"I'll recommend they fork the project" This is really the right answer a lot of the time. The first few times I submitted a PR and got rejected or ignored, I t

"I'll recommend they fork the project" This is really the right answer a lot of the time. The first few times I submitted a PR and got rejected or ignored, I took it personally. Then a maintainer explained it to me (ran into him at an in-person meetup), and it was very similar to Jeff's explanation here. Also, what makes it really hard for maintainers is that a lot of the requests they get are from people who don't have the ability or desire to fork the project (and even less ability/desire to maintain the fork).