More experienced graphics programmers have careers working on commercial DCC(digital content creation) applications, Animation/Game studios, Academic positions or some other graphics related position.
A lot of people would like to work on a established project rather then bootstrap a new one. And many could not do that anyways because of NDA terms.
The climate is getting better but only because there is a new crop of applications that sprung up in the last few years that has more interest and understanding of who the graphics community is and how it works. And seems more interested in contributions by people who have highly specialized and deep expertise in graphics.
My general sense is that it has been more fruitful for people to work on specific projects privately or in there professional environment that solve there problems and then release those projects as OSS. Rather then try to wrangle the politics and project structure of some of the older established open source software.
A lot of people would like to work on a established project rather then bootstrap a new one. And many could not do that anyways because of NDA terms.
The climate is getting better but only because there is a new crop of applications that sprung up in the last few years that has more interest and understanding of who the graphics community is and how it works. And seems more interested in contributions by people who have highly specialized and deep expertise in graphics.
My general sense is that it has been more fruitful for people to work on specific projects privately or in there professional environment that solve there problems and then release those projects as OSS. Rather then try to wrangle the politics and project structure of some of the older established open source software.