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There many awesome open source SW with active and positive communities. I tried to contribute in some way in the past to some projects with small donations and bug reporting, but probably the most I have done it suggest these SW to many friends and colleagues. What is in your opinion the best way to contribute and support open source projects?
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Ask the project maintainers! They will know what area they need the most help in; and if you mention you're good with technical writing, and their documentation is crap, they will know not to ask you to draw their click-buttons with MS Paint :-) If a project appreciates help (most, but not all, do), and you have specific skills that might be helpful in their case, it's always good to ask. Of course, using the software, spreading the word, bug reporting etc. is never wrong. | |||
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balpha is right - different projects will have different requirements. It's interesting that he mentions documentation though. In my experience this is typically the worst aspect of Open Source software by far. If you are able to write coherently, you could find yourself winning an awful lot of friends if you're happy to create some sane documentation. I count myself as reasonably proficient on the writing front, but it's still the weakest area of my Open Source projects... coding is simply more fun. | |||||||
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Bug reporting is very useful. Developers tend to use the software in the way they intended it to be used, other people do all sorts of crazy things that break it. If there are beta builds out, using them and reporting bugs can be very helpful. Just make sure you don't report duplicates as this will not be appreciated. If you can code, in any way you can always supply patches to fix bugs. A lot of very minor bugs often sit there for ages before they are dealt with. These are often trivial to fix, but it still takes some time and effort to get a patch together. My first code contribution to an OS project was to fix a typo in a comment. Once you get your confidence up, you can go onto bigger and more difficult things. | |||
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It's also interesting to note that contributing money isn't an effective way to advance an open source project. | |||
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Keep doing what you're doing! It's a great start. If you can't physically help develop the software via coding, you can help them advertise their software and get other people using the software. If they have a site, help answer questions on their message boards for other users. Every little bit helps. | |||
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I suggest you do want the developers don't do or feel is important. Many open source projects are driven by the itches of those owning it. Many times, a project would rather use:
If you'd approach the developers, most of the time they'll tell you about some bug that needs to be fixed. If you want to find out what to pick, a good approach is to get into the user community. Read the mailing lists, support forums. See what the users want, and perhaps the developers don't want to or can't offer. | |||
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