Background
It was August 2022 and I was a freshman at that time. I was just getting into the world of tech. I had heard some of the tech buzzwords and jargons previously from various social media sources like blogs, some YouTube videos, Twitter (now X), and was a bit aware of whatâs going on in tech space.
I came across the term âopen sourceâ when a video was recommended to me by YouTube. After watching that video, I had a vague understanding of what the term stood for.
I became curious about it.
I did extensive Google search about the topic, read blogs, articles, etc. Then I looked at the Linux codebase on GitHub and saw it live in front of my eyes. I read and understood (although a little bit) how the programs were written and how the different aspects of the software were working together to make the system usable.
Getting Started
I continued reading and discovering various repositories on GitHub for quite a while and was searching for some âgood first issueâ to contribute. I had opened some PRs for practice and experience previously, and had a rough idea how to work on issues.
In December 2022, I came across an issue of updating images on one of the AsyncAPIâs core repository. I asked if I could contribute to it and Lukasz said that I could. I took the responsibility of the issue and successfully resolved it.
That was my first proper contribution to a large scale project.
Then I got invited to join their Slack and observed few things:
- Async communication was taking place in a large organization of that scale.
- People of different skill-sets collaborating with each other.
- How they were brainstorming about an issue together (sometimes there would be massive discussion threads of it!)
- Collaboration on an issue was taking place, people of different area expertise chiming in with their insights and suggestions/critiques.
- Peer reviews were being done on the pull request and were, in fact, encouraged stating âit doesnât hurt to have an extra pair of eyesâ.
- Documentation was being discussed and planned out, updating out-dated content.
- Live community events and live streams to discuss various topics concerning the well-being of community and the product.
I majorly observed and learned these things over the span of Jan, 2023 - Jun, 2023. It gave me a new perspective about various aspects of open source and how large scale projects are being managed.
The Turning Point
I genuinely liked these things and decided to contribute more. I picked up an issue in Jul, 2023 which was above my âthenâ skill level and I consider it as my turning point.
I worked diligently on it through this PR.
Many people came to help and collaborate and it was an awesome experience for sure! The PR ran pretty long (about 4 months). It was merged after rigorous testing and much trial and error. When it merged, I was very much happy. I never thought I could solve it but with collaboration even a newbie like me could solve the issue. It was such a great feeling to be honest.
That issue alone gave me a massive confidence boost in my abilities to get things done. It led me to take up new and challenging issues that the older version of myself would have given up on the first sight. It taught me to at least give things a chance before self-rejecting it myself.
Further Voyage
I kept contributing to the various repositories under AsyncAPI through reviewing code, documentations, nudging people for resources, helping a few beginners to get started with contributing to the project. These all experiences over the past few years has made me a more avid contributor.
Some of my humble brags can be found here
Lastly, a key thought in the open source ecosystem which Iâm bullish on is:
âCollaboration Over Competitionâ
I keep this line at the back of my mind for everything in life nowadays.
Thatâs all for this one folks. See you in the next one.
Happy Contributing!