How to get involved in Open Source

IamtheWalrus

I have seen my companies like to have employees that are involved in Open Source. I would like to get involved for 2 reasons; make myself more employable and to become a better developer.

Can any one tell me how one would get involved in this? Is it a big undertaking (balancing a full-time job), is it worth it, are their downsides? can anyone get involved?

Any information is welcome.

Johnboy1951

Find several open source projects in an area that interests you.

Check out their news etc etc and you will find that most are looking for developers to get involved, and provide a means for you to offer your services.

I would suggest you should try to get a good handle on the project before committing yourself - to be sure it is really what you are interested in and that you can work reasonably well in the environment. You can peruse the code in your own time as you wish, before committing.

Good luck

IamtheWalrus

I think I'll need to read up on this a bit more. Sounds like a very time-consuming operation.

PrzemoF

IamtheWalrus wrote: »

I think I'll need to read up on this a bit more. Sounds like a very time-consuming operation.

That depends on what you already know - if you're already a developer you can almost hit the ground running. There are some really friendly & helpful developer communities out there if you want to learn and listen.

It's definitely worth it - you'll learn a lot and you'll get _unbiased_ opinions about your skills, ideas and quality of work.

If you need more guidance tell us something about what's interesting for you (programming, documentation, web, designing user interface, mobile devices etc) and what [open source] software you're using.

IamtheWalrus

PrzemoF wrote: »

That depends on what you already know - if you're already a developer you can almost hit the ground running. There are some really friendly & helpful developer communities out there if you want to learn and listen.

It's definitely worth it - you'll learn a lot and you'll get _unbiased_ opinions about your skills, ideas and quality of work.

If you need more guidance tell us something about what's interesting for you (programming, documentation, web, designing user interface, mobile devices etc) and what [open source] software you're using.

I am an experienced Java developer and I wanted to get involved to become a better developer. I have an insatiable appetite for learning. My background is mainly eCommerce with JEE, Spring, Hibernate, web services.

Do you know of any web resources that could push me in the right direction from the perspective of a complete newbie?

PrzemoF

Start with:
https://github.com/
http://sourceforge.net/
and search for something that is interesting for you.

I found those (are all based on an open source licences):

http://sourceforge.net/projects/hibernate/?source=directory-featured
http://www.broadleafcommerce.org/
http://www.shopizer.com

You might take a closer look at this:
http://docs.broadleafcommerce.org/core/current/contributing-to-broadleaf

as broadleaf is using java, string and hibernate:

http://www.broadleafcommerce.org/technology-stack

P.S. I know nothing about those projects - I just found them using the criteria that you provided.

P.S.S. Read this: http://owncloud.org/about/community-code-of-conduct/
It's about owncloud developers, but applies pretty much to every open source developer community.

IamtheWalrus

PrzemoF wrote: »

Start with:
https://github.com/
http://sourceforge.net/
and search for something that is interesting for you.

I found those (are all based on an open source licences):

http://sourceforge.net/projects/hibernate/?source=directory-featured
http://www.broadleafcommerce.org/
http://www.shopizer.com

You might take a closer look at this:
http://docs.broadleafcommerce.org/core/current/contributing-to-broadleaf

as broadleaf is using java, string and hibernate:

http://www.broadleafcommerce.org/technology-stack

P.S. I know nothing about those projects - I just found them using the criteria that you provided.

P.S.S. Read this: http://owncloud.org/about/community-code-of-conduct/
It's about owncloud developers, but applies pretty much to every open source developer community.

Thanks. I'll follow those links when I get home. Found this also:

http://producingoss.com/

L.Jenkins

Any one interested in Developing a new OSS project from the ground up?

oscarBravo

I was involved in one before that fizzled. What did you have in mind?

PrzemoF

An older thread about how to join F/LOSS world:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056892470