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?"

Comments

Find project you like or use

[tokul]

Find project you like or use and start contributing. Or ask them if they need any help.

Re:Find project you like or use

[dotancohen]

Find project you like or use and start contributing. Or ask them if they need any help.

Most of the big ones do have "help us here" pages, such as KDE:
http://techbase.kde.org/Contribute

And another KDE page for those just starting out:
http://techbase.kde.org/Contribute/Junior_Jobs

So either the OP needs those links, or he is looking for smaller projects to help with. Here, let me suggest some small-project tools that I use that could use the help:
Anki, flash card application: http://ichi2.net/anki/index.html
Zim, desktop wiki: http://zim-wiki.org/
Gmail Conversation View for Thunderbird: http://github.com/protz/GMail-Conversation-View/issues
Vimperator/Muttator: http://vimperator.org/
Redshift, change screen colour per time of day: http://jonls.dk/redshift/

idea

[larry bagina]

use your mad php/css/html/js skillz to make a website where people can find projects that need help.

Re:idea

[Mike.lifeguard]

This is precisely what openhatch.org is for.

Openhatch

[Anonymous Coward]

This might be useful

https://openhatch.org/

Nolambar

How-To

[ddt]

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.

Does it have to be coding?

[AnonymousClown]

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.

Re:Does it have to be coding?

[Anonymous Coward]

testing, writing testing scripts, and writing docs and help

Yes!

One of the biggest complaints about open source apps is the documentation. Everyone wants to code it, no one wants to document it.

Free Software Job Listings

[fcanas]

you asked:

http://www.fsf.org/resources/jobs/listing

pleaseforkme.com

[rbrant]

I created pleaseforkme.com with the intention of solving this problem..just haven't had time to get people into using it!

OpenHatch, an "open source involvement engine"

[paulproteus]

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:

• The volunteer opportunity finder, a listing of free software projects' "bitesized" buts, organized by project, language, or type of help wanted (e.g. writing documentation). We index thousands of bugs from hundreds of projects.
• The "I want to help!" button, a way to express interest in helping a project even if you don't know what to do. For an example, check out the people who want to help GNU social.
• Project pages like Gally's, where existing contributors have written about what kind of help they want.

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!

Here, have some links

[badpazzword]

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