Contributing to open source projects
My limited experience of contributing to open source projects as a technical writer has been a lot of fun so far.
I’d really recommend it if you’re a technical writer and you want to get some experience. The open source work I’ve done particularly helped me get to grips with Git and GitHub. I also met (virtually) lots of people and learnt about other projects and technologies.
As a technical writer, there are many ways to get into contributing to open source, here are just a few examples of possible ways in:
- Google’s Season of Docs program.
- Hacktoberfest
- Look for projects labelled
good first issueorhelp wanted, specifically in documentation repositories on GitHub.
It’s worthwhile focussing on projects or technologies that you’re either already familiar with because you’ve worked on them previously, or as part of your day job. Or, they could just be technologies or projects you’re really keen to learn more about and you’ve done some initial research.
Here are a couple of resources that I found helped me learn more about the world of open source:
- Increment Magazine open source issue - online version of the magazine published by Stripe Press
- Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software - fantastic book by Nadia Eghbal, also published by Stripe Press
Finally, here are some open source projects I’ve contributed to: