DEV Community

Cover image for What is Open Source and how to get started?
Avneesh Agarwal for ByteSlash

Posted on • Edited on • Originally published at blog.avneesh.tech

9 3

What is Open Source and how to get started?

What is Open Source?

Open source is a commonly used term for the code which is publically accessible and people can see, edit, and share the data. In open-source projects, developers from all around the world can contribute to the project and make it better.

Benefits of Open Source

  • Lower cost
  • Higher quality software and code
  • Secure as code is public
  • Flexible
  • Faster development

Cons of Open Source

  • Needs maintenance
  • Hidden costs
  • Support
  • User friendly

Getting Started

Getting started with open source as a maintainer

To get started with open source as a maintainer, you need to do the following steps

  • Build a project
  • Add it as a public repo to GitHub, GitLab, or BitBucket.
  • Add some docs on what it is and how to contribute
  • Add a license to your repo
  • Add some issues in the issues section (if you have any)
  • Let everyone know about it (if no one knows about it then no one will be able to contribute :P)

Getting started as a contributor

  • Find a repo you want to contribute to
  • Add the features or bug fixes
  • Make a pull request
  • Wait for your code to be merged

The main trouble for every beginner while starting to contribute is finding repositories.
So here are some useful articles-

If you were ever thinking of contributing to open source, now is the perfect time to start 😉

Useful links

Open Source Initiative

All socials

AWS GenAI LIVE image

How is generative AI increasing efficiency?

Join AWS GenAI LIVE! to find out how gen AI is reshaping productivity, streamlining processes, and driving innovation.

Learn more

Top comments (0)

A Workflow Copilot. Tailored to You.

Pieces.app image

Our desktop app, with its intelligent copilot, streamlines coding by generating snippets, extracting code from screenshots, and accelerating problem-solving.

Read the docs

👋 Kindness is contagious

Please leave a ❤️ or a friendly comment on this post if you found it helpful!

Okay