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up vote 3 down vote favorite

Currently, I am through a very creative phase as a developer. I think it's a good time to contribute to an open source project. Not as "permanent" developer to a project but in a "help wanted" manner in many projects.

The open source hosting services that I know are SourceForge and CodePlex. Any suggestions that will help me on this direction?

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closed as not constructive by GlenH7, gnat, Walter, Yusubov, Dynamic Sep 22 '12 at 15:26

As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, visit the help center for guidance. If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question.
    
There are also Github and Bitbucket. –  marco-fiset Sep 21 '12 at 17:21
    
And Google Code. –  Mason Wheeler Sep 21 '12 at 17:28
1  
[OpenHatch][1] [1]: openhatch.org/"; is also a good place. –  Badar Sep 21 '12 at 17:49
    
Have you searched in Google : "how to contribute to open-source projects". There are many blogs, pages, etc. –  Gilles Sep 21 '12 at 18:02
    
OpenHatch rocks, I didnt know it. And training missions seem awesomen :) –  py_script Sep 21 '12 at 19:16

2 Answers 2

up vote 3 down vote accepted

If you are interested in taking a more introverted approach to contributing to open source projects, then I think Github would be a good place for you to start. You can fork anyone's repository and get your very own local copy. Then you can make the changes you want to make and send them a pull request to get your code back in sync with their project.

All you need to do is find a project that looks interesting, check out their issues page to see if they need help fixing anything, fork, fix, pull request, and that's it!

Also, some larger projects could prefer documentation or unit test contributions if you are interested as well.

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I didnt know about that Github feature...I am open to all kinds of help. –  py_script Sep 21 '12 at 19:15
1  
Great, good luck with your OSS work, I hope you find an interesting project to help out. –  Robert Greiner Sep 21 '12 at 20:13
up vote 1 down vote

The mentioned open-source project sites ares still good. The SourceForge and CodePlex were there for many years, and they are still functional. Some of Git’s predecessors, such as CVS and Subversion, have a central “repository” of all the files associated with a project. The SourceForge and CodePlex, code-sharing sites are using central repository pattern.

However, Git is different. It is build on a distributed version control system design. As it is also mentioned on Git's official website:

It outclasses SCM tools like Subversion, CVS, Perforce, and ClearCase with features like cheap local branching, convenient staging areas, and multiple workflows.

In recent years there is a trend to migrate open-source projects to GITHub. Thus, it is becoming the next HOT Spot for open-source community to share their goodies.

In summary, you may get more attention and more projects needing contributors to help.

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