Contributing to Open Source Projects
Short guide to start contributing to open source projects
Benefits of open source
- It’s free
- It’s continuously evolving
- You can modify and adapt open source software for your own requirements
- Transparent, Reliable and Secure since it is built by a community
Prerequisites
- Knowledge of Github, if you are new to Github refer to this tutorial
- Programming skills
What do you get from contribution?
- Opportunity for beginners to gain better programming skills since your code will be reviewed by the experts of the community
- Interaction with experts of the community
- Take a open source software modify as per your requirement, maintain and use it for free
Community Guidelines
Each project community has their own way of coding standards and rules to follow. You must go through the documentation before you begin. Usually these guidelines are named as CONTRIBUTING.md
Now all we need to find a repository to contribute to.
Up-for-grabs
Easiest way to find a repository is using up-for-grabs. Just enter the tag and it presents list of projects where you can contribute.
Google Open Source
You can choose one of google’s open source projects.
Github
You can also look for a open source projects directly from Github. Explore repositories using the link https://github.com/explore
Conclusion
Working with open source project provides an opportunity to always learn something new, even if you have been coding since n number of years professionally and most of all it feels great!