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Ask HN: How do I find an open source project to contribute to?

32 points| coffeeski | 9 years ago | reply

I'm a Senior Dev and got a fire lit under my butt after going to the Rails Conf 2017 in Phoenix. I would like to contribute to a Ruby or Javascript project, but I don't know what, or where I can find them...

How do I find a open source project that needs some maintainers or things fixed? I am open to writing Ruby, Javascript or Elixir. I'm also open to writing documentation

22 comments

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[+] mwenge|9 years ago|reply
The most important thing is to find a project that has the bandwidth to process your contributions. If you see dangling pull requests or patches that have never been reviewed, move along. Even if a project passes this smell test, the only way to be sure that it has maintainers willing to devote some measure of time to providing feedback on your work is to submit one or two small fixes and see how they fare.
[+] slinger|9 years ago|reply
Agreed. Have your work ignored is a huge let down
[+] danso|9 years ago|reply
Is there a gem or library that you use? One that isn't too massively complex? Then start with that. My first open source contributions were adding features to libraries that were useful to me, so even if I got slapped down, I still came out ahead in terms of productivity.

Another reason to pick a library you actually use is because you will go into it with additional curiosity and expectations. I'm always a bit thrilled to find out that a library which I can't even begin to imagine being clever or thoughtful enough to design is indeed much smarter than I imagined, or, is actually kept together with duct tape. The latter situation has actually helped me overcome productivity declines that come from obsessing in vain over whether I've got the details down right. I just need to remind myself that a much more useful and popular library that I depend on has apparently flaws that end up not impeding development or public usage.

[+] michaericalribo|9 years ago|reply
What do you use regularly, that is open source? You'll be more motivated to participate in projects that you use on a regular basis, that might be useful to you.

Find some software that you're interested in. Do you follow their GitHub account, subscribe to the mailing list (especially dev list), keep up to date on changes that are new? Have you looked at their source? Is there anything you wish the software did better, or any bugs you wish were fixed?

Learning how everything fits together for a software project can be a great learning experience, and if you take notes as you go, you'll naturally write docs (and be the hero of the day).

[+] i336_|9 years ago|reply
You could write a project-finding app using JS and Ruby/Elixir/JS for the backend

I'm thinking of scraping GitHub, Bitbucket, HackerOne, etc for metrics that correspond to projects that a) need help and b) need the kind of help you'd want to give.

This is the problem you're staring at right now, so you're already interested in solving it.

[+] andreftavares|9 years ago|reply
<shameless-plug> https://github.com/yoonic </shameless-plug>

My open-source e-commerce platform all in Javascript. Backend is an API powered by Hapi.js (node.js) and Storefront is a React isomorphic app.

[+] vortico|9 years ago|reply
My suggestion is to convince your company (or if you own the company, simply take action) to use a particular open source software package. As soon as you run into a feature you need but the package does not offer, take some time to develop on top of it (on company time or at home) instead of writing your own hacky in-house solution, using a more careful development process than your company's software. Develop it until it is used in production, and donate the feature to the project. This way, if it is not wanted or ignored, it will still benefit you or your company.
[+] squiguy7|9 years ago|reply
You can try to look under GitHub's trending page for those languages (e.g. https://github.com/trending/ruby).

Also I like to check out tools that I use daily and see if there are issues I can tackle. You can follow mailing lists, public slack channels, etc. too.

Just talking to others will give you ideas to get started. And if you can't find anything quickly, start your own and have fun with it!

[+] ragesoss|9 years ago|reply
You can contribute to my project, https://github.com/WikiEducationFoundation/WikiEduDashboard

It's a Rails/React app for professors to run Wikipedia assignments, where instead of writing term papers, the students improve Wikipedia articles.

I'd love to have help from experienced devs -- especially someone to help me get started migrating to Redux.

[+] agibsonccc|9 years ago|reply
Usually find something you use. OSS projects love small/scoped fixes. There are a ton of underlooked at sections of larger projects like docs, minor optimizations,..

If you can, try to look at how the project communicates with the community (mailing list, irc, gitter,slack,..) and just ask the community where the pain points are if you can't find any open issues.

[+] goldenbeet|9 years ago|reply
The best way to do it is just look at what packages you use frequently. If their github repo is accessible then dive into the "issues" and start opening some PRs to address them. And if you've ever wished the package did X then propose it and open a PR to see if the maintainers are interested in adding it
[+] rukenshia|9 years ago|reply
You could try contributing to gitlab.com, I didn't know any Ruby when I started contributing but they have an awesome guideline and issue tags that show you what's easy to do for you. You get high quality code reviews and they help you a lot when you struggle.
[+] aw3c2|9 years ago|reply
Any project needs help. Pick a hobby of yours and browse the web to find appropriate projects in your languages. I would say that is the best way to find work that is fun for you.