This is indeed a serious issue, certainly for the long-term health of any projects to come out of this code. I don't think I can really add anything more that isn't in Paradox's rather complete post.
lunanne wrote:
While distributing compiled code may not be top priority right now, once it is there will be a lot more contributors and will it be a lot of work to get every contributor's permission.
Actually, I think that being able to distribute binaries now of the changes that have been made so far would be an excellent way to attract more attention to the project, and with it (hopefully) more contributors as well.