| I cannot believe that people can have that question. Or, well, I do believe it, but then my second question usually is: did you ever use linux/bsd or any OSS project in the past? I don't want to be rude at all, but the suggestion of "contributing to an OSS project" makes a lot of sense if you already had to work with/use OSS software. Because, if you had to use one of these projects, you would probably already understand the most important social aspect of it. Coding, IMHO, is just secondary (and is not necessary at all). Thus my suggestion would be: if you never dealt with an OSS project before, try to find some OSS software which you genuinely like and try to use it (and well) and follow its development. Once you did, you will certainly know how to contribute. There's nothing more to it. If you are already familiar with OSS, but so far never found anything "interesting", the best thing to do IMHO would be starting your own. Release something that you did and that you would like others to use. Most importantly, do all of that for fun. Don't do that because you have to and because they said "it would be helpful". Helpful for what? Coding style\quality varies wildly, as is the community around the project itself. The biggest difference between a "professional" and OSS project is exactly this: people work on OSS project for many reasons, but it's mostly for fun or passion. Some projects strive for quality, some for functionality, and some just solve an "itch" somebody had. Understanding the social aspect, again, is the biggest differentiating factor. There's no point in contributing to OSS unless: 1) you released something that you like to maintain
2) maintain something somebody else released
3) fix an itch you have
4) having fun coding (or any other activity around said project) |
>If you are already familiar with OSS, but so far never found anything "interesting", the best thing to do IMHO would be starting your own
I couldn't disagree more. If you haven't found a project that is "interesting" or simply useful, then you're not really programming (or perhaps aren't looking in the right place?). There are SO many useful projects, or semi-useful projects (and lots of not very useful ones) that there's got to be at least one (if not dozens) that would be interesting.
Regardless, if one couldn't find an interesting one to contribute to (at least a little bit), starting a new one would be a bad idea because, unless it's really unique or compelling, won't get a lot of attention and you won't get any good feedback on what you're doing (which is critical if you want to learn).
I do agree that the social aspects of contributing to and/or running an OSS project is important. So even if you're not contributing code to a project, if you're filing issues or making comments on other issues, that's a great way to learn.