[techtalk] Open Source Projects

[Laurel Fan]

If you don't have anything really specific, you probably want to
contribute to an existing project.

First, find something that you'd be interested in working on, such as
a program you use or a project working on something that interests
you.  http://www.sourceforge.net is a good place to look for early
stage projects.

Second, get a feel for what the project is like, what they're working
on at the moment, etc.  Check out TODO lists (either on the web site
or in file included with the source distribution).  Read the developer
mailing list.  Take a look at the code to see if the style and quality
is something you want to work with.

Once you've picked something, join the developer mailing list, and
send a message to briefly introduce yourself and tell them what you'd
like to work on.

Make sure you know how to use cvs, patch, etc.

(if you're interested in working on multiplayer online roleplaying
games, the project I occasionally work on, Worldforge (site at
http://www.worldforge.org) is always looking for people to work on a
bunch of different types of things)