in open source, there are no 'dead projects'. maybe just abandoned
but if you find a mature/dead project there's a chance it's just old and stable.
what I'm getting at is in an unmantained project any stranger should be able to figure out how to adrees any novel issues. it's the point of open source; I don't undrestand why this is failing. maybe beacuse understanding an anonymous code base is hard work?
In the limit, there are also many ways to debug and patch issues in closed-source projects (someting I've done once or twice myself), unless they're run through an obfuscator or something. But there's always a dividing line where "reimplementing the functionality you need yourself" is far easier than "trudging through an old codebase that's tough to even get building".
but if you find a mature/dead project there's a chance it's just old and stable.
what I'm getting at is in an unmantained project any stranger should be able to figure out how to adrees any novel issues. it's the point of open source; I don't undrestand why this is failing. maybe beacuse understanding an anonymous code base is hard work?