[pvaldes]

Sometimes

> Why do you do it?

Because I can so, why not?

Sometimes the help offer has been enthusiastically accepted, other politely refused (I don't have any problem with that) and sometimes I never received an answer.

So my advice would be to try the waters first, before to start spending time or talking with your boss, and contact the maintainers. Some open source teams are more open to external help than other. Some have a hard nucleus and are wary of introducing a foreigner in the team (probably a wise move), and sometimes people just move on with their lives and forget about their single person home project. You could find also that the contact emails are obsolete and need to research and use a different one.

And if you don't feel comfortable with the team or the project direction after a reasonable period of time, just quit. Don't start a war by leadership, or boycott or badmouth anybody, just detach yourself gradually and move on to other personal projects. Is as simple as that. You are not marrying anybody.