In December, one of my friend said that she is preparing for Google Summer of Code formally known as GSoC for the past 5 months, I asked her what is GSoC Is it any company? she laughed and asked are you kidding?. I said no I am serious I don’t about it I heard name for the first time. Then she started explaining about it and I am shocked. I said ok then I will also participate, she said this not a small project! you have to do some research, she suggested to start open source contribution for the projects then think about proposal to GSoC. For the first time I heard word Open source.
An open source project is where the code to a certain project is completely open for everyone. That means that anybody can readily see the code that went into a project. Open source contribution means contributing to the open source in any manner like changing coding snippets, fixing bugs, changing drafting etc.,
A small example which will help you to understand the what exactly open source. Did you ever felt why can’t it would be like this? while using any application or product. Just imagine if you are enough capable to change and that company is also providing the facility to enhance the user requirememts and needs. For exampe While using VLC player in laptop I felt why doesn’t VLC player contains Youtube, Netflix, Amazon Prime cloning options just imagine all these options in VLC. If you wish you can propose all those updations along with action plan to VLC if they accepted then you can start coding and submit the project with changes made.
I know what you are thinking Are we have to work freely? and answer is YES!. Because all the open source projects have no fixed employees to workers for salaries. What you will get if you do work for them? I tell you three things:
- There are a lot of enthusiasts who simply believe that code should be open. They’re idealists who want to make the world a better place, and it drives them to contribute code.
- I will can say open source is a great start for any beginner might fixing minor things, such as draft mistakes, small bugs, sending pull requests, or even writing a piece of documentation.
- Main thing as a developer having a community helps you a lot in growth interms of both career as well as personal. An active open source community where you can meet like-minded people and supportes. You increase your chances of being noticed by potential employers of tech giant companies.
I listed below some of the big open source projects category wise.
How to start contributing to existing open source projects?
Get to know about GitHub. GitHub is the most popular platform for open source collaboration, so you will probably use it when exploring the world of open source anyhow I’m not going to talk about the GitHub and Git commands you can search it on google and will get some video lectures on Youtube.
On GitHub, you can contribute to projects by submitting issues and contributing code. Submitting issues means sending messages about errors in appications and suggesting ways to fix them. Contributing code involves sending pull requests with your corrections and improvements.
And also you can easily join an open source project by subscribing to the mailing lists on official websites or on GitHub pages. After being accepted to the list, you can communicate with team members and get support if necessary.
How to choose your projects?
You can choose your based upon your skills and your confortable programming languages like Python, Java, Java Script and so on. And more specifically web development, Android development, Netwoking, Databases also. If you are non-programmer then you can go with drafting, content writing such things.
In recent times I started contributing to Jekyll actually it contains blog and portfolio themes. I made two pull requests for the two themes.
Conclusion
Open source projects bring many benefits to those who participate in them, and such experience is great for your future. BY joining a community of like-minded people and polishing up your skills, you can give yourself a step up as an aspiring developer.