What it means to contribute

If you’re a new open source contributor, the process can be intimidating. How do you find the right project? What if you don’t know how to code? What if something goes wrong?

Don’t worry! There are all sorts of ways to get involved with an open-source project — you don’t need to know everything just to get started.

For anything more than a typo fix, contributing to open source is like walking up to a group of strangers at a party. If you start talking about llamas, while they were deep in a discussion about goldfish, they’ll probably look at you a little strangely.

Before jumping in blindly with your own suggestions, start by learning how to read the room. Doing so increases the chances that your ideas will be noticed and heard.

Introduction

I started my open source journey when I was in the first year of my undergraduate journey in December 2018. It all started with a one-line change in the README of the project repository. I opened my first PR to add a license badge in README. It got merged.

I didn’t know much about development tools or anything really. I was a complete newbie. But the feeling was awesome! After, I started to find some more beginner-friendly issues. Here are some awesome resources for finding good first issue:

#mozilla #gsoc #open-source #programming #google

What it means to contribute

Introduction

medium.com

My Journey From Open Source Noob to Google Summer of Code 2020