Open Source Contribution : Bootstrap
Open source software is a collaborative effort that involves developers from all over the world contributing their skills and knowledge to create software that is freely available to anyone to use and modify. Contributing to an open source project is a great way to improve your coding skills, gain valuable experience, and give back to the community.
In this article, we will outline a step-by-step process on how to find open source repositories and contribute. We will also list examples that are beginner-friendly and suitable for those new to open source contributions.
Locate an open source repository
Finding open source repositories to contribute to is possible in a number of ways. Other well-liked platforms are:
GitHub:
With millions of projects available, GitHub is one of the biggest sites for open source repositories. You can look for repositories using a variety of criteria, including themes and computer languages.
GitLab:
Like GitHub, GitLab is a well-liked platform for open source repositories. Also, you may look for repositories based on themes, programming languages, and more.
Bitbucket:
Bitbucket is a web-based hosting service for Git and Mercurial repositories. It is frequently employed in development and source code projects.
SourceForge:
Open source software projects are housed on the web platform SourceForge. The projects range in size from simple scripts to big apps.
Choose a project to contribute to
It’s time to find a project to contribute to when you have discovered a platform to search for open source repositories. Think about the following factors while selecting a project:
Familiarity:
Look for projects that are related to programming languages or technologies you are familiar with. Choose a project that is being actively developed and has recent commits. This guarantees that your contributions will be examined and incorporated as soon as possible.
For Example Suppose you are interested in contributing to a project related to machine learning. In that scenario, you can use the search term “machine learning” to look for machine learning projects on GitHub, and then sort the results by the quantity of stars to locate popular projects.
Beginner-friendly:
Look for projects that are labelled as “beginner-friendly” or “good first issues.” You can start contributing to open source projects by resolving these straightforward problems.
Let’s say you wish to contribute to a machine learning project you saw on GitHub. You can search for open machine learning issues and filter them using terms like “beginner-friendly” or “help wanted.”
Fork the repository
The following step is to fork the repository once you have identified a project to contribute to. To make changes without impacting the original repository, forking makes a copy of the repository in your GitHub account.
Go to the project page and select the “Fork” option to fork a repository. The repository will be duplicated in your GitHub account as a result.
Let’s say you discovered a problem with the project’s implementation of a new machine learning algorithm. You can clone the project’s repository to your local computer by forking it to your account.
Clone the repository
Clone the repository to your local system after you’ve forked it. By doing so, you can modify the code and test it locally.
Go to your GitHub account and locate the repository you just forked in order to clone it. Copy the URL by selecting “Code” from the menu.
Next, open a terminal on your local machine and type the following command, replacing the URL with the one you just copied:
git clone <repository URL>Make changes and create a pull request
You can edit the code after you’ve cloned the repository. Make a pull request when you’re prepared to send your changes for evaluation.
Assume you have updated the project’s code to reflect the addition of the new machine learning algorithm. The changes can be committed and pushed to your forked repository. A pull request can then be submitted to the original project.
Go to your forked repository on GitHub and select the “Pull requests” / “Merge Request” tab to start a pull/merge request. Choose the branch containing your changes by selecting “New pull request” from the menu.Give your pull request a title and a description that details the modifications you made and why they were required.
Contributing to open source projects is a great way to learn new skills, collaborate with other programmers, and make a meaningful contribution to the programming community.
Happy Coding !!!
