How Can I Contribute?
A Guide to Making Your First Open Source Contribution
Roadmap
- Why should you contribute?
- What are different ways of contributing?
- How to find a project
- Lightening fast introduction to Git and Github
$ whoami
Lucy Wyman
Software Developer in Test
The Company Formerly Known As Puppet Labs
What is Open Source?
- Code is publicly available
- Can be contributed to by the public
- Actively maintained and open to contribution
- Free software?
- What Free Software Means to Me by Matthew Garrett
Why Should You Contribute?
- Don't reinvent the wheel!
- Give back to a project you use + love
- Encourage collaboration and innovation
- Improve a skill
But...
- I’m not a good enough programmer to contribute to open source
- I don’t know the repo well enough to contribute
- I don’t write code, so I have nothing to contribute
- I’m just a student / community member / manager / llama, I don’t have anything to contribute
- Contributing to open source is hard
- Contributing to open source doesn’t benefit me at all
Turns Out
There are more ways to contribute than you might expect!
File Bugs
Include:
- Steps for reproduction - how did you get into this state?
- What you expected to happen
- What actually happened
Github issues | Bug tracker | Direct contact (email, twitter, etc.)
Write Documentation
- Contribute to official documentation
- Fix typos and grammar
- Add or edit a README
- Add comments to code
- Write a blog post
Answer Questions
- In Github issues
- On IRC
- On StackOverflow
- On Reddit
Educate
- Give a talk!
- This can also be at a User Group meeting, bar camp, or other event
- Volunteer for a workshop
- Represent an open source project at an event
Design
- A logo
- A helpful diagram
- A new feature
Finding a Project
In order of perceived helpfulness:
Getting Started Contributing
Making your first PR
First Steps
- Make an account on Github
- Read the README and/or CONTRIBUTING docs.
- If these don't exist, make an issue!
Installing a Client
- Official Git Docs (cover all platforms)
- On Windows
- On OSX
- On Linux
Fork a Repo
Creating your own copy
Clone a Repo
Downloading from Github
git clone ssh@github.com:lucywyman/i-love-tacos.git
Make Changes
echo 'I love tacos' > tacos.txt
Stage and Commit
git status
git add truth.txt
git commit
git status
Push
git push
Make a Pull Request
Git Resources and Tutorials
- try.github.io for an easy, hands-on tutorial
- TutorialsPoint Git Tutorial for a better understanding of what git can do
- Vogella Git Tutorial for a really deep dive into git
- Codecademy Git Tutorial for a more lesson-based approach