Getting involved in an open source project is a great way to build your skills as a developer, especially for those looking to have some practical experience they can show to prospective employers. OSS Port is an open source repository of projects that are actively looking for contributors that can make it easier to find a project and get started.
It currently includes over 100 projects and each project has tags that can make it easier for developers looking to contribute to find an appropriate project. For example, there are tags for the language(s) the project is written in, whether it is “first timer friendly,” and what sort of technology focus the project has, such as InfoSec, automation, or web frameworks. When searching for projects, developers will be able to filter down by tags to narrow down their search.
Tags can also include what type of skillset a project is in need of, meaning that it is useful for those looking to contribute things other than code, such as testing, code reviews, and documentation.
On the other side of the open source equations, it also helps maintainers make the process of finding contributors easier. Anyone can add a project to the repository, and according to the documentation it only takes about 10 minutes to get a project added.
Maintainers can also provide contributors with best practices, support guidance, and visual walkthroughs of the codebase through CodeSee Maps (CodeSee is the company that created OSS Port).
“Our onboarding can be effectively asynchronous using CodeSee,” said Taylor Fairbank, co-founder of Distribute Aid, one of the projects that is listed on OSS Port. “Really, it allows us to focus on our key cause: coordinating aid shipments for refugees, disaster responses, and other humanitarian causes around the world. Transporting aid, globally, is challenging enough. With CodeSee, we can develop faster. Our code reviews are cleaner, because all of the data is right there, linked to or embedded in a pull request.”
More information is available here.
