[LelouBil]

I am a CS student, three years away from being a software engineer.

Since last year, I began reading the code of popular open source projects I use in order to determine the source of a problem I was having, and a lot of those times ended up as bug reports.

I now take the time to explain my whole reasoning into finding the bug and linking appropriate code snippets, but I'm still a bit afraid to start a PR on my own to fix it.

Since I did so on popular projects, with lots of issues/PR about half of them got ignored, or responded to a year later saying "not applicable to latest version".

That demotivates me a little about starting simple bug fixing PRs for big projects.

[einpoklum]

> I am a CS student, three years away from being a software engineer.

Three years away from having a degree. If you routinely do software engineering, you're a software engineering (possibly s/engineer/develop/ for a similar claim.)

> Since last year, I began reading the code of popular open source projects I use in order to determine the source of a problem I was having, and a lot of those times ended up as bug reports.

You are a saint! I would _love_ for people to read through my code looking for bugs and oddities.

Just remember that some FOSS projects are coded well, while others are coded horrendously.

> I now take the time to explain my whole reasoning into finding the bug and linking appropriate code snippets, but I'm still a bit afraid to start a PR on my own to fix it. > > Since I did so on popular projects, with lots of issues/PR about half of them got ignored, or responded to a year later saying "not applicable to latest version".

If you are considering writing a PR, get in touch with developers in a chatroom, or even over email, to coordinate this. They are likely to respond favorably to offers of PRs, and tell you things like "Don't do it now, we have a refactor coming up" or "base yourself off of this branch". And even if they say "not interested, don't bother" - you've still gotten useful information from them.

[em-bee]

first of all, don't give up. being ignored or overlooked is part of the FOSS experience. not every developer is available all the time, some only work during holidays or whenever the mood strikes them. some would prefer to ignore rather than reject someone, or (especially on popular projects) they may be so busy that they simply didn't see your submission.

when you fix a problem consider first of all, to do it for yourself. for your experience, or to solve a problem that you actually have.

fixing a problem and then finding out that it is already fixed, or that someone elses later fix was accepted ignoring yours, is also a common experience. there is nothing malicious about it. communication is just not perfect, and for some things, it may just be easier for the known and trusted developers to fix a problem themselves rather than to take the effort to review your contribution, even though taking care of your contribution would give them the opportunity to invite a new contributor. not every project has inviting new contributors on their radar.

my suggestion would be to look at projects that have an explicit policy of being welcoming to new contributors. they will either say on their site or in the documentation, or they have issues that are marked "good for beginners" "or good for a first contribution" or something similar.

work on such issues. join the community, their mailinglists, chat rooms, or whatever they use, and talk to other developers there. get to know the people, help other new contributors, make friends. later when one of your submissions is ignored or overlooked again, those new friends will be able to help you get attention to it. or they may know why it was ignored.

[bawolff]

Fwiw, dont be afraid to jump right in. Your patch might get rejected, but that happens to experienced people all the time too, and is no big deal.

PRs that get ignored is really demotivating. It can depend on which project a lot. If you're new to the project informally (and politely) chatting about your patch on project's irc/discord can help ensure you are not missing any social conventions.