the cruft.

https://www.plainoldrecipe.com https://github.com/poundifdef/plainoldrecipe

Things I want to do:

1. Improved print-friendly format 2. Ability to format to arbitrary sizes (for example, format for index cards) 3. Smarter layouts. For example, if a recipe says "add the chicken stock" in a step it would be great if it could identify how much ("1 cup") like some apps do.

Free Software Foundation’s High Priority Free Software Projects:

<https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Collection:High_Priority_Proj...>

IfcOpenShell - https://ifcopenshell.org - https://github.com/IfcOpenShell/IfcOpenShell

An open-source toolkit for developing digital platforms in the built environment. With IfcOpenShell, you can read, write, and modify Building Information Models (BIM) using the IFC standard — a versatile and open digital language spanning the entire lifecycle of buildings, from design to construction and beyond.

Now including Bonsai, a Blender-based 3D editor to create and edit multidisciplinary information within IFC models.

The built environment is a major contributor to emissions, making sustainability in design, construction, and operations an area we can work on with data-driven decisions unlocked by open source tools.

CAD/BIM has long faced lock-in by the proprietary nature of traditional tools. We aim to change that.

C++ / Python / 3D / Computational geometry / CAD / BIM

Orcasound | https://github.com/orcasound/ | https://www.orcasound.net/

We're building open source tools to listen underwater, focused on monitoring endangered orcas (killer whales) along the west coast of North America. We operate a network of hydrophones that anyone can listen to live (https://live.orcasound.net/). We have a community of over 6,000 citizen scientists who use our tools to help us detect orcas & other marine life. Short-term our goal is to help conservation, long term we want to contribute to scientific research (orca behavior & communication).

It's an incredibly broad project that ranges from:

- hardware (building hydrophones & deploying electronics underwater)

- embedded systems / IoT (capturing & streaming data from our locations)

- live streaming & audio processing

- machine learning & data science (our dataset is nearly 10tb, all open data)

- mapping & GIS

- full-stack web

- design, UX, UI

Tech stack: Python, Elixir, Javascript/Typescript, React, C#, PostgreSQL

We need so many things that there's almost certainly something you can contribute to, regardless of skill level.

If you're interested, come say hi in our community chat on Zulip! https://orcasound.zulipchat.com/

I love this idea, thanks for putting this together. I'm biased, but I also wish more FOSS/OSS projects had a realistic contributor path for UX folks to contribute- so many (non-dev-tooling) projects suffer as a result of building without collaboration from people who might use the product.

Icosa Gallery - https://github.com/icosa-foundation/icosa-gallery

A Google Poly replacement with ambitions beyond that. 3D model hosting, viewing, sharing with simple self-hosting and (eventually) federation. An API that's 99% compatible with the Google Poly API means it's easy to revive integrations that used to support Poly. We're also got a dataset that we've cleaned up from Internet Archive scrapes restoring nearly all of the original collection. (about 150,000 models)

Looking for help with the three.js viewer/editor, help with fediverse support, Django database or OAuth experts. And of course documentation, testing, design, ux and everything else.

And anyone with their own project that would benefit from integrating with us.

Stack: Vanilla javascript / HTMX, Django, Postgres, three.js and GLTF

Suitable for any skill levels.

andy@icosa.foundation

https://icosa.gallery/ (currently in private alpha)

Parchive, a.k.a. “.par2” files

Parchive is a file format for redundant files. If any of the original files are damaged, the redundancy lets them be restored. It is used for transmission over faulty networks (like Usenet) and for protecting storage (like backups).

Version 2 clients had 7+ million downloads. Version 2 had bugs and limitations, so I’ve designed Version 3 with fixes and new features, such as incremental backups. Version 3 needs a reference implementation to be coded and tested.

It could be coded by a single person. The reference implementation just needs to read and write files and compute on the data. A follow on would be a high-performance implementation using threads, heavy optimization, and a static or dynamic library interface. It’s a good project for someone looking to prove their coding skills while doing the good deed of protecting data.

https://parchive.github.io/

GNU Taler (https://taler.net/); privacy-preserving payment system. Written in C/Java/TypeScript/Kotlin/Rust/Postgresql/etc.; needs include coding (especially integration into other applications) documentation (review, proof-reading), testing (incl. benchmark, UX), packaging, translation (Weblate/gettext); any help welcome ;-).

CubeTrek

An Open-Source Alternative to Strava (GPS Track Manager for Hiking, Running, Cycling, Mountaineering etc.)

https://cubetrek.com https://github.com/r-follador/CubeTrek/

Java, Spring Boot, PostGis, JavaScript, Babylon.js

Front end could use some help in design overhaul, new feature ideas etc. Also looking for some 3D designers helping to improve the Babylon.js parts. Other, new ideas and features are welcome!

I'd say "projects that you personaly use". If you use a piece of software or a linux distro, please contribute back, "pay" for it forward.

So I shall not suggest any particular piece, everyone uses different set of Free Software, and that's how we all like it.

https://github.com/freecivx/freecivx https://github.com/openpdfsaucer/openpdfsaucer

I focus on maintaining these two open source projects. Pull request welcome!

Fil-C - a memory safe implementation of C and C++.

Written in C and C++.

Need most help just porting C programs to Fil-C. Often porting is as easy as recompiling, but sometimes there are compatibility issues to resolve similar to if you were porting C code to a new CPU or OS. Could also use help with compiler hacking (llvm expertise required) and runtime hacking (experience with high level language runtimes required).

https://github.com/pizlonator/llvm-project-deluge

Find projects here https://www.codetriage.com/

I recommend looking for projects you care about already instead of going the other way. Best place to start isn’t by looking in your lockfile https://www.codetriage.com/university/picking_a_repo

enigo - Cross platform input simulation in Rust [1]

enigo tries to make it easy for developers to simulate key presses or mouse movements on Linux, Windows and macOS. I try to hide the differences between operating systems and make it as simple as possible. It is the most popular crate to do so according to crates.io, but there are still a number of issues.

A number of cool project use it such as - plock: Query and stream the output of an LLM from anywhere you can type [2] - RustDesk: Remote Access and Support Software (forked enigo) [3]

I'm close to running integration tests in the CI to prevent regressions and find platform differences, but it's not fully working yet. If someone could get it over the finish line, that would be great.

For Linux there is X11 but also basic Wayland implementation and a libei one, but they only work properly for US keyboards.

[1] https://github.com/enigo-rs/enigo [2] https://github.com/jasonjmcghee/plock [3] https://rustdesk.com/

Falling Fruit beta.fallingfruit.org

We're a foraging resource where people can put locations of fruit trees and other opportunities for urban harvest. We're building a React app to replace the current server side rendered website and mobile app, it's in a really good place now and quite close to feature parity but there are still small layout issues and missing features, plus everything else we could potentially do. There's also a NodeJS API that could be worked on.

Github.com/falling-fruit/falling-fruit-web

Langroid: https://github.com/langroid/langroid

Langroid (2.7k stars, 20k downloads/mo) is an intuitive, lightweight, extensible and principled Python framework to easily build agent-oriented LLM-powered applications, from CMU and UW-Madison researchers. You set up Agents, equip them with optional components (LLM, vector-store and tools/functions), assign them tasks, and have them collaboratively solve a problem by exchanging messages. agent-oriented Python framework to simplify building LLM applications. It has been in development since Apr 2023, predating other Agent frameworks, and was built from the ground up to be agent-oriented (not as an after-thought) and does not depend on any other LLM library.

The framework is gaining popularity among developers due its clean, principled design.

I am the lead dev/architect.

Areas needing help: CODE, DOCS, DESIGN

Level: There are a number of areas (see the issues and contribution docs) where beginners or advanced developers can contribute.

Contact: Drop into the discord and post a message in a suitable channel, or create an Issue or Discussion in the GitHub repo.

Discord: https://discord.gg/ZU36McDgDs

SmoothMQ: a drop-in replacement for SQS. https://github.com/poundifdef/smoothmq

I am looking to build 4 main things:

1. Better compatibility with SQS' different endpoints 2. Sharding: I want users to be able to add/remove a node to a cluster and have the system automatically rebalance 3. Replication

The project is written in Go, and the UI is also just uses HTML and go templates.

Looks like the same mission as:

* https://www.codeshelter.co/

* https://up-for-grabs.net/

* https://www.codetriage.com/ (mentioned in these comments)

I seem to recall yet another one, maybe with a name that invoked a traveling group of helpers who would jump into projects briefly to fix them up?

On a related note, it would be cool if there was a way to leave a hobo sign equivalent if you find a project that is well-run and easy to contribute to. If the build and tests Just Work, etc., we should praise that project in a way that 1) encourages helpers to pick it since they'll have a good experience, and 2) provides a good example for other projects to follow.

GitAlias - https://github.com/GitAlias/gitalias/

GitAlias is a big list of git alias commands that aims to help developers by providing shortcuts, patterns, workflows, etc.

We're always looking for better ways to use git. This includes coming up with new aliases, and also improving existing aliases by adding parameters, and writing better docs.

https://github.com/PRQL/prql

PRQL - the Pipelined Relational Query Language, pronounced "Prequel".

PRQL is a modern language for transforming data — a simple, powerful, pipelined SQL replacement. Like SQL, it's readable, explicit and declarative. Unlike SQL, it forms a logical pipeline of transformations, and supports abstractions such as variables and functions. It can be used with any database that uses SQL, since it compiles to SQL.

Lots of ideas for making PRQL the best language for working with and transforming data in any environment. As a completely community driven project with no corporate association or sponsor, velocity is limited by volunteer availability and contributions so help is welcome. From compiler work in Rust, to front-end improvements on the website, and CLIs, language integrations, alternative backends, etc ... in between.

Holos - https://holos.run/docs/v1alpha5/tutorial/overview/

Holos is a configuration management tool for Kubernetes. It provides the building blocks needed for implementing the rendered manifests pattern. It's a new project we built from our experience managing our own and our client's infrastructure.

We're looking for design partners to help us identity and define use cases. If you need to configure services for multiple environments, customers, regions, projects, and teams your input would be valuable.

Tech Stack: Go, CUE, Helm, Kustomize. Roadmap: Jsonnet, KCL, PKL, etc... as needed.

Job-Scout is an open-source CLI tool that aggregates remote Machine Learning, AI, and Data Science job listings from Twitter and Hacker News. It analyzes your resume to match and rank jobs based on your skills and experience, providing you with personalized job recommendations. The project is highly customizable—users can easily tweak the search to find internships or specific roles. Contributors are welcome to join and enhance this project by adding new job sources, features, and improvements!

https://github.com/ShreeshaBhat1004/Job-scout

If you like it, Give it a star

DM me if you wanna contribute

I maintain Neverball, a 3D rolling ball game. It's a spare time project for me. Written in C, ported to the web via WASM and handwritten HTML/CSS/JS (https://play.neverball.org). Been polishing the web app for a while, but looking for critiques that might help me pinpoint where the web app falls short of expectation. Contacts: https://github.com/Neverball/neverball/discussions or HN.

There is a help-wanted tag on github for this: https://github.com/topics/help-wanted

(I know that GH is not the whole world, but it stores an overwhelming majority of the OSS ecosystem)

Multiwoven is an open-source Reverse ETL platform that simplifies data activation for businesses of all sizes.

Tech Stack:

Backend: Ruby Frontend: React Infrastructure: Docker, Kubernetes

Areas Needing Help:

Documentation: Enhancing user and contributor guides. Code: Developing new connectors and improving existing ones. Design: Refining the UI/UX of our platform.

Level:

Beginner-Friendly: Documentation improvements and minor code enhancements. Advanced: Building new connectors and optimizing data pipelines.

Get Involved:

GitHub: (https://github.com/Multiwoven/multiwoven/) Join Our Community: Slack (https://join.slack.com/t/multiwoven/shared_invite/zt-2bnjye2...) We welcome contributors passionate about data integration and open-source development. Feel free to reach out if you're interested!

Back In Time [1] is a round about 15 years old backup software using rsync in the back. I'm part of the 3rd generation maintenance team there. A lot of work in investigating and fixing issues, understanding, documenting and refactoring old code. Have a look at Good First Issues [2] or Help Wanted Issues [3].

[1] -- <https://github.com/bit-team/backintime>

[2] -- <https://github.com/bit-team/backintime/labels/GOOD%20FIRST%2...>

[3] -- <https://github.com/bit-team/backintime/labels/HELP-WANTED>

TheOpenPresenter - https://github.com/Vija02/TheOpenPresenter

A presentation software useful for Event Presenting, Digital Signage, Dashboards and more. Basically if you ever need to control a screen, we want to make that process easy. The core system handles all the boring detail like real time communication and media handling. Meanwhile, you can install plugins to handle specific things like playing video, displaying powerpoint, dashboards, etc.

Tech stack: Typescript, Node.js, React, PostgreSQL, GraphQL.

Need help: Code - The project is just a few months old. There's still a lot of grounds to cover. Main priority is to get one specific use-case to work really well. Then, to get the plugin API robust so that we can start developing more plugins without refactoring repeatedly.

Level: Intermediate - Advanced

Contact: See my profile

Come build the next full stack web framework for your favorite programming language!

https://github.com/levkk/rwf

All aspects of project are open to contributors. Beginner friendly. Learn Rust/web tech if you're not familiar with how the sausage is made.

CorsixTH - https://github.com/CorsixTH/CorsixTH

A modern platform's clone of the 1997 Bullfrog game Theme Hospital, where you manage a series of hospitals. CorsixTH is mostly feature complete, with additions like player made maps and levels, and some ease of use changes. The game logic and layout is in Lua, the backend is C++. We have some issues marked Good First Issue, and long term plans including multiplayer. The documentation and wiki are good, and there's a Matrix/Discord room. Also an Android port - https://github.com/alanwoolley/CorsixTH-Android

General Bots: Omnichannel Bot Platform with LLM Orchestrator https://github.com/GeneralBots

• TypeScript (Server, Add-ins, Apps), Python (AI Models), BASIC (system dialogs, templates) • Built on TS, Expo, React Native, and Node.js • 5-year codebase, continuously expanding • Open-source project seeking community contributors

Interested? Visit our GitHub (https://github.com/generalbots) or contact info@pragmatismo.cloud or https://pragmatismo.cloud.

Thank you.

Hyperorg [1] does convert org(roam) files into HTML files preserving there links to each other. It's primary use case is to have an HTML representation of your Zettelkasten (aka "second brain") that is usable on your local machine in a browser without running a fancy web server, JavaScript or anything else. Pure HTML5 and CSS.

[1] -- <https://codeberg.org/buhtz/hyperorg>

I'd love to resurrect my open source real estate website builder:

https://github.com/etewiah/property_web_builder

I was quite active with updating it a few years ago but haven't had the time to work on it recently.

On another project of mine I have been using aider and co-pilot and realised I could bring property_web_builder back to life with these tools. It would motivate me massively to do this if at least one or two other people were willing to work with me on this.

GenAIcode - https://www.npmjs.com/package/genaicode

Coding assistant with localhost web UI(can be used as a CLI tool as well), developed entirely with typescript, nodejs, and React (for UI).

This is my current personal pet project, and I'm looking for someone who could try to use it on a real code base other than TS/JS and let me know via GitHub if there are issues.

I'm open to contributions as well, this project is quite fun to work on.:)

Phase - Open source application secrets management platform for developers

What we are building and how it works (TL;DR): - CLI that replaces .env files by imports secrets, encrypting and syncing them to the backend. The CLI injects secrets into any application at runtime as environment variables. - A frontend web app to CRUD key, value pairs across dev, staging, prod envs. Add teammates. View logs. - An backend API to store secrets data. Sync them to common platforms like GitHub, Kubernetes, AWS etc.

Tech stack: - Next.js frontend - Python / Django backend (django-rq, django REST, graphene graphql) - Postgresql - Redis

Repos: - https://github.com/phasehq/console - https://github.com/phasehq/cli - https://github.com/phasehq/docs - https://github.com/phasehq/python-sdk - https://github.com/phasehq/golang-sdk - https://github.com/phasehq/kubernetes-secrets-operator - https://github.com/phasehq/terraform-provider-phase

DM me on Slack: https://slack.phase.dev or X: https://x.com/nimishkarmali

Help needed: Contributors are welcome to try the platform and improve it by creating or picking up GitHub issues on any of the above repos, adding new integrations, features, and docs!

Assertables: Rust crate of assert macros for better testing and runtime vetting.

https://github.com/sixarm/assertables-rust-crate/

BEGINNER-FRIENDLY for documentation help such as creating examples, outreach help such as connecting with developers.

INTERMEDIATE-FRIENDLY adding capabilities for no_std, and for values without debug, and for env var configuration, etc.

JekTeX - A Jekyll plugin for fast server-side cached LaTeX rendering, with support for macros. ( https://github.com/yagarea/jektex )

I would like to split it to the multiple files and make some unit tests. + I have two issues that should be easy to fix but I have no time to try to solve them because my uni takes more time than I would like.

go-size-analyzer, a tool for analysing different dependency volumes in go binaries.

Specifically, I'm looking for help from some people who have experience with reversing on the Mac OS platform, and I'd like to address this issue, which is about how binary relocations handle memory addresses on Mac OS.

https://github.com/Zxilly/go-size-analyzer/issues/242

gsa obtains the memory address by calculating the address expression in the dwarf, and subsequently looks for the static content in the binary that actually corresponds to the memory address, but when the macho file contains relocations, the calculated memory address needs to be relocated with the same logic to get the correct binary content. I've been working on this problem for a while, but I'm really not familiar with the macho structure and I don't own a macbook, I'd like to get help from developers who have experience in this area.

Puter

https://github.com/HeyPuter/puter

We're building a "Web OS" designed to be feature-rich, exceptionally fast, and highly extensible! It can be used for anything from a Dropbox alternative to a cloud environment for building websites and apps!

Stack: JavaScrips. No frameworks.

Need help with: Frontend and backend.

Reach out: nj@puter.com

emrtd - https://github.com/Fethbita/emrtd

A Rust crate used to communicate with compliant e-passports and identity documents. It can be used for building automated systems or the like. Rust is used.

Help is needed with code and design, also the Rust crypto ecosystem as many algorithms needed to implement these security mechanisms such as brainpool are missing from Rust Crypto project.

Level: Beginner friendly after getting familiar with the ICAO Doc 9303 Series or reading my blog post about the ecosystem (https://blog.burakcankus.com/2024/04/18/how-do-electronic-pa...)

Contact through contact@emrtd.com

ml-mdm from Apple Machine Learning Research

I maintain ml-mdm, a text-to-image diffusion codebase, that contains implementations of my research group’s recent papers https://github.com/apple/ml-mdm

Any help with DOCS or CODE would be greatly appreciated. I’m happy to have BEGINNER-FRIENDLY contributions as well, there’s a “good first issues” label that we use on GitHub.

We have an active and growing group of external contributors and welcome newcomers.

Could be a fun opportunity to contribute to a machine learning research project and to learn about cutting edge techniques in this subfield.

ray.io, onprem clister up does't work at all...

Polyphony is an in-development chat service, meant to be a direct competitor to and replacement for Discord. Polyphony offers a subset of Discords v9 HTTP API, excluding some of the more bloated features while keeping the fun yet functional experience. Self-hosting and federation are key features of Polyphony and thus are supposed to have a mass-market ready user experience associated with them. For this reason, we are also building polyproto - a new, „boring“, extendable identity and message federation protocol, with polyproto-chat being the general purpose Discord/Matrix-like chat platform protocol for interoperability between different services.

Here is a list of things that we could use some help with: * The core polyproto HTTP API routes need to be streamlined - as in, trying to achieve a similar thing on two different routes should be done in a similar way (https://docs.polyphony.chat/APIs/core/). No code experience needed, just some knowledge on HTTP REST API best practices, if possible. * There are some unfinished polyproto HTTP API routes, which need to be designed snd documented (https://docs.polyphony.chat/APIs/core/). * No code experience needed, just some knowledge on HTTP REST API best practices, if possible. * The entirety of the polyproto HTTP API documentation should be translated into TypeSpec definitions (https://typespec.io). TypeSpec is a modern way to describe APIs, and TypeSpec definitions compile down to OpenAPI 3.0 for easy codegen in all sorts of different programming languages. No prior experience with TypeSpec is required - I am also currently in the process of learning it, and it seems to be quite simple and mostly ergonomic.

* The polyproto Rust crate (https://github.com/polyphony-chat/polyproto-rs) could use general optimizations and most importantly internal refactors to allow for wasm-bindgen to create a JavaScript/TypeScript library directly from our Rust code via an FFI, as the Rust codebase should ideally act as a single source of truth to keep implementations in different languages from exerting different behaviors. This would ideally require knowledge of FFIs/ABIs or an interest in learning about these topics. * In addition to the previous point, C-Bindings from the Rust library would also be extremely useful to easily make polyproto available in other programming languages via the C-ABI and FFIs.

Find us at https://github.com/polyphony-chat and/or join our development Discord at https://discord.gg/4DPuQStJ4s. Yes, we are aware of the irony :)

societyserver/open-Team

an object-storage, backend as a service platform. enables you to build complex websites/applications including chat, messaging, email, without needing any custom backend coding among other things.

https://gitlab.com/societyserver/

https://github.com/societyserver/

backend: Pike/MySQL (without Roxen)

frontends: XSLT or REST (for custom javascript frontends), java desktop clients, a PHP library.

this project is forked from the original developers who stopped publicly maintaining it more than a decade ago. http://web.archive.org/web/20120502154511/http://www.open-st...

the website was lost during covid due to an administrative error while i was busy with family problems: http://web.archive.org/web/20211017092823/http://societyserv...

tasks that need to be done:

1: rebuild the website by scraping content from archive.org/ (skills needed: HTML/CSS/JS/UX)

2: rebuild the TLS stack and the auth API. (skills needed: pike, auth)

3: build more frontend examples for different frameworks (currently we have angularjs and aurelia. would love to see react, svelte, etc...) (UX/JS/TS/HTML/CSS)

4: add a GraphQL API. (pike)

5: document the developer tools. (most of that is on gitlab/github)

further on my wishlist are:

integrate shared editing like etherpad.

support SQLite as an alternative to MySQL/PostgreSQL.

better developer tools, like integration with git. (content is stored in the server with a history. the history can be exported to and imported from git), remote editing of content from VIM and other editors.

matrix integration (we already have IRC, XMPP, IMAP, SMTP, POP3, NNTP, FTP, WEBDAV, TELNET, LDAP...)

a gmail style mail frontend.

other integrations

this project has a long history and a lot of potential. i am actively using it for my own websites, but i have been neglecting the project itself since i was busy finding more work. if i could only get the first two steps done, we'd be back in business.

Extremely excellent service. UMOBIX OFFICIAL got me access to everything. So smooth, fast and reliable without any faults. I am happy I worked with them and I would continue to work with UMOBIX OFFICIAL and recommend their services is pretty decent company which offers all that’s listed on their platform. Voice calls Messages Social media Location A 100/100 rating from me to UMOBIX OFFICIAL on Instagram name and Telegram ‪ +44 7903 168662‬ Email :: umobix.official21@gmail.com

[dead]

[dead]

2010s

Pytorch their compiler is trash

I'm skeptical that this does anything. I'd wager that just about nobody is sitting around with all this energy waiting to contribute to a project they've never used and just heard about in an HN thread.

I'm sure you get some commitments of people who say they will help. Just like people say they'll pay for your product once you build it and people who say they'll go to an event 6 months from now.

It's hard enough to find contributors among engineers who are using a tool.