[ashlar]

I really don't know what skills are required. It would help to have a ballpark estimate as to how many hours of work would be involved.

​​​​​​There could also be some apathy towards this plea here because v17.6 is getting old. I don't know how many read the back pages of this thread and we don't have access to aracnoz's first post. I doubt the payment for an otherwise free product would get that large. Not many donated to the link put up by aracnoz when he was still the active developer.

​​​​​​If you were to look for temporary or one time development, I think it would make the most sense to start with the names of past developers listed in the first post. They could be hard to track down, if at all, and would probably say no, but they are already knowledgeable developers with experience.

I might be mistaken but the only one with enough experience might have been @tiben20, who hasn't posted in the forums since 2013 (unless search function is wrong) but visited as close as February this year. I'm not sure if other developer listed ever brought a major version to completion.
@aracnoz developed 15, 16 and 17.

No, I was wrong. @0wing took care of Eden and maybe Dharma.