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Contributing to Open Source

1 points by humdrum17 8y ago

I've seen posts in the past that describe how to get involved with contributing to open source projects. However, I feel like this advice is geared more towards more experienced developers who have a lot of exposure to different tools and frameworks and probably a lot of domain expertise. How would you recommend someone who is finishing up undergrad get involved in open source? I've contributed to some open source web projects, but larger, more technical projects (the ones I'm interested in) seem too daunting to me right now.

bausshf 8y ago
Well you must understand the open-source tools, before you can understand the open-source frameworks. I would start by researching version control systems such as Git. (Note: These aren't limited to open-source and such research will help you in actual industrial work too!) On top of that you'd need to understand open-source websites like Github, Gitlab, Bitbucket etc. Each open-source project differs in how they're maintained, how they accept contributions etc. but understanding the basics of the above will definitely help you understanding the criteria of the projects you want to contribute to.¨ A good way to get started with open-source development is to create open-source work yourself. Open-source your personal projects (Small or big) -- of course they have to be somehow relevant to the public too eg. a framework for getting your grandma's birthday probably isn't a good project to make open-source. Now the next step is to actual contribute to some ideal projects. Here are some quick guidelines you could follow: (But don't have to.) 1. Find a project that interest you 2. Understand the project's vision and goals 3. Understand its guidelines 4. Look up its dependencies and do some research about them (Ex. an open-source framework for databases would most likely require you to understand the database drivers it uses.) 5. Inspect issues and the project's "TODO"-list. 6. Start by picking small issues or feature implementations to get an understanding of how the project works and is coupled together A good rule of thumb is that contributing to open-source is not much different than contributing to closed-source in eg. a private business. A lot of businesses actually uses similar concepts, but "in-house".

1 points by humdrum17 8y ago

bausshf 8y ago

Well you must understand the open-source tools, before you can understand the open-source frameworks. I would start by researching version control systems such as Git. (Note: These aren't limited to open-source and such research will help you in actual industrial work too!) On top of that you'd need to understand open-source websites like Github, Gitlab, Bitbucket etc. Each open-source project differs in how they're maintained, how they accept contributions etc. but understanding the basics of the above will definitely help you understanding the criteria of the projects you want to contribute to.¨ A good way to get started with open-source development is to create open-source work yourself. Open-source your personal projects (Small or big) -- of course they have to be somehow relevant to the public too eg. a framework for getting your grandma's birthday probably isn't a good project to make open-source. Now the next step is to actual contribute to some ideal projects. Here are some quick guidelines you could follow: (But don't have to.) 1. Find a project that interest you 2. Understand the project's vision and goals 3. Understand its guidelines 4. Look up its dependencies and do some research about them (Ex. an open-source framework for databases would most likely require you to understand the database drivers it uses.) 5. Inspect issues and the project's "TODO"-list. 6. Start by picking small issues or feature implementations to get an understanding of how the project works and is coupled together A good rule of thumb is that contributing to open-source is not much different than contributing to closed-source in eg. a private business. A lot of businesses actually uses similar concepts, but "in-house".