Never had to participate in linux kernel development, so can't really comment on it (although I hear Linus can be rude). But open source != linux kernel. There

Never had to participate in linux kernel development, so can't really comment on it (although I hear Linus can be rude). But open source != linux kernel. There are so many small, large, medium project, that if you really want to - you can find where to contribute. It works the best when you actually need to fix something you use and you have developer expertise to fix it. But even when you can describe in details bug or feature - this is often is very welcomed by project maintainers.