There are many different ways to get involved with Mono.XNA. As Mono.XNA aspires to be a replacement for MSXNA, the same amount of resources would ensure the rapid progress of the project. This is where you can play a part.
Using Mono.XNA
You might just be interested in the framework itself and the possibilities it offers, in which case you might want to download and use the framework in you application.
Testing Mono.XNA
No framework is usable if it is found to be unstable and prone to problems. As Mono.XNA development work involves studying the behavior of an framework that is not completely understood, testing should be of even greater importance, in order to fulfill the objective of compatibility to MSXNA.
You can assist the Mono.XNA development effort by installing regular trunk builds available here and providing feedback on issues/problems you encountered during the development and on the client systems, including problems with the framework, via our Bug Tracking System.
Developing Mono.XNA
It's very simple to get involved with the development of Mono.XNA. The development team members are not part of some exclusive club with strict policies, so getting your code into the Mono.XNA codebase is straightforward. The only prerequisite is that you have not had access to Microsoft XNA related source code for the area you would be interested in working on. This includes any route in which you may have been exposed, whether it be via some student program or through illegally downloading leaked MS source code. Having viewed the source deems you as being tainted, and as such you may hinder the legality of the source which the Mono.XNA teams enforces every effort to keep clean.
If like most developers, the above doesn't apply to you, consider yourself clean and eligible to write code for Mono.XNA.
The best way to get involved is to start by installing an SVN client and downloading the source code. Once you've got this far you can either play around on your own to become familiar with the code base, or for the more eager you can skip that part and jump right into contacting the developers.
Contacting the developers can be done in two ways. The best and most responsive way is to join the Mono.XNA IRC channel on Gimp.Net. Those without clients can resort to finding one which can operate from within a web browser.
Getting commit access to the main repository is a relatively clear process. Simply supply patches for your area of interest via our Bug Tracking System service and the SVN patch generator. Your patches will be reviewed and added to the main source if found to be acceptable. After such a time (several patches) wherein the developers are happy with your quality of code, you will be offered commit access to the tree. This access may be by way of a branch if required, or it may be direct access to the tree.
Infrastructure
A well-run project depends on there being solid and usable infrastructure: website, mailing lists, bug tracking system, documentation systems and others. Those people with server administration and web development skills in areas such as PHP or MySQL could assist here.
Finance
Financial contributions (donations) would be gratefully accepted, and would go towards stuff like hosting expenses, reimbursements for travelling to attend conventions and hardware to run our build bots, which produce our regular trunk builds. You could either make general donations or contribute towards specific developers or towards the implementation of major features of Mono.XNA. In this case, simply write for what person, feature you want your donation to be used for.
If you prefer to have some tangible return on the money you part with, you can support the developers through their various enterprises.
Other
Those who have skills outside of those already mentioned can still help out. Contributions from digital designers would be helpful as well, to provide graphics for the MonoXNA samples or for the website, and published material, amongst other things. Translators are always welcomed, and are invited to read the following article here for submitting contributions.
If you have an idea that may help the project in any way, or would like some specific guidance as to what can be done, feel free to drop by our IRC channel. We hope to hear from you soon!