Where to go to browse for open source projects to work on?

Question

I've decided to have a look around for open source projects that need a hand and lend a bit of time to one or two. One question though, is there a site(s) that lists current open source projects that are looking for developers and is there anywhere I could for example filter open source projects by language/technology/etc.

What I'm after is a way of getting an overview of many open source projects so I can make a decision whether they interest me or not.

Ideas where to find such information?

Answer 1

Source Forge is a great place to start.

Answer 2

Check out Freshmeat for an open source directory of sorts. Other than that, I'd recommend just browsing around the web on topics you are interested in to see what's out there.

Answer 3

Check out CodePlex as well.

Answer 4

Well, I would just head over to Sourceforge, find a project that interests you and start going through their bug list to help fix stuff. Sourceforge can filter out the languages or topics you're not interested in.

Answer 5

I like scanning through interesting projects on GitHub, forking them if I think they're interesting and if I feel I can contribute, go right ahead! I haven't contributed to anything yet, but it all seems very easy and inviting.

Answer 6

The best: http://code.google.com/ and Sourceforge

Answer 7

The three major ones:

SourceForge

CodePlex

Google Code

Answer 8

While you're probably not interested in participating in it yourself, the Google Summer of Code has a list of projects that are participating. A project participating generally means that it wants more contributors, it has mentors who are willing to help new contributors, and it has an ideas list with tasks that are good for someone just getting started on the code base (though they are generally designed to be a full time, summer long project, they do range in scope).

Looking through this list can definitely help you find things to do more easily than trawling through every open source project available on SourceForge, Google Code, or GitHub (though GitHub is nice because you can so easily fork, hack away with as many patches and throwaway branches as you need, and then request that your code be merged in once its done).

Answer 9

Ohloh is a great repository of repositories, indexing many projects.

Answer 10

I would recommend choosing a piece of software that you like and use, and finding a way to contribute to that. Specifically, fix an annoyance or bug that you have noticed. If you don't see any annoyances or bugs, look for the project's bug tracker. This way it's a project you're invested in, and you are already at least partially up to speed on how the code works from an end-user perspective.

Answer 11

Craigslist.com is a good place to contribute your skills too... I know that you wont find your open source projects at craigslist, but hey, someone could use your technical skills for free.... if you have time to spare why not let that someone benefit from it...