For developers or programmers who are also avid bloggers, Open Live Writer is something that will make it less of a hassle to write, preview and post to your blog by enabling users to author, edit and publish the blog posts using an open-source fork of Windows Live Writer code.

To contribute to the code, first fork the repo and clone locally, then create a specific topic branch, then add a feature or fix a bug. Then send a pull request to “spread the fun,” as their GitHub page says. Open Live Writer uses the MIT License and is supported by the .NET Foundation.

Live Writer was created by a small team of engineers, including J.J. Allaire, Joe Cheng, Charles Teague, and Spike Washburn. In 2006, Microsoft acquired the team and merged it with the Spaces team. The team grew, shipped releases, and after another engineer named Becky Pezely joined, it became Live Writer.

“A few employees at Microsoft took an interest in reviving Live Writer as an open-source project in their spare time,” their GitHub page said. “By January 2015, a group of about a half-dozen engineers interested in spending some of their volunteer time to help release an updated version of Live Writer had found each other and began work on getting this open-source fork of Live Writer formed and ready to ship.”

Open Live Writer encourages open-source contributors to get involved by:
• Writing code
• Testing early builds
• Authoring or editing documentation
• Having feature definition/product management
• Using marketing and public relations
• Using digital media
• Building a community
• Drawing on user support

Top 5 projects trending on GitHub
#1. Swift: The Swift programming language.

#2. FreeCodeCamp: Open-source codebase and curriculum for learning to code and help nonprofits. Almost a regular on our list.

#3. Swift Package Manager: The package manager for the Swift programming language.

#4. Awesome Interviews: An awesome curated list of lists of interview questions. Contributing welcome!

#5. Let’s Encrypt: This repo is an ACME client that can obtain certs and extensibly update server configurations.