30 Days of FOSS is an initiative by FOSSMEC, the free and open source community of Govt. Model Engineering College to educate the student community about the values of FOSS, why it matters and how together we can utilize it to benefit society.
We are now at the end of week 3 on our 30 Days of FOSS Journey. So far, week 1 and 2 gave us insights on what FOSS is and its basic principles.
Day 15: Version Control and Why it Matters
Version control is a system developed to help developers keep track of their progress. For small projects, we can save different versions of our program in different directories. We can duplicate directories for creating new branches. But with increasing complexity, this can become tedious. Also, think about sharing the project with other people and them contributing. That would be chaos. So version control records the set of changes to a file or set of files over time so that you can recall specific versions later. Developers can create branches instead of using directories. Every change made is committed (made permanent) to history.
One of the most popular tools for version control is Git. Its developed by Linus Torvalds himself. (remember this guy?)
Day 16: Getting Started with GitHub
Okay, so you have installed Git and integrated Git into your projects like a boss. Now, how do you share them to your co-workers or much better… open source it? so that other people can take a look at your code and even contribute. Turns out that there is this website called GitHub which lets you do just that. On GitHub, you can upload your projects and share them with the world.
For those looking to improve their coding skills or to build up their resume and want to get involved in open source projects, one way is to take a look at the open source tools you use and then seek out their GitHub repository and try to contribute to it.
Day 17: Non-Coding Ways to Contribute (Part 1)
Other than coding, designing, improving UI/UX, documentation and reporting bugs are some of the ways you can contribute to open source. Almost every project is in need of people who can design stuff, or help improve their UI/documentation. If you are able to find out any bugs, then it would be a huge help to them if you can report it. This is also a great contribution.
Day 18: Non-Coding Ways to Contribute (Part 2)
Localization (translation), organizing meetups, management, forums and discussions and advocating are some more ways to contribute other than coding.
Day 19: Free/Open Hardware
Open Source is quite broad and there is a section for free and open hardware where the information like design and schematics of the hardware are open sourced. Anyone can use it, learn from it or make it. The Chumby and Cubit are two such examples of open/free hardware.
Day 20: Offline Communities to Leverage
In Open Source, there is something for everyone. If you are the type of person who craves to be in social environments (an extrovert). You can join or attend various offline communities like WordPress (who hold WordCamps), ICFOSS, LinuxChix and college chapters ;).
Day 21: Good values/manners to follow in FOSS projects
Here we are introduced to the few protocols we must abide by to work within a FOSS community.
…and that’s the end of Week 3 and this is FOSSMEC.
May the FOSS be with you!
