Contributing to open source had always been one of the things I wanted to do, but didn't know how to do it and also didn't know where to start from.
Open source is a term that originally referred to open source software (OSS). Open source software is code that is designed to be publicly accessible—anyone can see, modify, and distribute the code as they see fit.
How it all started
Last month the Open Source Community in Africa known as OSCA, started a challenge to help developers, designers and writers, contribute more to open source projects. At first, it was not really easy getting the right motivation to contribute to Open Source because imposter syndrome steps in and you look through all the issues on Github and you just close the tab, because in your head, you feel you can't make an impact.
When I saw the challenge on twitter, I signed up and forgot about it, but then the community started sending emails and held a webinar to encourage us and also show us the benefits of contributing to OSS.
How I Got A Project to Contribute To
I went on google and typed "Open source projects to contribute to". Lo and behold, I saw a Github link that curated a list of open source projects in any programming language of your choice. I went down to PHP and saw PHPMYADMIN. PHPMYADMIN is a software I use daily because I work as a Backend Engineer and I use it to manage my Database daily. I actually saw so many Issues and deciding which one to pick was another issue 😂😂. So many issues needed help, so many issues were urgent but my heart took me to a particular one.
How I got my PR merged
In every OSS, there is always someone willing to help guide you, from setting up the project on your localhost to helping you when you are stuck. It was a wonderful experience and still is a wonderful experience. I made sure I understood the issue before I started working on it and after fixing it, I made a PR and it got merged.
What I learnt from this
It wasn't easy trying to understand a project no one explained how every thing was connected at first but giving up was not an option, I'm currently working on a new feature to add to the software and this is more challenging but I know I can achieve this. I also met William, a very good PHP developer and an amazing friend. To crown it all, I am now part of the Open Source Community 🎉🎉🎉.