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Honey Bhardwaj
Honey Bhardwaj

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Introduction to Opensource

" The power of Open Source is the power of the people.The People rule. ~Philippe Kahn "
The term opensource is often referred to anything that is freely available to modify or innovate. There are alot of software and projects that termed opensource or in other words the souce code of those projects or software is freely available, They could either modify those or suggest any changes which they like. Some examples of opensource softwares that are very popular are VLC media player , Libra office , firefox and many more. The most fasinating thing about these opensource project is that these project are open for contribution i.e. anyone can devote their skills and effors in the development of the project.


Ways to Contribute in any opensource project



There are alot of things that you could do to start your journey in open source.you can start contributing by :

  • Creating your own opensource projects.
  • Contributing to existing opensource project.

As a beginner, there are certain prerequisites that one should have before starting to contribute such as

  • You should be familiar with some programming language or some technology.
  • basic knowledge of Git and Github.
  • Fundamentals should be clear for your skill.

Once you know everything mentioned above you are ready to go.It is not necessary that one should know programming language since opensource is something that is open to everyone irrespective of whether the person belongs from a technical background or not. You could start with creating some issues, contributing to documentation of project, managing the analysis tools for project, you can also create banners and images for the project or some logo. So in short every skill is welcomed in opensource.


Why to Contribute to opensource softwares

There are many reasons for contributing to open source softwares some of which are:

  • The ability to understand code and write maintainable clean codes.
  • Opportunity to work in a community of like minded people from all over the world.
  • High learning curve through the ability to apply what you have learned on realtime projects.
  • Recognition of work that you have done in the project.
  • The Ability to work remotely in an organization.
  • Helps to maintain a network among the community. meme

OpenSource Events

There are alot of beginner friendly and intermediate events that help you to gain some comfort with opensource development.They would help you to gain the necessary skills.
some of which are:

  • Girlscript summer of code
  • Hacktoberfest
  • Google summer of code
  • Google summer of Docs
  • Fossasia codeheat
  • 24 pull request
  • script winter of code
    Do share Your feedback with me in comments.You can connect with me on linkedin Github

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