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1. Search for "good-first-issue" tags on GitHub - pick an issue on a project that interests you.
2. Comment on the issue and engage with the community to work out the best way to implement the fix for this issue.
3. You can't mess up the project. You wont get commit access, you'll submit a pull request and it'll only be accepted after its reviewed and ok'd by other contributors.
4. Do the above a few times for different projects, and you'll get much better at understanding new codebases, as well as navigating and using GitHub's interface. -
I found that I mostly contribute to the projects that I use, and smaller ones at that, as these are the projects that thrive on any of the help they get. So when you give it, they'll very often take it(as long as it's good code, duh).
Also, GitHub is git with an online interface and issue tracking, so knowing git (even just the basics) is a must. Otherwise there isn't much to it, either you add new features or fix what's broken.
Okay before you read on this is a stupid question!
So the most common response I get when I ask for advice is contribute to open source projects but theres some problems.
> I dont know how to find projects on github or anywhere
> I dont know how or where to start when I actually find a project
> I'm way too intimidated by huge projects like linux, browsers, etc
> I don't know what to add
> I'm too afraid of messing up the project
> my understanding of github its self is very limited and I'm not good at using it. (Which isnt a problem for the open source development but since I'd be using github it is a problem)
Theres always smaller problems too but those should sum it up
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