How to Become a Good Contributor

Before getting into how to submit contributions in earnest, let’s briefly look at how to become a good contributor. Of course, since every project operates differently, there is no single right answer. Each time you join a new project, you need to invest time in learning how it operates. Even so, the following points are commonly helpful in becoming a good contributor.

1. Join the Community

Open source projects have a community of users and developers. Each community participates in slightly different ways. Read the documentation the community provides, and join its main communication channels such as the mailing list, forums, IRC, Slack, and bug tracker.

2. Observe for a While

After joining the community, take some time to get familiar with its culture before contributing. Reviewing past communications is a good approach. The more you go through this process, the more likely your first contribution is to be accepted.

3. Understand the Governance

Before contributing, use the project’s management and governance documents to understand how the project is governed. You can learn who makes decisions and how.

4. Start Small

Start with a simple bug fix or documentation change. It is good to learn the process and correct mistakes by making small, low-stakes contributions. Building on this experience, you can contribute more substantially and gradually have an impact on the project.

5. Attend Events

Building lasting relationships with other participants in the open source community is important. The best way to do this is to attend events such as conferences. Nothing builds relationships like meeting in person.

6. Contribute from the Early Stages of the Code

Some people finish developing until the amount of code becomes quite large and then try to contribute it all at once. Such contributions are not easily accepted by open source projects. It is difficult for a project to review a large amount of code at once, and the contributed code may differ from the direction the project wants. Discuss with the community starting from the idea stage, and contribute early in development and often.