Don't contribute to open source for the sake of contributing, contribute because you are excited about something. Implement this feature you always wanted to h

Don't contribute to open source for the sake of contributing, contribute because you are excited about something. Implement this feature you always wanted to have, fix this bug which has been annoying for who knows how long and you will be motivated and excited which is pretty much a prerequisite. Also if you want to contribute to a project get to know the community around it, find out who is responsible for what and use this knowledge to talk directly to the people who are working on the stuff you are interested in. If you want to be in for the long run, no amount of posting tickets to the mailing list will make you a member of the community. A discussion in the development IRC channel, no matter if it's about the latest piece of tech, Portal 2 which just came out or our all time favorite the best editor, will teach you more about the community in a couple of minutes than any amount of posting tickets to the bug tracker will. Despite the stereotype of the autistic geek this sort of socializing is an important part of any project with a healthy community, if you want to contribute to open source you should be aware of that.