Ask HN: Looking for a cool open source project to work on. Suggestions, please?

4 points·jianxioy··5 comments

Hi all, I'm looking to work on a fun open source project and would like some recommendations. Thanks!

Hard to tell what you think 'cool' is. Unlikely, though for me it was cool, is ReactOS.

Its a full, from the ground up operating system that is meant to be binary compatible Windows XP.

I worked on it for 3 years, and I can tell you that even though the group of active developers is small, the people are great and there is a large of amount of people watching you (future users?). I thought it was cool because it is huge (code and complexity wise), there is a wide range of things to do, and it can teach you so much. I think I learned more working on this project for 3 years then I did from getting my degree at top university. Just remember, it will never bring you fame or fortune, what I learned took me to a job at Microsoft and now at a startup with a lot of traction.

ReactOS is pretty cool. For a while I started and ran a community newsletter for ReactOS, mostly by browsing through the mailing list and picking out interesting developments. Unfortunately I was in HS at the time and didn't have time to keep it running.

Out of curiosity, do you think the ReactOS team will keep developing as Windows XP gets left behind in the coming years?

Work on whatever you actually use.

Apache Hadoop :)

How about any of mine? http://github.com/dylanjs1030

I've got a range of different things there. Of them, I think Gun.io's LightWrite is a fairly practical project.

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