Alternative development/ Outside contributing

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http://forums.oscommerce.com/viewtopic.php?p=216082#216082
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Maybe this should go in the general chit-chat board, but since that there has been a lot of osC users talking about templating options and there was the blowup a couple days ago about an osC fork, this forum seemed apropriate.

I've been stumbling on a lot of posts in the board that are complaining about the (perceived) lack of speed regarding development. Posts about the best way to tackle the templating problem. I have a similar pet peeve myself about trying to pitch an idea on the Suggestions board, with no response (in favour or against) so far from any of the devs.

Two recuring issues with these kinds of posts seem to be:
- Lack of responsiveness of the project.
- No obvious way to contribute to the core project.

This probably means one of two things:
1. The core team does not want any outside involvement.
2. The core team is interested in outside contributions but  lacks the time and quality proposals are getting lost in the noise.

If 2 is the case a possible solution would be cutting an experimental branch from the osC source tree, so outside contributions can mature on this experimental branch and high quality contributions can be merged back into osC.

This could have a couple of benificial effects:
- More opportunities for outside contributers.
- (Hopefully) less noise to sift through when evaluating outside contributions.
- Nipping this whole forking of osC nonsense in the bud.
- Greater perceived development speed for outsiders.
- Less moaning in the forums about above issues.

A project like this can only be succesful if:
- The core team gives it it's blessing.
- There are people willing to contribute.
- There is someone willing to maintain and manage this experimental branch.
- There is some form of communication between the core team and the experimental team about candidates for inclusion into osC so contributers are not left dangling.

So, to end this with my questions:
Would something like this stand a chance?
Would the core team be willing to give it it's blessing if it takes off?
Would anyone be willing to contribute?

Any other thoughts?

Cheers,
Rob