Yes and no. We don't really have the equivalent of comp.sources.unix nowadays, which is where the early versions of those occurred, and comp.sources.unix did not take just anything. Rich Salz had rules.

Plus, since I actually took stevie and screen and others from comp.sources.unix and worked on them, and wasn't able to even send my improvements to M. Salz or the original authors at all, from my country, I can attest that contributing improvements had hurdles just as large to overcome back then as there exist now. They're just different.