@phpdeveloper.org
Whether you're just getting into PHP or are a veteran of the language, there's always places to get involved. Greg Beaver gives one such example in this post on his blog talking about helping out with the PEAR or phpDocumentor projects.
We have had many inquiries from people who wish to assist with developing phpDocumentor or with PEAR. For those of you have written, thank you. However, most requests are along the lines of "how can I help?" and typically do not continue when we answer. Unfortunately, I've taken to a rather nihilistic view of these inquiries. Interestingly enough, most people who do end up helping out skip the question "how can I help?" altogether!
He talks about examples where the person basically just sent along the bug fix (or notification) without any preemptive notes. Greg ancourages these kinds of people to just go ahead and fix those bugs, makes those changes, and send along the information. He also reminds those looking for help with bugfixing that there are mailing lists for each project to help with just that. He also talks some about the general state of bugs for the two projects - both with a steady stream of issues rolling in that need taking care of by a code-loving, plenty-of-free-time developer like yourself.