Hey everyone!!! This is the Newcomer's Guide to get you Up To Speed on the exciting World of OpenSource.

What is NITKOSG?

NIT Kurukshetra Open Source Group, abbreviated as NITKOSG, is an initiative taken up by the students of NIT Kurukshetra who want to promote and create awareness about Open Source Contributions. Before contributing to open source projects, one needs to know what open source is...

What is Open Source?

Open Source refers to any program whose source code is openly available and free to use and modify as the user feels like or the developer seems fit. These programs usually depend on the Open Source Contributions for their further development.

What are Open Source Contributions?

Open Source Contributions are the contributions or developments that a developer does to these Open Source Programs in order to help advance the project, while learning and growing along the process.

Why contribute to Open Source?

Contributing to open source can be a rewarding way to learn, and build experience in just about any skill you can imagine. Why do people contribute to open source? Plenty of reasons!

• Improve existing skills

  Whether it’s coding, user interface design, graphic design, writing, or organizing, if you’re looking for practice, you can always find some work in some open source project.

• Meet people who are interested in similar things

  Open source projects have warm and welcoming communities who keep you motivated. Many people form lifelong friendships through their participation in open source - whether it’s running into each other at a conference or late night online chats about burritos.

• Find mentors and teach others

  Working with others on a shared project means you’ll have to explain how you do things, as well as ask other people for help. The acts of learning and teaching can be a fulfilling activity for everyone involved.

• Build public artifacts that help you grow a reputation (and a career)

  By definition, all of your open source work is public, which means you get free examples to take anywhere as a demonstration of what you can do.

• Learn people skills

  Open source offers opportunities to practice leadership and management skills, such as resolving conflicts, organizing teams of people, and prioritizing work.

• It’s empowering to be able to make changes - even small ones

  You don’t have to become a lifelong contributor to enjoy participating in open source. Have you ever seen a typo on a website, and wished someone would fix it? On an open source project, you can do just that. Open source helps people feel agency over their lives and how they experience the world, and that in itself is gratifying.

What it actually means to "Contribute"?

A common misconception about contributing to open source is that you need to contribute code.

In fact, it’s often the other parts of a project that are most neglected or overlooked.

Do you like planning events? Do you like to design? Do you like to write? Do you like organizing? Do you like to code? Do you like helping people? Do you like helping others code? Whatever you like doing do so. Just find a project and start contributing.

How to look for a project to start contributing to?

To help you with this very important step NITKOSG has come up with an idea of a project on which we have a dedicated core development team that has begun working on that. Once we have completed the initial version we will open it for Open Source Contribution to give all of a platform to enter this field. We will be coming up with various new projects as soon as possible and the links to those projects will be provided below.

How to get Started?

Every Open Source Project or Community is different. Getting started with a new Open Source Project may seem a little tricky. This project may have a completely different vocabulary, norms and communication styles than the one you are accustomed to. So, to get the best start with the project, here is a checklist :

• Try to run the program yourself

  Trying to run the program yourself helps you to understand every feature of the application. This may also reveal some problems that might be the base of your first contribution. Related resources :

  • README

• Analyze the working of the code

  People usually have this misconception that before contributing to a project, they need to be fully aware of what every piece of code does. This thought is very unrealistic as you cannot hope to understand the entire project within a month, which has taken years to develop. So what should you do? Well, keep this in your mind that you do not need to understand the entire code - try to understand only the part that you plan to work with.

• Set up the Program Environment

  Once you are completely aware with the part that you plan to work with, setup the environment for development. You can read the README or CONTRIBUTING file to figure out how to set up the environment.

• Start changing the Code

  The next step is to start changing the code as required for the improvements you want to implement.

• Create a Pull Request

  Once the changes are complete and ready to be integrated, create a Pull Request and ask the Community to review the changes. Once the changes are accepted, your contribution is finally complete.

Even if your changes are not accepted, it is very important to interact with the community, because one of the biggest advantages of Open Source is learning and growing with the community.