Getting started on how to contribute to projects - A how to get started guide

[nicoleabuhakmeh]

New & Existing Foundation Members are asking how they can start contributing to our projects. Is there a guide for this?

If not, we should get this on the radar for the committee to come up with something similar to this, but for our projects directly: https://opensource.guide/how-to-contribute/

This could tie-in with the ask from the community about a better guide on how a project would get the support them need.

I'll be passing along an email from a new member that would like to know how to get started in helping projects.

[glennawatson]

That often very project dependent but the general standard is a file in the main repository with CONTRIBUTE.md that contains instructions for how that projects wants contributions.

Many have chat channels like slack or gitter so worth jumping on those too.

[tonyqus]

Perhaps I can contribue a guide for that. I'm practicing how to participant in new open source projects these years. I have to admit it's a bit tricky.

[glennawatson]

Yeah, I guess the big thing is you don't want the guide is be overly constrictive.

GitHub has a wizard for recommended documents to help with contribution/security which is a good starting point.

https://github.com/<org>/<repo>/community

[tonyqus]

https://medium.com/mindsdb/contributing-to-an-open-source-project-how-to-get-started-6ba812301738
https://medium.com/theleanprogrammer/open-source-contribution-a-beginner-guide-1385aa11ac27
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/how-to-contribute-to-open-source-projects-on-github/

[DaveSkender]

This is a good one too, but more about the actual GitHub steps:
https://codeburst.io/a-step-by-step-guide-to-making-your-first-github-contribution-5302260a2940

[Perksey]

iirc this was discussed in the April meeting and is just waiting for a volunteer. Coordination with the outreach committee should likely be done in the production of this as well.

[nicoleabuhakmeh]

A suggestion was made at the Maintainers Committee meeting for a Projects to tag specific issues that they would allow New Foundation Members to take on as a way to start contributing to a project. If this was a line item ask as part of the new project onboarding, how does the group feel about that? The goal here would be to get new contributors to existing projects.

[tonyqus]

I think firstly we should teach junior guys NOT to kick off new projects. Instead, they should contribute to existing project first. This often happens in China community. Some junior developers would not like to maintain existing project. They just wanna create their own one or even copycat existing project. However, this usually causes failure.

But I can somewhat understand their intention. Contributing to a existing project cannot show he/she is awesome. Creating a new one can prove he/she is awesome in technology.