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It’s not obvious where to start. Just ask. If you feel like you are overwhelmed or too inexperienced (maybe not in skill, but just in this project) -- just ask

It’s not obvious where to start. Just ask. If you feel like you are overwhelmed or too inexperienced (maybe not in skill, but just in this project) -- just ask someone. IRC is good if they have a channel or the mailing list if you have to. Just ask for some easy tickets. Read the source, figure out the problem, create a test, make your patch, submit the patch using whatever process they use on the project. This will get you familiar with the source code and their development process at the same time. Trying to contribute and failing makes me feel stupid. Maybe you should take the time to find out why your contributions are being ignored or turned down. You might not get an answer right away, but it doesn't hurt to ask. Internalize the responses you get and adjust your approach accordingly. Few people contribute to open source with the intent of making other people feel stupid. There’s no time. Priorities. It helps if your employer gives you a little time at work to contribute back to open source. But ymmv depending on where you work. Even a couple of hours out of your weekend to squash a bug is appreciated by everyone.

araneae 16y ago
I've only tried contributing to OSS once. They had n00b-tagged tasks on pivotal tracker, the problem is they wouldn't give me the permissions to sign-up for that task. Instead they said to claim it on IRC. Except that two other people thought they were the only one doing the same task (because that's a really stupid way of doing it) and I just said "screw it"- it wasn't worth all the drama. I'd just rather just work my own stuff.
- VMG 16y ago
  That was just a poorly managed open-source project. There are enough of them out there, but not contributing because of only one experience is like saying you won't ever listen to music again because you bought a nickelback album.
- nl 16y ago
  Don't sign-up to do a task. Write the code, then say you've done it and ask where you should put the source. In my experience running a few open source projects it's all too common to get a random person asking for commit privileged (or whatever) before they actually do anything. Working code has a way of focusing people.
- pbiggar 16y ago
  I've worried about this a little at Mozilla. We have people who get in contact looking for a first bug, and the ideal would be to say "take this exact bug" (this has a very high follow-up rate). But what happens if one person starts that bug, and then another does too. Have we scared both away? Not sure the solution here.
  - araneae 16y ago
    ...yes... cough I agree that it's not an easy problem to solve, but I'm also not sure that you want to solve it (i.e. minimize attrition). You don't want to cripple your project by collecting the maximum number of n00bs possible. For me it was more like "oh, right, I hate working with people. I can't believe I forgot that." I was just pointing out that the difficulty of collaboration might be a more significant barrier than the commenter I was replying to made it out to be.
  - agentultra 16y ago
    You might end up with two patches. Pick the better one. Or you might end up with a patch in two days that the other person who started it has left to atrophy for two months. Not a problem really. The hardest part for a lot of new comers is literally, "Where do I start?" Not every new comer asking for a ticket is a drooling zombie hoping to trash your beautiful project with horrible undead patches.
    - pbiggar 16y ago
      Yeah. I'm probably worrying too hard about this. > The hardest part for a lot of new comers is literally, "Where do I start?" I'm thinking we have a good answer for this, feedback welcome: https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Introduction https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Introduction > Not every new comer asking for a ticket is a drooling zombie hoping to trash your beautiful project with horrible undead patches. We have the opposite problem - newcomers providing patches that get lost because they didn't know to ask for review, or didn't ask the right person (also our fault really), or because we fucked up and didn't respond. We're working on this problem too - dashboards, metrics, awareness, etc, to stop it happening in the future.

araneae 16y ago

I've only tried contributing to OSS once. They had n00b-tagged tasks on pivotal tracker, the problem is they wouldn't give me the permissions to sign-up for that task. Instead they said to claim it on IRC. Except that two other people thought they were the only one doing the same task (because that's a really stupid way of doing it) and I just said "screw it"- it wasn't worth all the drama. I'd just rather just work my own stuff.

VMG 16y ago
That was just a poorly managed open-source project. There are enough of them out there, but not contributing because of only one experience is like saying you won't ever listen to music again because you bought a nickelback album.
nl 16y ago
Don't sign-up to do a task. Write the code, then say you've done it and ask where you should put the source. In my experience running a few open source projects it's all too common to get a random person asking for commit privileged (or whatever) before they actually do anything. Working code has a way of focusing people.
pbiggar 16y ago
I've worried about this a little at Mozilla. We have people who get in contact looking for a first bug, and the ideal would be to say "take this exact bug" (this has a very high follow-up rate). But what happens if one person starts that bug, and then another does too. Have we scared both away? Not sure the solution here.
- araneae 16y ago
  ...yes... cough I agree that it's not an easy problem to solve, but I'm also not sure that you want to solve it (i.e. minimize attrition). You don't want to cripple your project by collecting the maximum number of n00bs possible. For me it was more like "oh, right, I hate working with people. I can't believe I forgot that." I was just pointing out that the difficulty of collaboration might be a more significant barrier than the commenter I was replying to made it out to be.
- agentultra 16y ago
  You might end up with two patches. Pick the better one. Or you might end up with a patch in two days that the other person who started it has left to atrophy for two months. Not a problem really. The hardest part for a lot of new comers is literally, "Where do I start?" Not every new comer asking for a ticket is a drooling zombie hoping to trash your beautiful project with horrible undead patches.
  - pbiggar 16y ago
    Yeah. I'm probably worrying too hard about this. > The hardest part for a lot of new comers is literally, "Where do I start?" I'm thinking we have a good answer for this, feedback welcome: https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Introduction https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Introduction > Not every new comer asking for a ticket is a drooling zombie hoping to trash your beautiful project with horrible undead patches. We have the opposite problem - newcomers providing patches that get lost because they didn't know to ask for review, or didn't ask the right person (also our fault really), or because we fucked up and didn't respond. We're working on this problem too - dashboards, metrics, awareness, etc, to stop it happening in the future.