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Finding Open Source Projects Looking For Help?
aus writes "I've been doing web development for about 10 years now. It's been very good to me, but I want to do more than write HTML, PHP, JavaScript and CSS. Since the job market isn't all that great right now in the US, it would seem that volunteering some time on an open source project would give me the satisfaction I'm looking for. The problem is finding a project that wants/needs help that I would also be interested in. I've tried browsing around on Sourceforge and Freshmeat ... is there a site somewhere that I'm not aware of that has classifieds where open source project maintainers post 'job' listings?"
Find project you like or use and start contributing. Or ask them if they need any help.
In the volunteer aspect it is more of a passion based decision than an recruitment oriented process. My advice is find something you both care about and also feel the site in question needs improvement. Next, simply hop on the forums or news feed and offer your services. It doesn't necessarily hurt to have some material already developed to get the discussion flowing.
Higher profile is probably going to be a bit more difficult so you may not want to go looking for the top 10 applications of all time. Those circles (even of volunteers) tend to be more work to edge your way into responsibility. Still, my experience has been very positive with contributions and generally working with a project I do not own. I had a good deal of fun one weekend with a BitPim developer banging out support for my phone.
If you need explicit areas where your talents could probably be used I highly recommend seeing if you can get the guys over at http://www.memtest.org/ to let you revamp their page. The program is nice, but the web page is atrocious.
Does anyone else have any suggestions for who needs a make over? (That could be a reality series television show!)
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
Please someone help X.org. They need it pretty bad.
use your mad php/css/html/js skillz to make a website where people can find projects that need help.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
This might be useful
https://openhatch.org/
Nolambar
Find a project with a mailing list where people are asking for a feature that is just below the radar, keeps getting put off because of more important things. Implement it, submit the patch, and pray. If no love, which is unfortunately common and even likely for new contributors, shoot video of the feature in action and send a letter out to the mailing list linking the video, and let them know where they can find the patch if they want it, start collecting and posting feedback on the patch from users.
Some of you FOSS guys chime in here and correct me, but I bet any and every project would welcome you if you offered testing, writing testing scripts, and writing docs and help.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
https://launchpad.net/
you asked:
http://www.fsf.org/resources/jobs/listing
I created pleaseforkme.com with the intention of solving this problem..just haven't had time to get people into using it!
OpenHatch, a website I help run, exists to help people find ways they can contribute to free and open source software.
(It was covered on Slashdot a few weeks ago.)
We have a few things that you might like:
If you want to work on a project which has contributors in your area (maybe you want to get together for a hackathon, or to ask questions about how something in the code works), check out the ubiquitous People Map. You can see everyone on the site or browse by project or skill.
OpenHatch is itself free software, and we have a small and growing volunteer contributor base. (-:
Let us know what you do or don't like!
|/usr/games/fortune
FOSS advertisements currently running:
http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/53346/open-source-advertising-sidebar-2h-2010
FOSS advertisements that have run until recently (but probably still can do with some help):
http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/31913/open-source-advertising-sidebar-1h-2010-closed
When ideas fail, words become very handy.
Want to try your hand as sysadmin work?
Work-Needing and Prospective Packages
http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
You're a webdev? I know you said you don't want to keep doing that, but what else are you happy doing?
Right now, GNU Octave is looking to rebrand itself and is starting a website to rival Matlab Central. The The Octave-Forge pages also need help, and a hot new designer star just recently came along who is helping us with logo and brand image design. His name is Fotios Kasolis.
You could do a lot of good if you got involved with us. Plus, Octave itself is interesting if you're into mathematics and numerical analysis.
Why would there be a "job" listing? There's in general no pay, no benefits. People that don't have any interest in the project as such but just want to tag their CV with it are usually more work than they're worth. Pick whatever open source project which is in a field you're interested in, where there's some itch you'd like to scratch, join the development mailing list and see what you can do. Sometimes there's merely the need to ask, one tool I worked with had a manual "coming soon" so I emailed and asked, spent 2-3 hours compiling one and it's still the one in use today. It's not like it takes interviews and they're afraid of bad "hires", anyone who seems reasonably independent and won't be a drag on everyone else is generally welcomed. Just remember you have a limited amount of handholding and try figuring out stuff on your own before asking about every little thing, you'll do fine.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
But please do NOT show up one day with 50 new tickets explaining how a piece of software SHOULD have been designed, with proposals for a complete redesign. This happened recently on an F/OSS project I help with...while the guy's ideas were good, it was his manner of presentation that was off-putting. There is no way in hell I will give this guy commit privs with the gangbuster attitude he has. In fact, I politely suggested to him that a fork off our project might be better to suit his goals.
If you present yourself as a threat to the project's developers, you will never get commit privs, and most likely your suggestion will just end up in the "blue-sky" milestone. Constructive criticism has its place, but it's all in how you present it.
All of them are not looking for help.
Not all open source software are open source because of the community collaboration aspect of it.
Some people just want to do their thing and work at it alone but for various reasons want to publish the source (ideological reasons, bragging rights, looks good on a resume, etc.)
I don't know how common this is, but it definitely exist.
Another reason a OSS project might not really be "hiring" is that it is half dead. It has a TODO list but it didn't make a release in a couple of years and there is no obvious activity that indicate another release is coming. If you are looking to make a meaningful contribution this is maybe not the project you are looking for.