Have you ever heard about open source? Wanna learn more about it? Well then this article is for you… As technology continues to evolve, an increasing number of products and services are now accessible through software rather than physical means. This shift has given rise to the Software as a Service (SaaS) model. Makerspaces, which are places where people can create things, often utilize freely available platforms and resources to power their activities. With open-source tools and software being widely used by most developers and companies to make their products work, one can say that a big part of the applications we use today depend on this principle. And I suppose we all agree that this recent growth rate not just among indie developers but also companies has been felt lately by the open-source community.

 

It facilitated an ecosystem in which software engineers engaged in cooperation and became more knowledgeable of each other. Similarly to anything you know to be a part of the development process, open source is like that too, if you don't know what you are looking for and where to find it. Right now, if you're reading this article, you are probably eager to become a part of a great community of open source – but maybe you do not know where you should start from. Yes, you are not alone; this guide is definitely for you. This guide will cover What is meant by open source, How to start contributing, and What to expect.

What Exactly Is an Open Source Project?

In easy terms, we can name open source projects the source code offered in a "view and modify" mode to the public for use, change, and distribution under a permissive license. Since open-source software allows anyone to look at the code and use it to make a contribution or a new thing, this means that the code can be used in the original project. Most of the operating open-source projects can be found on famous hosting sites such as Open Source Collection, GitHub, GitLab, or SourceForge.

Major open-source projects went all thanks to contributions from people with diverse skills – and coding is not an exception, but also other skills like writing, languages, and so forth. Each time someone is configuring type errors, reporting about a compiling issue, debugging through some bugs, or even adding documentation to a project, some benefits are obtained. If a lot of these contributions from mind-blowing people with exceptional skills can come together to do something great can be done.

Example Of Open Source Project

In this era of open source community, we will notice that there are a lot of open source projects available and most of them have likely been the application tools you have used before. These listed products are just some of what may surprise you, having the open source label.

 

  • Mozilla Firefox is the web browser that is free, and open source! Whereas, you can glimpse your contributions here. There would be a special to-do label that the ideal developer could try to tackle before closely tracking all the “I’m Feeling Adventurous” buttons for a random issue.
  • With a breadth of experience, you might be very acquainted with jQuery which is a script library using which many frontend capabilities are easily accessible eg: animations. It’s also open source.
  • What is more, Git as the most commonly used version control system is proof that they can be successful projects implemented by open source software.

Similar to this: Open Source Intelligence Examples

How Do Open Source Projects Work?

Before we move into the possible fields in which you can contribute to open-source projects, let us see where these projects are situated and how you can access them. You will find the virtual space where you will both host and maintain your code. You no longer want to be stuck with your code stored in just your computer. Here is a case where your computer can break down and all the coding projects you had designed will be gone for good.

However, luckily the web has cloud-based web applications like GitHub, Bitbucket, or GitLab to use to host your projects. Every project hosted by GitHub, including reports. E.g., every project on a hosting platform is its own code repository, also called a repo. As the code itself is hosted on external web applications, open-source projects provide it too. The developer can work on the source of the projects just by utilizing a version control system. Version control of Git is also another prominent option.

 

Through Git, you can clone the project repository and then save it to your personal computer. For example, if you come across an open-source product and observe that the product has flaws. That's great, you're accurate and you decoded which file is the corrupted code that leads to the bugs. On GitHub, you can have a look at the repository where you can observe the working code. You create the playing ground to the intended and push the updated files to showcase your changes. Next, you send your changes and take the old code to the serving platform. From there on, you initiate a pull request to the main branch of the project. A pull request indicates the updates made by you to code as well as to specific files per file of the repository.

 

The maintainer may often be the authors or owners of the repository, which will review your changes. The last step would be to accept your pull request, which would mean that your changes have merged into the main branch. Congratulations — you just made your first contribution to open source! This first GitHub Guides (opens in a new tab) repository goes through the necessary steps for the open-source contributor. It involves creating a branch, pushing in the modification, and pushing the change to the repository via Git. This paves a way to understand how one can take part in both projects based on open source and otherwise.

Things To Look Out For Open Source Projects

The following are some pitfalls you need to be aware of as you go out there and interact with a community of open source projects.

An open-source license

The repository should be stigmatized with an associated license. For instance, the MIT license (opens in new tab) has gained much popularity over the others. This license defines whether the project has open-source status or not. Hence the very first thing you should do is to search for who holds this license. The OSI(Open Source Intelligence) publishes the full information, also, a list of examples of licenses including those that are frequently chosen.

Recent Activity

If there are more recent contributors to the project and open pull requests, chances are very high that your changes may be accepted or your issue processed too.

User-friendly and concise documentation

Documentation is mainly the ReadMe files that come with the project, and primarily the document that describes specifications on how to contribute. README files are storytellers about the repository from the purpose of the repo to the programming languages and libraries to build up the code to the last part of the README file which basically explains how you can contribute.

Tagged Issues and Features

When searching for an idea in a hosting platform like GitHub, you will discover a lot of different projects. The beginning students interested in this area can find the list useful. You know what Open Source Projects for Beginners is the best way to learn.  When working on a specific project you can observe someone place a request to fix or improve something as an Issue on the board. The issues usually are tagged to help the developers figure out what to work on.

Added hackathon or an ongoing Slack community

Open source is often expressed through contributors' collaboration. If you’re trying to build your community, try to go to a hack night where you can help or be part of a Slack team specifically for project contributors. Along with such events as hack night, you can also meet new peers who could assist you in overcoming some of the common problems of your project.

Wrap Up

You should warm up if you are a newbie in technology and curious to get started in this field. It is all too easy to get overwhelmed when you do not have the right idea about what to build or the essential things that you would need for a project. with this handout, you will find it easier to successfully complete your trip. I underline the fact that open source is open for all kinds of Contributors. It is just a matter of finding the appropriate platform or course to involve in and acquire new skills. fortunately, what you only have to do is to come up with a decision, and start it now.

FAQS

What do you mean by open source projects?

The concept of open source implies codes of any programs made publicly available and ready to use or modify as the necessities of certain users or other developers require. Open source software is actually computer software that is increasingly public and open collaboration and made publicly available for the general public’s use.

Some of the open-source projects exist in many fields. Linux is one such example that is a very ubiquitous operating system, powering from servers to smartphones. The other open sources that Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird are trying to provide user privacy and customization as well.

Open source differs from proprietary. This retire barrier is your source code belonging to authors who make it available and usable. Others can look at it, copy it, learn from it, change it, or share it. LibreOffice and GIMP are samples of open source software.

The license should also be hosted on the code repository. One type of license frequently used is the MIT license. Whether the project is open source or not, is calculated using this license. Therefore, even being prepared with the license details is the key factor to follow up the project.