Sorry for the late response, I can't read all the messages from all the forum sections, even a small amount that we have today requires more time than I can get. But I assume that is a reality that we should face as a natural things nowadays, with a lot of social networks and infinite messages.

First about the community engine: I never offered my help to the engine because my OpenGL knowledge is about 1.0 version, and for me OpenGL still is the API of preference. I could help more as a user or tester when the first versions come out.

For the guys that pointed that the homemade engines can't face the big commercial ones. Nowadays I believe it's true. But free software tends to overcame commercial software sooner or later, and we are plenty of examples like Linux overcoming windows (now in all arenas except desktop), Firefox/Chromium/Chrome overcoming IE and so on. In the game engine arena OGRE can be still weaker than Unity, but the history shows that some free software can overcome the proprietary software sooner or later.

SilverWarrior said "my current job is draining almost all of my energy from me". Welcome to the capitalism, my friend! I don't want to divert the conversation for economical or political models, but it is a valuable pointed. Athena pointed something similar, and I can say the same. Our actual political/economical model is built do extract the most of the energy from us to continue enrich that 1% of guys that keep the capital. So we work like slaves and have few time to do any kind of community work.

I'm participating of several communities, including techies like PGD and Free Software and others less techie and more local. In all the communities we are facing the problem of low contribution and people sucked for the work. And we aren't even talking about all that people that is just alienated that not realize how communities are important to the society.

And the bad news is I can see nowhere providing an easy solution for this problem. The solution we are working in many communities is to share knowledge about how communities are important to the society and how people can work together to build a better life. But is a long-term solution. There is no short-term solution.

I believe that being a member of a community is a two-hand way, every people contribute with something that builts into a larger whole. What I expect from the community is to exchange knowlege with others. I like to talk about technical questions and to read about the game projects.

At last I want to say that I really respect the efforts of Athena to keep up the community. The real heroes are the people that fight for their people, not vain people of industry that fight for profits and fame. When you need help funding for the hosting or any other thing please call me.

You're right to feel bad in the corporative workspace. I feel like that. Many corporations (not all, but the majority) can't manage their workers correcty, building a toxic environment of stress and harassment.