So, what happens if you try to contribute back to the community, specifically the PEAR project, and you get shot down for a proposal - even a simple one? Travis Swicegood found out:

Yesterday I proposed my first PEAR package. I've helped a few friends with packages of their own, but never got around to getting a developer account and taking the lead on a package. After hearing about the recent changes in store and the umpteenth "you should propose that" from Josh, I decided to propose one of the smaller "packages" I've used in some of my code: PHP_Callback. I say packages with quotation marks because it's really just one, simple file.

The problem wasn't in the proposal, but in the immediate responses he received for it - "it's useless", "this isn't the correct way to do this" and "it's too easy to implement on its own, it doesn't need to be in the library".

Travis' response was to be expected:

One most new-to-PHP programmers could have put together in an afternoon. I can only imagine how quickly a new developer would have unsubscribed from pear-dev and pulled his proposal if his first foray into contributing to the community had been met so quickly with such unconstructive criticism.