Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

New Book Helps You Start Contributing To Open Source

Posted by Soulskill on from the sending-experience-downstream dept.

jrepin writes "This new book Open Advice is the answer to: 'What would you have liked to know when you started contributing?' 42 prominent free and open source software contributors give insights into the many different talents it takes to make a successful software project; coding, of course, but also design, translation, marketing and other skills. They are here to give you a head start if you are new. And if you have been contributing for a while already, they are here to give you some insight into other areas and projects."

5 of 48 comments (clear)

  1. Looks nice by Securityemo · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's available as a PDF from their site. I downloaded it and skimmed through a few bits, it looks nicely written and seems to contain concrete advice.

    --
    Emotions! In your brain!
    1. Re:Looks nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Apparently, it will be soon available at Amazon, but for now you can buy it here. The money would go to Lydia Pintscher, who has been actively involved in FOSS since 1990, and in recent years KDE. So pretty sure it will get poured into OSS development.

      IMHO though, it would probably just be better to directly send donations, bug reports and patches to your favourite open source projects. :)

    2. Re:Looks nice by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 4, Informative

      And reading my question would've been faster than typing your reply.

      At the risk of getting banned from Slashdot, I actually did follow the summary's link before I asked the question. I saw two alternatives, a "coming soon" link to Amazon and a link to Lulu. I saw nothing about which path would return more money to the project. So, my question: which way of buying is better (for the project)?

  2. Re:EPUB? by kailoran · · Score: 5, Informative

    They publish the source .tex files at http://github.com/lydiapintscher/Open-Advice , so it's rather open.

  3. Re:we have it in pdf, but not in epub by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Informative

    It is. called latex. run tex2epub and have it in your favorite format.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.