sej: I agree completely with dan on the matter. It is far too difficult for the average hacker to make any non-trivial changes to an existing application. I really couldnt have said it better than he did. Personally, it would take serious consideration joining a project after it reaches a certain point. At that point, it would take me days to figure out what the hell i have to do in order to make any significant change. Id rather save myself from that frustration and look elsewhere. Afterall, that isnt my idea of fun.

While dan blames the code aspect of the project, i might also point some blame to a lack of organization and communication. How many projects out there have readily available information for new developers?

I always thought that webdevelopers, testers, documentation folk and graphic artists were under-appreciated in this community.