[hodgesrm]

> Unless that suggestion happens to be on the project's to-do list or it fixes an open bug, I'd say it's unlikely to get merged.

There are lots of open source projects that contradict your assertion. Here are 3 projects that have been quite liberal about accepting PRs from outside.

* MySQL - MySQL AB was very open about accepting external patches. Oracle still does today.

* ClickHouse - Yandex team has the most commits, but accepts PRs from hundreds of outside contributors.

* Superset - Apache project that is supported by Preset. Again, pretty open to new PRs as far as I can tell.

Overall it's a question of how the community is governed. A lot of us view open source communities as sources of innovation. That being the case, why would you refuse a good PR? Somebody just solved a problem for you, maybe one you didn't even know existed.