People often associate open source with large-scale projects and prodigy programmers coding from their basements.
But the reality is different.
Contributing to an open-source project is much easier than you might think.
And you don’t even need to know how to program to get started.
Maybe it’s web development with React.
Or if you’re into operating systems, you might be proficient at C and unit driver development.
But where do you find a project?
And no, you don’t need to register for GSoC to do so.
you might even search for a specific technology and it’ll return the organizations using that particular tech.
When you’re ready, choose an organization’s card and you’ll be taken to its web page.
From here, it’s possible for you to choose any that piques your interest and continue from there.
Step 3: Understanding an Open-Source Code Base
So you’ve finalized a project.
It looks promising and the topic seems fascinating.
But how do you go about understanding the entire code base?
It feels like a tough nut to crack, even to experienced programmers.
This would help you learn more about the software even when you’re not directly working on it.
Check the project’s README file for the mailing list URL.
Most of the developers would appreciate it and help you with a bug or issue that’s your level.
Now it’s time to find some low-hanging fruits and fix an issue by writing some code.
Finding Good-First Issues on GitHub
On GitHub, developers list bugs and feature requests in a section labeledIssues.
you could scroll through this list and find a problem that looks fixable to you.
For beginners, click theLabelsoption and filter the list by clicking onGood First IssuesorFor Beginners.
Using goodfirstissue.dev
goodfirstissue.devis a fantastic website that makes the job easier for you.
It aggregates good-first and beginner issues from thousands of repositories and lists them in an easy-to-read format.
you could choose issues from a project and filter the list by language and technology used.
Clicking on an entry will expand it and display issues that are ideal for beginners starting with open-source contributions.
These are listed by developers who are already working on an issue but require help.
Assisting someone else is a good way to find a mentor and learn more about the project.
The latter requires you to know some fundamentals about the project and its working, though.
Most developers would appreciate the help and will get you on board.
You canuse Git to contribute to the project.
This is just the start, though.
Open-source code is different from proprietary code.
You should know the characteristics of each and how they’re different from one another.
