Hello,
I have been thinking about making the jump towards Open Source, not just using OSS but also contributing to it.
First, some OSS projects/apps I know of are Peertube, Lemmy (right now using Voyager app), Mastodon, Matrix (used to use the Element app, gave up because I realized it was too hard for those around me who got used to Whatsapp), OpenStreetMap (through OrganicMaps), Jellyfin, and Actual Budget, Godot Engine, Luanti, GrapheneOS… I might know more, but those are the ones I remember right now.
Second, I have some basic experience with programming (mainly Java [haven’t learnt GUI yet tho], SQL, and C# for Unity videogames), but no experience entering an already created codebase yet, let alone making changes and sending them (and I admit I might need to get some practice with Git), so it is pretty intimidating. Do you have any advice about it?
Third, I’d like to hear about projects you find interesting or useful. Not neccesarily to contribute or even use them myself, but I’m interested in which other projects there are out there.
Basically two choices:
- Find a project you’re interested in and make a contribution. Many projects tag certain issues with something like “Good First Issue” as a way of lowering barriers to entry. Other things are updating documentation, fixing typos, then you can branch out into patches and pull requests.
- Make your own FOSS project.
Pretty much on point.
You don’t have to touch the whole codebase to contribute, you can only touch the parts you are familiar with.
Use a software you like, find something you would change about it, report a bug and get maintainer approval, try your hand at it.
Find something broken or missing something, fix it.
Find something wrong or something you think could be improved. Check if it’s a raised issue or on a roadmap. If not, raise the issue. Fork the repo, fix the issue, make a pull request.
Github is probably the most accessible for doing this, create an account and learn the basics.
