Is there a resource that helps people find OSS/FOSS projects to participate in?

Question

Duplicate:

• Is there anywhere that lists open source projects looking for contributors?
• Where to go to browse for open source projects to work on?
• Where to find like-minded FOSS developers?
• Best Open Source Project Hosting Site
• and a gazillion others

I'm looking for a website or on-line resource that I can use to find open source projects looking for volunteers. Ideally the site would have information on the project(s) and the skills or tasks that need doing. Its very time consuming to try and comb through all the different projects out there looking where one might make a meaningful contribution.

Answer 1

http://sourceforge.net/people/

http://savannah.gnu.org/people/

Answer 2

All open-source projects are looking for volunteers. Find one you use often, which is missing a feature you want / doesn't behave how you like, dig into the code, and fix it. It may take a significant amount of time to write your first few patches -- after that should be a bit easier.

You can also search through Ohloh, if you don't regularly use OSS applications, but it will be difficult to find a project that sounds interesting.

Answer 3

You, and all the other people that ask this question, have the wrong approach - most FOSS projects are not looking for volunteers, they are looking for solutions to their problems.

To get involved with a FOSS project:

• identify an area of computing you are really interested in
• download some projects that cover this area and play with them
• choose one project you really like
• for that project, pick an area that could use some work - there will always be many, many such areas
• do some work to improve that area - could be code, could be docs
• submit your improvements to the maintainer - they will probably be be rejected, but don't give up, improve further and submit again
• eventually, the improvements will be accepted

At that point you have "joined" the project. Do it a couple more times and you will probably get commit access to the project RCS and then you can really start doing some damage :-)