What Kinds of Things Am I looking for when Selecting an Open Source Project?

I think the two big things are accessibility and interest.

I want to choose a project that won’t require an insane amount of overhead just to start understanding the general structure of the codebase. Accordingly, I’ll be on the lookout for projects that are built with technology I’m already at least partially familiar with.

It will also be hard for me to get excited and be eager to contribute to a project if I don’t have any sort of connection with the project itself. I want to find something that I’ve either had experience using, or that it fulfills a goal that I can identify with.

What Will I Be Able To Offer The Team I Join?

I already have some experience getting involved in already established projects. I think I’m competent at diving into a codebase and getting to know it enough that I can start interacting with it. I have some significant experience developing web-based applications, which would come in handy on a variety of projects.

What Are You Hoping To Learn From Working On An Open Source Project?

I mainly just want to get better at collaborating on software projects. A lot of the issues I’ve had writing software in the past has come from difficulty interacting effectively with those I’ve been working with. I feel like there’s hardly any environments where you aren’t forced to interact with other developers, so getting some experience there will definitely be valuable. If I end up learning a new framework/language, that would also be a nice plus.

What Are You Most Worried About When You Are Thinking About and Planning to Work on an Open Source Project?

I’m mainly worried that I won’t have the technical ability necesarry to contribute in any meaningful way to the project I end up selecting. It’s been made clear that there are other non-technical means of assisting on an open source project, but obviously I’d rather get my hands dirty with code.

This Weeks Contributions

Because I didn’t yet have an issue assigned for my post last week, I performed my assigned fix this week.

First I cloned the repository using:

git Clone $\lt$ url to repo $\gt$ command.

Then I created my fork by clicking the fork button on the github repository webpage for the course website.

I then added my remote using:

git remote add $\lt$ url to fork $\gt$

I then created a new branch and checked it out using git branch command.

I then fixed the issue, which was that there was no information for the TAs office hours on the website.

I did this by first adding properties to the _config.yml file for “tutor_office_hours”, “tutor_name”, “tutor_location”, and “tutor_schedule_link”.

I then edited the index.markdown file to include this added information on the home page beneath Joanna’s office hours.

I then tracked these files for changes and commited the changes.

I pulled from the origin and pushed my branch to my remote fork.

I then completed the pull request by clicking the “Compare and Pull Request” that had appeared on my repository and completing the information on the following page.

Questions for Aurelia

1) What are the key ways that your experiences working at an Open Source company differ from those you’ve had working at companies with proprietary code bases?

2) How often do people not already affiliated with the project come out of left field and make meaningful contributions?