Getting Started with Open Source Development

Open source software is becoming increasingly popular, and contributing to open source projects is a great way to gain practical experience and enhance your skills as a developer. However, knowing where to start can be daunting for beginners. This blog post will provide tips on contributing to open source projects. Whether you're looking to build your portfolio, gain experience, or give back to the community, this guide will help you navigate the world of open source contributions and start your journey.

Find a suitable project:

GitHub is a valuable resource for open source projects that depend on the participation of the community to collaborate and write code, leveraging the collective innovation and ideas of all participants. With millions of projects hosted on GitHub, finding a project that interests you and aligns well with your skills is important. As a prospective contributor, your first step is locating a project you'd like to join and contribute to. You can also engage with the project's community channels, such as forums, mailing lists, or chat rooms, to seek guidance from the maintainers or other contributors.

A project with the right license: 

Contributing to an open source project with an OSI-approved license and a transparent development process is highly recommended. Such projects have demonstrated their commitment to open and collaborative development, making them more trustworthy and dependable. Using an OSI-approved license ensures that the project adheres to certain legal standards and provides contributors with clear guidelines for using and distributing the project's code. Moreover, transparent development processes enable contributors to see how the project is being developed, track progress, and identify areas where they can contribute. Finally, these projects offer significant opportunities for collaboration and learning, as contributors can work with others to solve problems, share knowledge, and improve their skills. By contributing to such projects, you can not only make a valuable contribution to the open source community but also enhance your skills and experience.

Read the project’s documentation: 

As a contributor, it's essential to familiarize yourself with the project's documentation and guidelines. Doing so lets you learn about the project's goals, underlying technology, and the problem the project aims to solve. By understanding the project guidelines, you can ensure that your contributions align with the project's objectives and are relevant, helpful, and more likely to be accepted. Additionally, project documentation and guidelines can help contributors become more familiar with the project's codebase, enabling them to orient themselves and better understand its structure and functionality.

Create an account on GitHub and get familiar with all essential functionalities: 

Creating an account on GitHub and familiarizing yourself with the platform's basic functionalities is essential to starting open source development. Creating an account is straightforward, requiring only a few basic steps to set up a new account and access the platform's vast array of features. Once you've created your account, you can begin exploring the platform's documentation, which provides a wealth of resources and information to support users at all experience levels. By taking the time to familiarize yourself with GitHub's basic functionalities and resources, you can gain the skills and knowledge needed to make a meaningful contribution to an open source project. In addition, being comfortable with the platform's basic features will make it easier for you to navigate and participate in the development process of your chosen project.

Fork the project, and let’s go! 

After finding a project you're interested in contributing to, the next step is to fork the project on GitHub. This process creates a copy of the project on your account, giving you complete control and allowing you to work independently. To fork a project, navigate to the project page of the upstream project and click on the "Fork" button in the top right corner. Once you've done this, you'll have your copy of the project that you can modify and work on as you see fit.

Forking a project is essential in contributing to open source, as it allows you to experiment with the codebase without affecting the original project. You can add features, fix bugs, or make other changes to the project, all while maintaining complete control over your copy. When you're ready to submit your changes to the original project, you can create a "Pull Request" on the project's page. This action notifies the original project's maintainers of your changes and allows them to review and potentially merge them into the main project. By forking a project and submitting changes via a “Pull Request,” you can contribute to open source projects while building your skills and experience as a developer.

Make small changes and submit them to the upstream project as pull requests: 

When contributing to an open source project, it's essential to start small and make incremental changes to ensure that your contributions are relevant and accepted by the project maintainers. After identifying an issue or feature to work on, make the changes locally and commit them with a clear and concise message. Once you're confident with the changes, push them to a branch of the upstream project and submit a pull request with detailed descriptions and context. Peer review is crucial, allowing other developers to review the submitted code and suggest improvements or modifications. To ensure that your pull request is accepted, it's essential to read and follow the project's contribution guidelines and code of conduct. Remember that the goal is to collaborate with the community and contribute to a larger project, so stay open to feedback and be willing to make changes.

Be open to feedback and willing to make changes:

Being open to feedback and ready to make changes is essential to the open source development process. It's important to remember that open source software is created and maintained by communities of developers who work together to build high-quality code. As a contributor, being receptive to feedback from the community and willing to make changes based on that feedback can help you improve your skills and build strong relationships within the community. Responding to ideas suggested by other developers and contributors can also lead to better collaboration and more innovative solutions. Good communication is critical in open source development, as it helps ensure everyone is on the same page and working toward a common goal. Remember to respect others' opinions and always keep the project's best interests in mind.

Stay in sync with upstream: 

If you want to keep up with open source development and avoid technical debt, staying in sync with the upstream project is essential. This approach means you should regularly check for any changes made to the main project and merge them into your development fork. Keeping your fork updated with the main project on GitHub is crucial to ensure that your work is compatible with the latest changes and to prevent any potential conflicts or errors that could arise due to version mismatches. To stay current with the main project, you can set up your local repository to track the remote main project and run the 'git fetch' command to download any new changes. Another option is to use the 'git pull' command to automatically merge any changes made to the main project into your development fork. By staying in sync with the upstream project, you can ensure that your contributions are up-to-date and well-integrated with the overall project.

GitHub offers an excellent platform for developers to participate in open source projects, which can help them gain practical experience and enhance their skills. This blog post provides a high-level roadmap to help you start with open source development. Following the steps outlined in this post, you can effectively navigate the world of open source contributions and embark on your journey toward becoming a better developer.

About the Author: Dr. Ibrahim Haddad is Vice President of Strategic Programs at the Linux Foundation, where he's focused on facilitating a vendor-neutral environment for advancing the open source platform and empowering generations of open source innovators. Haddad leads the LF AI & Data Foundation,  providing a trusted hub for developers to code, manage, and scale open-source AI and data projects.