Is there anywhere that lists open source projects looking for contributors?

Question

I'd be interested in contributing to an open source project, but don't have a clue where I could find a project thats looking for people. Is there a site that lists open ones and what they're looking for etc? I'd be particularily interested in java projects

Answer 1

The biggest open-source site is sourceforge.net (mostly *nix). Growing in popularity (and more .NET oriented) is CodePlex

Answer 2

Usually theres is a section called "help wanted" in most open source projects.

Look for that section. Let me see if I can get some for you.

Here are some: http://sourceforge.net/people/

Others here:

http://code.google.com/hosting/search?q=help+wanted

Answer 3

While this question is different, the answer is the same.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/129438/what-is-a-good-project-to-work-on-to-learn-modern-patterns-and-practices

Find a community service organization that needs help.

Answer 4

Rather than search for projects that need help, I would find a project that you are interested in and use, then check their issues/bug database, find a bug, fix it and submit a patch. Repeat until the team gets to know you, then ask to join.

If you just pick some random project that needs help, you are probably not going to stick with it for long. You need to be interested in the project you are contributing to and the best way to maintain your interest is if you actually use the software you are working on.

Answer 5

Most open source projects need some kind of help, so the odds are that your preferred open source application is one of them. Instead of going looking for some random project that needs help, just take some piece of code that you use frequently and offer to help. Try improving the docs that you had difficulty with when you were a newbie, registering and discussing something that bugs you, going to the issue tracker and working on some bug that bothers you or asking in the mailing list what you could help with.

Do the usual open source thing and scratch your own itch. You'll be a much better contributor on a project that you care about than you'll be on some random project that you happen to pick on the street.