It would be great if contributing through writing code was easier. I agree that places like Stack Overflow or GitHub can be intimidating and there are rare individuals who unfortunately enjoy trying to show how “superior” their skills are. The best practices may seem arbitrary, but a library does need consistent standards to make it easier to review code and find errors. Most workplaces follow some style guide not because it’s objectively the best way to write code, but because it makes it easier to collaborate.

I tried to provide other ways to contribute — writing documentation, donating funds — for those who are not yet confident enough to write code. Maybe larger efforts like numpy or pandas are large enough to justify being owned by a company although then I would worry about the company only adding features they need. In the meantime, we should try to support the open-source tools we use in whatever way we can.