Why Developers Don't Contribute to Open Source (And What We Can Do About It)

You've been there. You find an open source project you love. You spot a bug. You think: "I could fix that." Then reality hits. The codebase is a maze. The contributing guide is sparse. You spend an hour just setting up your environment. Finally, you're ready—but now you're terrified. What if your code is bad? What if the maintainers are ruthless? What if you waste weeks and get rejected? So you close the tab. You move on. And another potential contributor is lost. This isn't a character flaw. It