I started writing an answer and realised it didn't really answer your question so posted it here: #116482

If I had to answer your question (at least the one in the title), I don't think much collaboration is needed at all really

If you have beef with a product, then yeah - you could collaborate by raising a well-described issue on the gitlab repo

If you like the product though, the devs would probably prefer you tell the rest of the world about it!