> I’ve found a lot of maintainers are not actually looking for collaboration, rather free labor.

Do you think that maintainers lack domain expertise? A nice bug report is way more helpful than a random pull request. A patch, even when correct, can be counterproductive, if it conflicts with the roadmap and goal of the project.

The goal of open source is to give you freedom in maintaining your own version and extending it. Collaboration is not a requirement.