Q:

How many of us regularly contribute to open source projects?

I use open source software, and I am interested in becoming a contributor, but at present I am not. I think the best expert level questions will come from people who have regular experience at working on open source software (not just using it). People who have seen what problems need to be addressed.
Do we have a large proportion of such people? If not can we invite more? There is an invite button for sending email invitations to individuals during private beta (although we can't advertise publicly until public beta).

A:

Expert level questions will not only just come from those who have regular experience. Anyone can ask and answer questions, and you would be surprised of the large amount of "expert" level questions on other sites that would've likely been asked by "non-experts". Experts are good and all, but if you have people who place effort into the questions and answers that they write, then it's fine.
That being said, nothing should stop us from inviting experts. I don't know of many, but with people involved in industries and organizations, they should be able to.

A:

I did in the past make contributions to a few smaller projects and have started my own. Currently I do not contribute to any OSS-project.
I disagree though that regular contributors to OSS-projects have good knowledge about open source. They may simply put their work into the software on a technical side but may have never bothered about licenses, philosophy or implications of open source.
On the other hand non-contributors (non-technical people maybe) may have good experience in Open Source through supporting communities in legal battles, organizing communities or similar stuff.
I agree we should invite experts if we know any and they are interested.

A:

I don't think contributors to open source projects necessarily or even usually have a greater understanding of open source licensing.
From a personal perspective, I learned a lot about open source licensing through my experience as a Wikipedia editor where we are very serious about copyright. 
Most other projects I've contributed to tend to be not too concerned about copyright, nor too knowledgeable. People tend to be a lot more focused on the tech than the law.

