Getting Involved in the FOSS Community

caecusum · 2009-02-06 08:02:55

I'm a computer science student with a decent background in C++ and also happen to have some free time. I really want to get into open source development but don't know how to start, as I don't have any experience outside of a classroom setting.

Can anybody give me some serious advice or point me to resources about getting involved in the dev community? Do I just need to pick a project, get on the mailing lists, and start asking questions?

Thanks in advance.

Rasi · 2009-02-06 08:05:37

caecusum wrote:

I'm a computer science student with a decent background in C++ and also happen to have some free time. I really want to get into open source development but don't know how to start, as I don't have any experience outside of a classroom setting.
Can anybody give me some serious advice or point me to resources about getting involved in the dev community? Do I just need to pick a project, get on the mailing lists, and start asking questions?
Thanks in advance.

Yes.. pick a project... go to the projects irc channel/mailing list and communicate. Start writing small patches. Start writing bigger patches. Fork the project. Become world leader!

Seriously. it works this way.

sirius · 2009-02-06 08:09:42

Find something you're passionate about. If you like Gnome, KDE or any open source app, join the maillists, find some nasty bugs in the bug tracker and start sending patches. I've only translated for the KDE Norwegian Bokmaal team, but I'll probably begin sending patches for KDE apps this year.

Allan · 2009-02-06 08:33:13

You can always look at http://projects.archlinux.org/ and see if anything interests you.

My advise is to find something you are interested in working on. Then look at bugs that are low priority for the devs and look like small fixes. Then patch it. There is no substitute to just diving in...

caecusum · 2009-02-07 21:16:40

Thanks for the advice.

I am a big KDE fan, but have always been sort of overwhelmed by the pure volume of code that's involved, even for the individual apps. How do you take that first step? Just find main() and start exploring?

initbox · 2009-02-07 21:24:20

[offtopic] I feel guilty because I can't really program but I want to help the FOSS movement somehow...

I've actually tried learning programming but it hasn't amounted to much, really. I think programming is fun and all, but I don't feel like programming something useless just for the sake of it... I'd like to write useful applications right away, which is obviously impossible.[/offtopic]

Last edited by initbox (2009-02-07 21:24:42)

Runiq · 2009-02-07 21:53:32

initbox wrote:

[offtopic] I feel guilty because I can't really program but I want to help the FOSS movement somehow...
I've actually tried learning programming but it hasn't amounted to much, really. I think programming is fun and all, but I don't feel like programming something useless just for the sake of it... I'd like to write useful applications right away, which is obviously impossible.[/offtopic]

+1.

The more I understand about Arch and Linux in general, though, the more I start thinking about this little project and that script that I could get my hands on. I recently found out about Xyne's cronwhip utility, which I thought might be a good way to get into bash scripting and shouldn't be too difficult to re-write (given my as-of-yet limited knowledge, this might as well be wrong. ). There was also a forum post a few days ago about writing a little program to rename mp3 files according to their id3 tags. It's pretty obvious that I'm mostly into bash atm, but you could try this with any programming language that floats your boat.

Yeah, my two cents.

EDIT: I'd try the re-write thingie without looking at the code at first, of course. And don't worry, Xyne, I'm not gonna put the rewritten thing up here...

Last edited by Runiq (2009-02-07 21:55:59)

Mogger · 2009-02-07 21:56:48

Hey caecusum, start here: Techbase.

If you want some guidance first, the KDE forum runs "kourses" from time to time. There is no active kourse at the moment, but I suggest you to check out the completed kourses (1 and 3 are programming related).

If you want to begin with something small in KDE, you can always start with plasmoids, small applications in kdegames/kdeedu/etc. There's lot to do.

/Another KDE fan who wants to contribute but can't find the time

caecusum · 2009-02-08 20:32:58

Thanks, great links.

Looks like I may need run through some Qt tutorials before I do much of anything else

Arch Linux

#1 2009-02-06 08:02:55

Getting Involved in the FOSS Community

#2 2009-02-06 08:05:37

Re: Getting Involved in the FOSS Community

#3 2009-02-06 08:09:42

Re: Getting Involved in the FOSS Community

#4 2009-02-06 08:33:13

Re: Getting Involved in the FOSS Community

#5 2009-02-07 21:16:40

Re: Getting Involved in the FOSS Community

#6 2009-02-07 21:24:20

Re: Getting Involved in the FOSS Community

#7 2009-02-07 21:53:32

Re: Getting Involved in the FOSS Community

#8 2009-02-07 21:56:48

Re: Getting Involved in the FOSS Community

#9 2009-02-08 20:32:58

Re: Getting Involved in the FOSS Community

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