Open Source for dummies

Hello readers!!✨👋 Want to know a newbie experience in the Open Source world? I will be telling my experience for the next couple of weeks💖

Week one: The introduction:

This week was a lot about finding out what open source is. Searching how everyone can inspect, modify, and enhance in the same project without working in the same place.

How this work is that there are one author and many contributors. The author decides to share the source code with some contributors, but there are some rules. They need to aport following the rules (licenses) necessary, give credit to the author, the author should be allowed to use the code in the future, and all the contributions or changes need to be approved only by the author.

Every contribution is known as “Branch,” and there are improvements (changes) that can be accepted or not by the author (maintainer) to keep the integrity of the project. If someone’s changes are not accepted to be merged it doesn’t mean it’s wrong, is just not the fit that the author wants. This other branch can still work on its own (upstream)for someone else but without the. the intention of merging main, this is called “fork.”

Tips I’m following to find projects to contribute:

1. Create a GitHub account.
2. Make sure you know the stack (Technologies) you would like to work in the contribution.
3. It is your first time try working in the ones that have the “Good first issue” tag. It will help you to get familiar with these kinds of projects.
4. If the project has many contributions, forks, watchers, and stars, it means you’re more likely to have an early response, or it will be faster to get a review of your code.
5. Make sure to be specific in your comments on each issue. If it’s just an option and you’re not secure about the issue put it in your comment, or if you need more information to make a decision ask for it.
6. Read the “Contributions” file. This file tells you how to set the environment and start working in your branch with all the rules.

I followed these tips to find another project just in case I don’t receive an early response in the ones I’ve been commenting. I’ll keep you posted about how my first contributions went.✨