Ask HN: What makes an open source project something you want to contribute to? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What makes an open source project something you want to contribute to?

Many folks here have popular, actively contributed to repositories and actively contribute to open source.

What encourages you to take time out of your day to contribute to an open source project?

What do you think encourages others to?

I’ve seen popular projects that have 1-2 contributors, and others (similarly popular) with dozens or more. What encourages that active community?

How do you approach fostering a culture of contribution for a project? What makes you feel welcome to contribute?

A huge list of issues that people can take and tackle? A really friendly readme? Discord channel?

Am I asking the right questions?

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First, I want to contribute to a project, if I am using it actively and I ran into an issue or found out about a crucial one from another user.

Then I would look for a ticket tracker system where I can leave a detailed description of the problem.

Only after that I would look into the code base and what I look for are: 1. Used technologies. For example, I will not learn qt and C++ to fix something in KDE, because I have no interest in learning them. 2. License. I don't mind MIT, GPL, or any sensible option just please don't have a needlessly complex custom one. 3. Clear guidelines about where to and how to contribute.

> Am I asking the right questions?

I think so.

Although I used to make substantive contributions to several OSS projects, I've pretty much stopped with all of them as of a couple of years ago.

The reason I did this was largely because of the communities around them. Although I'm sure that not all OSS projects are like this, the level of unpleasantness coming from those communities became more than I was willing to put up with and soured me somewhat on the OSS movement in general.

So, personally, I want to see two things before I'd be willing to contribute to a project again: being technically interesting and being socially pleasant (or at least not unpleasant).

Thanks for the comment! By socially unpleasant - like toxic personalities? Where did you see it, GitHub or Discord? From the maintainer(s) or the other contributors / users?

Not so much toxic individuals as unpleasant (antagonistic) community norms, particularly towards newcomers. I don't think it's related to any particular communications channel, it's more of a cultural thing.

Understand that I'm not saying such communities are actually bad or wrong in some way, but the tone of them has undergone a strong shift over the past couple of decades.

For me, It's become one that turns what used to be a fun and satisfying activity into one that is an unpleasant drudgery. Others may thrive in the new norms, I don't know. I just know that my life is a happier one if I avoid it now.

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