Hi everyone, 👋

I am relatively new to this space, but have been following the dev.to blogs for some time and have really enjoyed reading the intro for beginners on contributing to open source. I, like many others, feel passionate about the collective power of open source collaboration, especially in areas where we are not speaking simply about code-contributions. I am part of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOTOSM) - you can see some of my posts about the collective hot_tech blogs.

In this blog I want to get your feedback on one question: how might we collectively improve the open source contributor journey for newcomers?

Why contribute to Open Source? What are the different ways to contribute? 💭 🚀

The why: there are so many reasons that have been captured in multiple blogs on this platform. But why not briefly flag them again and those more specific to the OpenStreetMap community: you meet new people and build your network, you connect with staff and community members, you get new experience, you learn new skills in developing open geospatial humanitarian tech and build your portfolio/ CV, and many more.

The What: I want to start with the non-code contributions. You can be an open source contributor by being an advocate at events about open geospatial tools, by testing and improving the user experience, by improving documentation and helping translate the different open source tools. All of the above does not require you to be a developer. And of course you can report bugs, raise issues and help with PRs. The collective power is having people with different knowledge and experience contributing to the same project. As an example, HOT is taking part in Outreachy internship round (May- August) and the project we submitted for contribution was focusing on documentation (non-code contributions). You can see on Github the amount of enthusiasm and contributions from potential applicants. I was personally very inspired by all applicants! :)

How to contribute to HOTOSM open source project? 💻

Since joining HOTOSM I have had quite a few 1:1 chats people interested to contribute to open source and the first questions I get asked is HOW and WHERE do I start? My approach has been to first understand what their skills and interests and then direct people to the correct place. I have guided people through these steps:

1. Start by registering to Github (if you don't yet have an account):
2. Look at the pinned repositories on Github
3. Read through the contributor guidelines: do they help you understand how to contribute?
4. Look for "good-first" issues

I have now created a Github Overview Page with these guidelines and would love to get feedback on it.

We also run monthly HOT Open Tech and Innovation Working Group sessions- an open space to connect, contribute, collaborate, innovate and share ideas for geospatial tech for humanitarian purposes! Register here.

You feedback! 🤝

I'd love to hear from you on what we can do better to improve your contributor journey. What kind of additional guides will be helpful? If you have never heard of HOTOSM and first time landing on our Github Overview Page, then that will be a great test to see whether the guidance we have provided is useful.

Any ideas are welcome! I would love to hear from more women and people based in HOT's priority countries who have an interest in contributing.