This, very very much.

I can't code for shit, but am willing to put some time and effort into FOSS.

But I'm not sure what's needed, or where is needed.

Have these projects ever considered just asking for the help they need?

It's extremely inaccessible from the outside. Non-devs don't know what to do with it.

We brought Linux laptops into our company (1500+ laptops during the pandemic) and after a year, half the devs and design team switched to Macs. The Linux users who stayed are pretty much using the laptop as a glorified netbook where they just use Google doc suites. And whenever they encounter a problem... Searching leads to nerds arguing about what version of Linux they should be using instead. Or the answer requires them to go into terminal to fix a problem.

I have a bunch of users asking about Elementary OS, for the sole reason in that it "looks" good.

This so so much. I want to contribute. The only time I ever have are when the barrier to getting setup and finding things I can do are low.

The "open" management of bigger open source problems is a kafkaesque nightmare. If you want to help make something better and change it somehow, you have to go on week-long journeys trying to figure out who is in control of that part of the project, who you can ask for guidance, who knows anything at all...

E.g. once I wanted to help package a new version of a software for a big linux distribution... and literally all the (~10) mantainers apparently wen't missing a few years ago. I managed to find one of the mantainers private reddit account and contacted them there, and they just made me a mantainer. And I still couldn't do shit because there is another dependecy which also needs to be updated, but it's mantainers are also all dead.

The effort of even getting to the point where you could contribute something meaningful, is like 100 times more than the effort of the actual contribution. It's completely rotten.