Getting Started with Open Source

Getting Started with Open Source

Being a part of this highly turbulent IT industry have you ever given a thought about how the tech giants like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc.are able to impact us so much with their valuable products and ideas?

Yes, they made it possible because they opened up some of their proprietary innovations to the open source community. Spreading the technology improves the experience for all users by creating efficiencies and making the entire global community more streamlined. It helps in making things simpler and more easy to access and improve. Perhaps you might have already heard and read about open source software but have you started?

If not, it's never too late to start and learn about open source software technologies and projects.

New trends and technologies are impacting our lives each and every second that’s shaping our future to an imaginable extent.The key player in this revolution is undoubtedly the open source technologies.

What is this Open Source?

Open source is developed by a group of individuals with a shared interest in the project, this community of users and programmers is key to the advancement of any open source project. Open source projects, products, or initiatives embrace and celebrate the principles of open exchange, collaborative participation, transparency and community-oriented development.

Internet is the biggest example of open source and how impactful it is in our lives today needs no explanation.

Google, taking a step ahead, in order to disseminate the importance of an open source software development introduced a renowned program known as GOOGLE SUMMER OF CODE which is focused to bridge the gap between young talented students across the globe and the open source organizations.

How it is creating impact?

The idea of open source stems from the technology community. From the earliest days of computers, programmers and engineers developed new technologies through collaboration. All of us knowingly and unknowingly use products such as any library, plugin, programming language or any platform among which most of them are open source.

I am a student, why should I become a part of Open Source Community?

Student life is the best time to pitch your skills and projects in front of global community like Open Source Community which can give you a hell lot of exposure on how to publish, collaborate and learn by providing a way to stretch yourself beyond your limits. It can help you understand the architecture of projects, new tools and libraries being used, the way to interact to many global contributors of that project, you may get a mentor over there to help you solve bugs and issues in your code and the opportunity to mark your presence by contributing to some of the really cool and innovative projects of tech companies by sitting at any corner of the world and you might end up with an opportunity to work in those companies either as an intern or employee. It’s just more than awesome!

How to get started with Open Source Community?

Get set go !

Contributing to an open source for the first time can make you feel stiff and a little overwhelming from inside as you may be a newbie or have been coding for a while but it’s never too late to start.

1.You can find lots of open source projects on GitHub.You just need to make an account and push your own project to make it open for collaboration or you can even start contributing to the projects which match up to your interests.

2.This link might be useful to get a brief overview about how GIT can be used for making contributions. It consists of tutorial series too-

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/contributing-to-open-source-getting-started-with-git

3. There is a site which aggregates projects that actively want help. They label those projects with things like “up-for-grabs”, “jump-in” or “help wanted.” Link for the site is-http://up-for-grabs.net

4.You can also go through the links mentioned below

a. https://github.com/explore — use this site by github to explore interesting projects to work on.

b. https://www.hackerearth.com/getstarted-opensource/

c. https://github.com/MunGell/awesome-for-beginners — This is a curated list of projects helpful for beginners.

5. Read open-source community blogs, participate in hackathons, try to be an active problem solver in github discussions and take part in GSOC as they are primary source to encourage you towards global collaborative contributions.

There are lots of stuff on the Internet to help you jump into open source but all you have to do is crawl your fingers on the keyboard, find them and start contributing :)

The world is full of “codes” which guides us and shape the way we think and act to redefine our ideas into a more valuable and scalable contribution to the community. Open Source Community is to open to all whether you are a beginner or an experienced professional.

We at CodeNicely aim to develop an environment where you can connect and work collaboratively with wide range of talented people over the extremely flourishing open source community, which is the best way to embrace your skills because love for open source is incredible ! :)