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Ask HN: Which open source projects have kind, supportive, talented teams?

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Re: Ask HN: Which open source projects have kind, supportive, talented teams?

#55

Post by Zyst »

Getting involved with open source should likely not be done of how a community is, but rather because you love the product itself, and want to make it better. If the community is nice, that's a huge plus, but in my opinion it should not really be a deciding factor unless the community is outright hostile.

Just try to ask in general, see applications you use frequently: Desktop, web, and browser based. Programming languages, and websites you find yourself in frequently. See if any of those are open source, and then send the author(s) an email, ask if they accept contributions.

Do make sure to ask, I've had cases where I asked an author if they accepted PRs in general, and the response was "I'm sorry no, I would much rather maintain full control over the codebase", which is perfectly fine, in general, find something you are passionate about, and then try to help.

I would really advise against starting open source contributions just for the sake of contributing to open source.

When you go into a project the existing contributors will likely have to spend time, and effort grooming you into someone who can properly navigate the code base, in my experience people who join a project just for the sake of joining something, or because they want to have "Contribute to Open software in my free time" in their resume tend to drop out pretty frequently, and it's just painful for all parties involved.

Re: Ask HN: Which open source projects have kind, supportive, talented teams?

#58

Post by jondubois »

I think the SocketCluster community meets this description (I'm the main author). Especially on the kind/supportive side. It's relatively small (about 60 people in our chat group), we are not supported by VC funding of any kind so everyone is just doing it for fun (and to please the community). Based on the experience I've had using Gitter (chat) to get assistance on other projects, I'd say our helping/chat culture is among the best.

Also if you have a truly good idea, it will be heard and implemented.

Website: http://socketcluster.io/

Gitter (chat): https://gitter.im/SocketCluster/socketcluster

I think this 'niceness' comes from being a small, dedicated, growing community based around learning and having fun. If the community is already large and successful, you will just be a small cog in a big machine.

Re: Ask HN: Which open source projects have kind, supportive, talented teams?

#59

Post by nhaehnle »

forgottenpass wrote: post #25

Find the projects that speak to you then check in on the communities. Contributing to open source is first and foremost _work_. A community can turn you off from participating, but the motivation to contribute only comes from the product. And you might be surprised at the difference between what it's like to contribute to any random project compared to what a "news" blogger that needs to generate hits wants you to th…

This is really the correct answer: Why do you want to participate in an open-source project in the first place?

If it's to gain brownie points for your CV, it's quite likely that you'll get nowhere, because that's a motivation right along with "earn money".

The difference to just getting a random software development job for earning money is that at the random job, you will be in a team where tasks will naturally flow towards you. In a random open source project, this will not be the case. So most people will not stick with it unless they have a better motivation for contributing to the project in the first place.

So try to find a project that you find interesting first. You should actually be able to find many of those if you're into software development, and then take a look at the communities yourself.

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