Welcome
Probably it is good to start with the introduction and then how I paved my way to the first opensource contribution, What are the setbacks & challanges I faced during this period and how one can overcome all these and start.
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Adapt, Improvise and Overcome.
Introduction
I graduated in 2021 and landed my first job as a software engineer. After working there for a year and a half, I realized that the work had become monotonous, which led me to question my career path. However, my curiosity led me to explore different avenues, and that’s when I discovered Open Source Software (OSS).
Motivation
Open source software (OSS) is software that is freely available to the public and can be modified and distributed by anyone. It is created by a community of developers who collaborate to build software that is open, transparent, and accessible to everyone. Contributing to OSS can be a rewarding experience, both personally and professionally. In this blog post, I would like to share my experience of making my first contribution to an OSS project.
I have always been interested in software development and have been using OSS for many years. However, I never contributed to an OSS project before. I was always hesitant, thinking that my skills were not good enough, or that my contributions would not be useful. But one day, I decided to take the plunge and find an OSS project to contribute to.
First Pull Request
I started by looking for projects that I use regularly and that I could contribute to. I also wanted to find a project that had good documentation, a welcoming community, and a clear contribution process. After some research, I found a project that met some of these criteria but it is better if you find projects early on which has all these criteria getting matched.
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"Dream big, start small, but most of all, start." - Simon Sinek
The project was a Eclipse/ditto that is a IoT middleware. I noticed that there was a small feature that needed community contribution, so I decided to claim it. I followed the project’s contribution guidelines and submitted a pull request with my changes.
To my surprise, the project maintainers responded quickly and were very welcoming. They reviewed my code, provided feedback, and helped me make my contribution better. After a few rounds of review, my contribution was accepted and merged into the main codebase.
Conclusion
It was a great feeling to see my code being used by others and to know that I had contributed to an OSS project. It was also a great learning experience. I learned how to work with Git, how to write good code, and how to work with a team of developers. I also learned that contributing to OSS is not as intimidating as it seems. It is a collaborative process, and everyone is welcome to contribute, regardless of their skill level.
In conclusion, my first contribution to an OSS project was a great experience. It was rewarding, educational, and gave me a sense of belonging to a community of developers. I encourage everyone to contribute to an OSS project. It doesn’t matter how small or big your contribution is, it will be appreciated by the community, and you will learn a lot in the process.