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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.
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I know there is no clear answer to this question. I still wonder to know whether Reading open source code can improve myself rapidly? how and why?
ps：I keep reading open source code every day for months.
Well, many of the bigger open source projects are collaborations between many people: Thus you do have a chance of finding a project written by good developers, and therefore improve your own coding style. Of course, it all depends if you actually memorise the stuff you read or not - But I guess you wouldn't really read that much code if you didn't.
In my opinion, you can learn the following from well-written projects:
Coding conventions
Solutions to common problems (Of course, this depends heavily on the "type" of the project)
How to document code properly - If multiple people work on something, and the project is well-written, it probably also has a good documentation.
Of course, all of this is opinion-based, so you need to see for yourself.
Possible answers (this is highly subjective)
Because working with someone else's code is more difficult than working with my own code. It forces me to adapt to some else's thinking ("If all I have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail")
Because open-source code is often not written under a deadline, by people who enjoy what they are working at, and can provide high-quality real-world examples
Because open-source code tends to have less of an agenda to push vendor XYZ's proprietary pet technology
Because the world might become a slighly better place, if people wouldn't code for the CPU as their main audience, but a human reader :)
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I browsed some of their sites. They always point to bug list as start of participating project.But, as a newbie in that project? How can I fix bug at the beginning?
Can anybody give me some suggestions about this?
Issac Truett's answer is good.
My only suggestion would be to pick a project and download their source code. Most open source projects use CVS, Subversion, or Git to manage the source code.
Pick an integrated development environment (IDE) that supports the language of the project and attach the IDE to their source code manager.
Spend some time getting familiar with the source code, and the bug list will make more sense.
Almost every Open Source project I've ever seen has a stack of minor issues in the corner - cosmetic or otherwise largely inconsequential things that nobody has considered worth their time. If you just want to get your foot in the door, that's probably a good way to introduce yourself. Just find something easy, make sure you implement it well, and follow the project's rules on coding style, submission for review, etc.
Or, ask the project. "I'm new, I want to help, this is my skill set. Would someone be willing to mentor me?"
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When I browse github I have a hard time differentiating high quality code from half-finished crap without taking a serious look at the code. What are some good ways to quickly size up a project? Rubyforge allows people to designate a "Development Status". SourceForge has a "recommend" feature. Is there some feature that I've overlooked? I just look at the number of forks and watchers. Is there a better way? I don't see a checkout count, or any other measure of popularity.
I would check for documentation. Well advanced code should have associated documentation, while fledgling projects are too busy getting their code and architecture done to create documentation, which will probably have to change by the time they release anyway. Basically, writing documentation says to me that you think the code is stable and functional enough for users to be able to benefit from it.
Recent activity is a big one. If the project does not have recent developer commits or there are open bugs, tickets, issues, questions, etc without developer responses then move on.
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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.
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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.