Does anyone here contribute to any open source project?

Reisswolf · #1 30th March 2007, 08:47 PM

All of us love open source software, but how many of us actually contribute code to any of the projects?

I am seriously thinking of contributing to Xfce. I read somewhere that compared with the two major desktop environments, Xfce is relatively small and has fewer developers. I have checked out the svn sources for appfinder, xfmedia and xfwm4, and over the course of the next couple of weeks I am going to see if I can contribute a small patch to appfinder--just so I can find a foothold in the codebase.

With which projects are you involved? Do you have any advice for someone thinking of contributing to a major project for the first time?

RupertPupkin · #2 30th March 2007, 09:22 PM

I don't contribute to any "major" projects, but I have started 3 small projects of my own, as the sole coder:

Jfilerunner: a Linux file manager written in Java
TkViewMan: a man page viewer written in Tcl/Tk
TK-10: an X10 controller frontend written in Tcl/Tk

Those are all released under the GPL. I haven't worked on them in a while, I should update them sometime this summer with some improvements and just general code cleanup.

There are some major projects I'd like to contribute to (e.g. GNUstep) but I don't feel quite up to it yet.

I also have some stuff I've written but never released, e.g. a Java IRC client (with emoticon support!

), a GUI radio player for FM radio cards, a calculator, a replacement for fetchmail (in Java!), various system utilities, some GNUstep apps. The problem is other stuff keeps coming up, and I don't get around to going through the process of formally releasing all that stuff. It's a combination of laziness and not wanting to deal with user requests/bug reports. Think about that before you jump into a project.

rbo83 · #3 30th March 2007, 09:29 PM

A lot of the work in this field is centered around applications as opposed to linux system development work. I have developed a web-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application (for contact management, sales and quota tracking, email and fax broadcast, and several other features. It can attach itself to the open source closedShop shopping cart. This application is intended to be free for everyone, but you pay for support...a known model...

Hope this helps.

Reisswolf · #4 3rd April 2007, 05:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rbo83

A lot of the work in this field is centered around applications as opposed to linux system development work. I have developed a web-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application (for contact management, sales and quota tracking, email and fax broadcast, and several other features. It can attach itself to the open source closedShop shopping cart. This application is intended to be free for everyone, but you pay for support...a known model...

Hope this helps.

Are you talking about SugarCRM? Are you a Sugar developer?

nhydra · #5 4th April 2007, 07:27 AM

Yes, I contribute a lot!
GliBench - benchmark utility,
gafick - GUI for another file integrity checker.
BSD sockets programming howto,
and keep some torrents for fedora and fudcon.
This is my contribution.

rbo83 · #6 4th April 2007, 05:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reisswolf

Are you talking about SugarCRM? Are you a Sugar developer?

Not SugarCRM. Sugar is a very extensive and incidently expensive service to run, with a price per seat. It is probably one of the best products in the marketplace.

My application is called MyCRM and is more of a must-have features, as opposed to what you can find in Sugar or Salesforce. It is in use by several small companies (a few retail stores also) for sales and quota tracking, contact management, including VOIP. It was originally intended for stores who only had one or two computers connect to the web, one or 2 phone lines and maybe a separate fax line. They could not afford a complete infrastructure. The application has grown since to offer many nodes located anywhere around the world for e-mailing and faxing. It is NOT supported on any WINDOWS platform, and will not be. It is currently running on Fedora, Ubuntu and Debian-based distros. I have just completed a demonstration site which will be up in May and I intend to make the application generally available in RPM and Tarball versions at the same time, possibly on SourceForge. There's my sales job...

***Firewing1*** · #7 2nd April 2007, 04:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RupertPupkin

I don't contribute to any "major" projects, but I have started 3 small projects of my own, as the sole coder:

Same here - I'd love to do kernel stuff, but I'm in the process of learning C/C++ so without that I can't do much... For now, I've made the open source applications (also GPL

) that are hosted on diffingo.com... I haven't bothered to register with freshmeat / sourceforge yet...

Actually sorta random, I was just about to start a thread concerning OLPC and if anyone wanted to start a project with me...

Edit: More randomness, I do this... way to too much.... eh?

Firewing1

Coolerthanyou · #8 2nd April 2007, 07:57 AM

I'm not really a skilled programmer, so even if I contributed code I doubt it wouldn't be significant or useful. I've worked on themes and icons, that's it. I do want to work with 3d and see if I can one day make a simple fighting game. Though Blender is a cumbersome thing compared to the 3d stuff I've used in the past. I guess I'm just going to have to learn. And as far as writing the program for such a thing, well that's a whole other thing which I doubt I'd be able to pull off by myself.

Greywhind · #9 31st March 2007, 01:00 AM

I haven't contributed to any large open-source projects yet either, but I have begun my own open-source game, StressFracture (http://stressfracture.sourceforge.net).

tabish121 · #10 2nd April 2007, 05:26 PM

I'm one the developers on Apache's ActiveMQ JMS Broker, I helped write the CPP ActiveMQ client, as well as tweak the Broker code and DotNet client.

As far as advice, I'd say, don't be afraid to jump in and help. Most Open Source teams are always looking for help, and will usually be open to use whatever skills you have to contribute. The best way to get started is to sign up on the projects mailling list and start learning about it. Dig into the code and get a feel for how it works, answer questions when you can, and don't forget to use your manners.

Look through the projects issues database and try and tackle one, or ask someone on the team where they could use some assistance and dig in.

Flounder · #11 2nd April 2007, 07:43 PM

I've come up with my own project, not that it accomplishes much. I'm still learning C like some of the others here so my project isn't much. It's located here and it simply tests you on your basic math. I'd love to help with other projects but anything but my own code I have trouble reading.

tabish121 · #12 2nd April 2007, 09:59 PM

The best way to learn is to dive in. Reading and understanding code is a skill like any other, the more you use it, the better you get at it. Find something you'd like to help with, get the code play around, and ask questions, most oss developers are happy to help if they can.

A good way to start is to find a project and start by writing some unit tests, or creating some new documentation, you'll learn a lot.