Can I actually contribute code to the CI core?

[eluser]relequestual[/eluser]
I've used CI for a few projects now, and I'm just picking it up professionally again. I'm in the process of developing a number of scripts which enable CI to be set up to various configurations. I'm also interested in trying to fix some core bugs, but I have a number of concerns.

The sticky post in this forum links to a dead user voice forum...

The github repo has a number of branches, and it's unclear which are in active development (to me anyway).

The github repo seems to have a large number of pull requests which haven't had an update for quite some time.

I guess my question really is, will my time investigating how to commit bug fixes be worth it, or will it be wasted?

Your thoughts and comments are welcome, especially if you commit code to the core.