On Feb 12, 2014, at 8:30 AM, Julie Pichon <jpic...@redhat.com> wrote:
> Hi folks, > > Stefano's post on how to make contributions to OpenStack easier [1] > finally stirred me into writing about something that vkmc and myself > have been doing on the side for a few months to help new contributors > to get involved. > > Some of you may be aware of OpenHatch [2], a non-profit dedicated to > helping newcomers get started in open-source. About 6 months ago we > created a project page for Horizon [3], filled in a few high level > details, set ourselves up as mentors. Since then people have been > expressing interest in the project and a number of them got a patch > submitted and approved, a couple are sticking around (often helping out > with bug triaging, as confirming new bugs is one of the few tasks one > can help out with when only having limited time). > > I can definitely sympathise with the comment in Stefano's article that > there are not enough easy tasks / simple issues for newcomers. There's > a lot to learn already when you're starting out (git, gerrit, python, > devstack, ...) and simple bugs are so hard to find - something that > will take a few minutes to an existing contributor will take much > longer for someone who's still figuring out where to get the code > from. Unfortunately it's not uncommon for existing contributors to take > on tasks marked as "low-hanging-fruit" because it's only 5 minutes (I > can understand this coming up to an RC but otherwise low-hanging-fruits > are often low priority nits that could wait a little bit longer). In > Horizon the low-hanging-fruits definitely get snatched up quickly and I > try to keep a list of typos or other low impact, trivial bugs that > would make good first tasks for people reaching out via OpenHatch. > > OpenHatch doesn't spam, you get one email a week if one or more people > indicated they want to help. The initial effort is not time-consuming, > following OpenHatch's advice [4] you can refine a nice "initial > contact" email that helps you get people started and understand what > they are interested in quickly. I don't find the time commitment to be > too much so far, and it's incredibly gratifying to see someone > submitting their first patch after you answered a couple of questions > or helped resolve a hairy git issue. I'm happy to chat about it more, > if you're curious or have any questions. > > In any case if you'd like to attract more contributors to your project, > and/or help newcomers get started in open-source, consider adding your > project to OpenHatch too! > > Cheers, > > Julie > +10 There’s been quite a bit of talk about this - but not necessarily on the dev list. I think openhatch is great - mentorship programs in general go a *long* way to help raise up and gain new people. Core Python has had this issue for awhile, and many other large OSS projects continue to suffer from it (“barrier to entry too high”). Some random thoughts: I’d like to see something like Solum’s Contributing page: https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Solum/Contributing Expanded a little and potentially be the recommended “intro to contribution” guide - https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/How_To_Contribute is good, but a more accessible version goes a long way. You want to show them how easy / fast it is, not all of the options at once. I think this is somewhere where python-core has gotten better at with: http://docs.python.org/devguide/ It’s not perfect, but it errors on “time to submission/fix" > [1] http://opensource.com/business/14/2/analyzing-contributions-to-openstack > [2] http://openhatch.org/ > [3] http://openhatch.org/+projects/OpenStack%20dashboard%20%28Horizon%29 > [4] https://openhatch.org/wiki/Contacting_new_contributors > > _______________________________________________ > OpenStack-dev mailing list > OpenStack-dev@lists.openstack.org > http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev _______________________________________________ OpenStack-dev mailing list OpenStack-dev@lists.openstack.org http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
