FOSS projects to contriubte to

What are some good existing FOSS projects to contribute to? I'm a decent dev, but a lot of FOSS projects seem to have a high barrier to entry or be exclusive social clubs. What are some repos where noobies are welcome and have a good onramping procedure? Eg, beginner-friendly github issues and a community willing to help people learn the codebase so they can transition to making more significant contributions?

look through the tools you use. it helps if you're using a more minimal distribution and have familiarity with the software that is installed. play with a project in an area you want to learn more about, and you'll eventually find something that is not supported. this can be your chance to become more acquainted with a code base and modify its functionality. it doesn't have to be a large project, contribute to something that you value.

>>33323 Anon, why not look for the ones you enjoy? I don't get post like this. It's horrible to work for something you don't even like, but at least you are being paid. Now working for free on something you don't like? I fail to think any reason. Any thing you enjoy and is FOSS is a good project to contribute. Simple as that.

>>33323 I recommend picking up a small BSD or Linux distribution, use it for a while, decide if you like it, if so keep using it and get a familiarity with the code base, then start contributing :)

If you're new to collaboration, start by contributing to small projects. A few hundred lines of code, a few open issues, and some recent contributions. This is a low friction way to get used to the basic workflow and maybe what can go wrong. If you're already comfortable collaborating and you want to join a larger project, start by joining the community. Compile and use the software, join the mailing list and the IRC channel, read the bug reports, pick a bug you think you can handle and open a PR. It sounds like what you're asking for is a mentor. You're a lot more likely to get individualized support if you do these things.

>>33328 Nice this is cool desune

>>33328 Sadly, finding small projects is not easy. Not op, btw.

>>33323 >What are some good existing FOSS projects to contribute to? The projects you use and are acquainted with are a good start. >FOSS projects seem to have a high barrier to entry Yes, making a contribution takes effort and time. >beginner-friendly github issues If this is all about "making contribution" so you can try to look good you will never help any projects or anypony at all. Just look at the waves of spam issues and pull requests that Github's Octoberfest caused. Low effort contributions simply do not help. >>33325 >why not look for the ones you enjoy? I suspect OP has fallen for the Github social coding meme.

>>33336 Low effort contributions CAN help. I don't have a good idea of generally why but some examples: fixing typos in documentation, completing the instructions left in a open bugfix ticket, idk I'm not smart, but there are useful low effort contributions. I'd like to think they are useful, at least.

>>33339 >fixing typos in documentation Most people don't want to do that, sadly. The biggest problem with FOSS(and even more for libraries) is that they have soykaf documentation. I really really hate the 'the code is the documentation' mindset.

>>33341 >Code as documentation That is the reverse of soykaf. I haven't read docs for code in 2-3 years, I just read the libraries API. I'm an OCaml developer though, so mileage may vary for different projects.

>>33342 >another person defending code as documentation

>>33342 In my experience, Code-as-Documentation is the worst-case scenario for figuring out how someone else's software works. Instead of one person who already understands the library writing out the details, it requires every consumer starting from scratch to figure out the thought process behind the code. Except for the surface-level pieces like getters/setters, each API's component ought to have at least a single sentence explaining its role and whatever the return value is that can't be described by its type.

Git gud and contribute to Tor Project.

>>33344 I see your point. In OCaml each function name + type is literally all you need. But in other languages it makes sense, especially dynamic ones.

>>33341 >>33342 >>33343 >>33344 All these people ostensibly agree that documentation is an useful non-coding entry to FOSS. >>33323 You should join the chat room of your favorite FOSS project's chat room, lurk for a few days, check their bug tracker to see what is listed as a good first bug. Don't forget to follow their community guidelines, as well as as their contributing guidelines so you don't accidentally run a foul. Good luck. Another seemingly decent way to jump into FOSS package management is to join the Friday FSF Free Software Directory's Party on IRC, weekly.

>>33324 >>33325 >>33326 >>33328 >>33347 All good advice, I think I'll take this route if nobody ITT recommends a specific project. >>33336 I am NOT seeking to stuff my resume or any bullshit like that. I already have a decent job and a good resume. That's what I mean when I say I'm a decent dev. In fact, I don't think I'd like my contributions to be connected to my IRL identity. I want to contribute to FOSS because I think it's the right thing to do and a good way to expand my skills. I know the posters ITT are right who are saying I should look into projects I already use and am interested in. However, it'd be nice if anyone knows of any specific projects that they know have a good onramp, which they are already involved in. I know that I use a lot of FOSS that is good but nevertheless is maintained and developed by a pretty exclusive social club, and which doesn't have a lot of simple beginner tasks to do-- those are already done, because it's mature software.

I'm friendly towards issue posting if you have some ideas or even pull requests if it makes sense, on my latest project https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/grasshopper-urls/

>>33323 ReactOS WINE OpenStreetMap KDE Minetest

>>33390 ReactOS has been in alpha for ~24 years now. In terms of being a drop-in replacement for Windows, it's going nowhere fast.

I want to contribute to OSS more and more often, but the advice of look at the tools I use has been difficult to follow because I use an old computer and modern build processes (for C++ and for Java for large projects) take for ever. For instance I wanted to contribute to an android app that I use that I like, that has a modular plugin system, so it should be easy. But I had to download android studio, and then an emulator, and like 5G of soykaf total, so it's not just that my computer is old and soykafty but also downloading luckily I should not have to do that very often, but the first build took fuarrrking 20 minutes for just the android app, if thats gonna be indicative of the change-build-test cycle I don't know if I will be able to do this. Should I start committing crime to buy a ryzen workstation?

>>34605 What OS / distro are you using? You don't *need* Android Studio to compile most Android apps on Debian so long as you have a physical Android phone to test them on https://letsdecentralize.org/tutorials/gradle.html

>>34612 Thanks for sharing, I use arch. I'll check out your link for Android without Android studios asap

>>34612 it can be hard to find help without android studio, so I figured compiling with gradle, and now I am looking to have it run on android I guess locally but I guess I should just send it to my android device. at least I dont need android studio

>>33352 Check out SerenityOS and pick a some aspect of it to work on. It's a full operating system so you have lots of options. Pick one that interests you and you would like to be better at https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity

>>34636 How would you go about running this in a VM? I'd like to try it out.

>>34645 https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/blob/master/Documentation/BuildInstructions.md learn to fuarrrking read