How To Find the Right Open Source Project To Get Involved With

An anonymous reader writes Writing on Opensource.com, Matt Micene shares his thoughts on getting started with an open source project. "I came back from OSCON this year with a new fire to contribute to an open source project. I've been involved in open source for years, but lately I've been more of an enthusiast-evangelist than a hands-on-contributor to an open source community. So, I started some thinking about what to do next. When I was involved in projects before, it was due to a clear progression from user to forum guru to contributor. It's a great path to take but what do you do if you just want to jump into something?" Matt goes on to lay out several steps to help new contributors get started.

Comments

Make sure the project wants you

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a utility that I use very often and thought could use a couple of feature additions and bug fixes. I coded these, taking great pains to ensure that my additions were clear, matched the preexisting coding style, and adequately commented. I sent a patch to the utility's developer, only to be told that he works on the project for his own pleasure, but doesn't have the time or inclination to look at contributions from other developers. I suspect that quite a few single-project *nix utilities are like this. Before writing any code, make sure that patches are welcome.