Q: It's more than a year since the last DJGPP version was released.
Why won't you guys upload a new version in all this time?
Q: I've been suffering from this bug for months on end! You know
there's a bug, 'cause I told you so ages ago. So why in the world
didn't you fix that in a new version??
A: DJGPP is developed by volunteers on their free time. This sets both the schedule of new DJGPP releases and the DJGPP development agenda: they are determined by what those volunteers think is important and doable, and by the amount of free time they can devote to DJGPP-related work. Since the work of the development team is given away for free, you cannot demand that they do something they've decided not to do just yet. The only way to influence DJGPP development is to make your own contribution, by fixing a bug or adding a feature, and then submit your patches to the DJGPP developers mailing list. See How to submit changes to DJGPP.
You don't need to look for a large project to make your contribution.
The best way to start being involved with DJGPP development is to fix
any small and minor problems you see, right when and where you see them.
Even bugs and inaccuracies in the DJGPP documentation, like the
libc.info Info file, are a good place to begin with. DJ Delorie
says that if everybody corrects every small bug they see, we would run
out of bugs very fast.
When you submit a bug report or code that implements a new feature that you'd like to add to DJGPP, be prepared to withstand some scrutiny and peer review from the other participants of the DJGPP development team. You might hear various comments, from critique of your code and design decisions to questions why your changes are at all needed, and even requests to submit the changes in certain unified format (see instructions for submitting changes). Please be ready for that review process and don't take it as a rebuttal.