Closed. This question is opinion-based. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations by editing this post.
Closed 8 years ago.
Improve this question
I am a second year computer science major college student, I would like to start contributing to open source projects, I am proficient at python and java, and I have did some research regarding this topic and ventured onto sourceforge and apache, however I feel that the project listings on those site has a really steep learning curve, can someone recommend me some introductory open source project listing that can lead me to contribute to some bigger projects, or perhaps my level of programming is not enough for open source contributions?
Any recommendations regarding the subject would be much appreciated
Why don't ask at your campus? At mine there are plenty of projects from and for students. That's the first step to go. Some projects also use opensource projects and manipulate them. So you only learn a bit of the opensource project. And for the next step many students contribute to the opensource projects that were used in the students projects.
Most open source projects need better documentation. You could pick one that you like and work on improving the documentation as you learn about the project. If you learn to write good documentation, that's a good career skill. And as you write it, you begin to learn enough about that project to work on the code before long.
If you are interested in contributing to Python , you can submit documentation and testing related patches in the beginning. Here are the steps on how to contribute. https://openhatch.org/wiki/Contributing_to_Python.
It can also help you in applying for Google Summer of Code and other Python projects.
Check out some projects that interest you ... to get an idea of what kind of projects to get involved in.
Here are some broad suggestions:
1) Have you heard of Google Summer of Code?
2) You could set up your own project in SourceForge, or some other repository.
3) You could check out what others are doing and get involved in their projects. Check out projects in SF, Freecode, or Google Code.
Don't put your coding ability down, put it to use. Projects can always use people for doing documentation as well. CHEERS, and happy coding to you!
Here's one more link that I saw today, and it reminded me of your question. The link suggests ten things you can do to be involved in open source.
Related
Closed. This question is opinion-based. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations by editing this post.
Closed 8 years ago.
Improve this question
We develop scientific software and I manage a small group of applied scientists who write great code. A lot of our products depend on stable development tools which we've been using for developing a stable code base. Now the issue is, someone from the management visited an open source conference and was too pleased to see a lot of great tools which can be used internally for free in place of the commercial ones we've been using so far. So he suggested to the management to remove costs of buying the tools we've using and shift to the open source ones. Now I do not have anything against the open source movement but through a small experiment I found that my team is spending a lot more time debugging and maintaining stable code bases for those open source tools .
I'm sure a lot of other program manager's have had this problem so far. Would people relate their experiences and let me know of any studies made on this subject ? i want to present a cost benefit analysis to the management by giving some statistical facts not just empirical evidence. I'll be glad to know some case studies thereof.
I think open source is terrific, but I use a commercial IDE (IntelliJ) for Java development, even though there are popular open source alternates Eclipse and NetBeans. In my experience, IntelliJ is the best IDE, hands down, with a measurable impact on my productivity.
I can't say that it's true of all tools, but in this case it is.
I don't believe that either open source or commercial tools can claim the high ground here, because I can cite good and bad examples on both sides. Blanket statements and "me, too" thinking are usually a bad idea.
Statistics will be hard to come by. 86% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
I would expect managers in a company whose products are based on science to be more rational. You're a small firm - talk it through. If it's not possible in your situation, then no one has a chance.
Closed. This question is opinion-based. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations by editing this post.
Closed 7 years ago.
Improve this question
Cofundos is a project where you can pay for tasks to be completed in open-source programs. If a developer solves this task, he will earn the money. Is this a good way to push open-source software?
No.
Joel Spolsky has talked about the phenomenon of people doing for free what they would never do for pay in the context of contributing to sites like Stack Overflow. People have all sorts of reasons for doing things for free:
Helping out a friend or society.
Fame and recognition.
Hobby or passtime.
Building a resume.
Learning about the world around them.
When you offer money it either destroys the purpose of doing something ("It's not a hobby if I get paid—it's a job.") or reduces the intrinsic value of doing it ("I'm not helping out society—I'm helping out me."). The same is true for Open Source contributions.
People do get paid for Open Source work. But normally by companies who are using Open Source software and need certain features and fixes. Sometimes they are full time, but often it's just submitting a bug fix or feature so that it will be carried to the next release. But that happens because the project is useful to the company.
So a better way to "push" Open Source is to use Open Source. If a project is missing a feature, you'll need to add it yourself or find someone else who will. Any scheme that offers money for a feature directly will likely not work. And if the feature does get added, it'll be added by someone who wants to get paid rather than someone who wants better software.
Well if you absolutely need a new feature in a program and you can't contribute, then sure. Otherwise I don't see why you don't just do it. You'll learn more by doing it yourself.
Closed. This question does not meet Stack Overflow guidelines. It is not currently accepting answers.
We don’t allow questions seeking recommendations for books, tools, software libraries, and more. You can edit the question so it can be answered with facts and citations.
Closed 7 years ago.
Improve this question
I've decided to have a look around for open source projects that need a hand and lend a bit of time to one or two. One question though, is there a site(s) that lists current open source projects that are looking for developers and is there anywhere I could for example filter open source projects by language/technology/etc.
What I'm after is a way of getting an overview of many open source projects so I can make a decision whether they interest me or not.
Ideas where to find such information?
The three major ones:
SourceForge
CodePlex
Google Code
While you're probably not interested in participating in it yourself, the Google Summer of Code has a list of projects that are participating. A project participating generally means that it wants more contributors, it has mentors who are willing to help new contributors, and it has an ideas list with tasks that are good for someone just getting started on the code base (though they are generally designed to be a full time, summer long project, they do range in scope).
Looking through this list can definitely help you find things to do more easily than trawling through every open source project available on SourceForge, Google Code, or GitHub (though GitHub is nice because you can so easily fork, hack away with as many patches and throwaway branches as you need, and then request that your code be merged in once its done).
Check out Freshmeat for an open source directory of sorts. Other than that, I'd recommend just browsing around the web on topics you are interested in to see what's out there.
I would recommend choosing a piece of software that you like and use, and finding a way to contribute to that. Specifically, fix an annoyance or bug that you have noticed. If you don't see any annoyances or bugs, look for the project's bug tracker. This way it's a project you're invested in, and you are already at least partially up to speed on how the code works from an end-user perspective.
Source Forge is a great place to start.
Check out CodePlex as well.
I like scanning through interesting projects on GitHub, forking them if I think they're interesting and if I feel I can contribute, go right ahead! I haven't contributed to anything yet, but it all seems very easy and inviting.
Well, I would just head over to Sourceforge, find a project that interests you and start going through their bug list to help fix stuff. Sourceforge can filter out the languages or topics you're not interested in.
The best: http://code.google.com/
and Sourceforge
Ohloh
is a great repository of repositories, indexing many projects.
Craigslist.com is a good place to contribute your skills too... I know that you wont find your open source projects at craigslist, but hey, someone could use your technical skills for free.... if you have time to spare why not let that someone benefit from it...
Closed. This question is opinion-based. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations by editing this post.
Closed 7 years ago.
Improve this question
I always have found the open source space interesting but have never actually participated in any projects. I recently had what I thought was a great a idea that was different from other projects I had seen in the area (in case it matters it was a .NET DI framework).
My question is if I have a funky idea should I join an existing project and share my ideas or create a competing project with exactly what I want. There are a few projects in the space the are similar to what I was thinking but they don't quite capture the same ideals.
Is extra competition frown upon in the open source space?
Competition is as important as collaboration in open source. Assuming the licenses are compatible, features and ideas can be cross-pollenating. Everybody wins.
the short answer to this is another question: do you want to contribute to a discussion, or do things your way?
You may want to consider writing it your own way and turning that process into an article that you could submit to CodeProject. Then if there seems to be interest in the article, add it to SourceForge. I've seen a lot of tools and widgets get a quick audience and coding help that way. One that I use often is XPTable, which started as a CodeProject article and eventually became an open source project on SourceForge.
BTW, you'll know if its a hit, because you'll start to get lots of requests for improvement, or people even submitting their own fixes and enhancements to your article.
Thank you for your time. I have decided to contribute directly for the project in some areas they were hurting. By doing so I can help the project and learn from the masters.
Closed. This question is opinion-based. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations by editing this post.
Closed 8 years ago.
Improve this question
What open source projects would you recommend as a good place for a starting open source developer? Factors that I think would be important are some obvious ones like well written code and a community that is helpful to newbies. But it might be nice if the code base is such that I can start hacking some small problems without really understanding the details of how everything works.
I'd prefer something that can be developed on Linux using C/C++/Java/Python/Scala.
Trying to pick a project like that will never work because it's not something you're passionate about. What's an open source project that you use daily or enjoy using? Go work with that one.
It really depends on what your interests are as to what project to dive into.
Rationale for a larger project (e.g. Firefox, OpenOffice, etc) is that it has many developers, a well established code base, and many small tasks/bugs to be worked out.
Rationale for a smaller project is that you will become more intimate with the code and application. You will likely get to know other developers on the team and understand the overall concept better. Additionally, your additions to the project may be more noticeable.
sourceforge has a list of projects seeking a new developer. Therer are several for your requested programming languages:
http://sourceforge.net/people/?category_id=1
Apart from developers they have more help requests:
http://sourceforge.net/people/
Pick one you use and like already.