Why Open Source? What is Open Source?

More than 70% of developers worldwide contribute to open-source. But Why?
Why is everyone interested in contributing to open-source? You will get to know about open-source in this blog, so stay tuned and don’t forget to read this till the end.

What is Open Source?

Before we get started reviewing different open-source projects, let’s first have a know what is open source and why you should consider joining in.

Open source code is code that is made available to the public to not only view and use but also modify and distribute under a permissive license.

As a developer, contributing to open-source can be rewarding and can help you learn, teach others, and grow your skills.

Apart from this, there are plenty other reasons why you should consider contributing to open source, including:

What Is Counted As Contribution In Open Source?

You can contribute in open source projects by not knowing programming too!!
Yes, you heard that right. But how??

You can contribute by fixing the typos, finding styling issues or is there any problem in the responsive layout and much more.

Now here comes the biggest question, how to contribute?
Don’t worry 😊I am here to tell you

You can start your open-source contributing from this repo or you can say I am using this repo as an example to teach you to how to contribute to open source
Repo link: https://github.com/Hero-codes/open-source-guide

I will give you a step-by-step guide on how to contribute:

2. Click on create fork

3. Clone the repo on your local system

Open VSCode and open bash terminal and type this:

git clone <url>

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After this, create a separate branch for contributing

1. You can use : git checkout -b yourBranchName, ex: git checkout -b first-contribution
2. DO NOT use master or main branch to create a Pull Request.

NOTE: Most of the repo’s will have a file of name CONTRIBUTING.md First read that file before committing any changes, because it will have all the setup of the local environment

1. Check the name of the branch on which you are by typing git branch
2. After this, create a file inside the public folder of name your_name.js
3. Add any code of your choice, or you can add this sample code:

// This is an IIFE [Immediate Invoking Function Expression]
(function greet(message) {
    console.log(message)
}("Welcome To Open Source!"));

Type the following commands in your shell:

Add the files to get committed: git add .(.) will add all the files.
Commit your changes: git commit -m "<your message>"
Push your changes: git push -u origin <yourBranchName>

Open your project on GitHub and click on Compare & pull request

Add a title and description and click on Create Pull Request

Create a pull request to branch in this repository, I will add your code if you followed these steps correctly 😉

What to do next?

Continue contributing to open-source, don’t stop.
It is an endless space, where you will learn and make friends.

I am a freelancer & content-writer

Link of my portfolio

Any doubts?
Contact me:
Discord: hero.xyz
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I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it.

Will be back soon with another blog.

Till that time, have a nice day ahead, and always keep smiling. 🙂

Thank You,

Hero