Ask HN: What makes you contribute to small open source projects?

3•chrilleweb•1mo ago

Hi HN,

I’ve been curious about this as I recently started maintaining my open source project.

I’m trying to understand what actually makes people decide to contribute to projects in particular — not the big, well-known ones.

For context: I’ve tried to do the “obvious” things — writing a clear README, keeping the scope focused, adding tests and CI, and labeling a few issues as beginner-friendly.

Still, it feels like there’s a big gap between using an open source tool and taking the step to contribute.

I’ve also tried posting about it here, but it feels like people don’t really like self-promotion — or maybe I’m just doing it wrong.

Have you worked on open source projects before? And how did you find the project you contributed to?

Comments

cpburns2009•1mo ago

My contributions tend to be reproducible bug reports, fixing typos in documentation, and the rare bug fix. I submit them usually because I'm actively trying to use a library or tool for a problem I have. I rarely try fixing a bug because I really don't want to waste a lot of time learning each project's testing framework. And I don't really have time to become a regular contributor to the many projects that would interest me.

gus_massa•1mo ago

The most usual case, is to send contributions to projects you use. So you need users. Once you get users, you may get bug reports and perhaps contributors.

The title of your first post is good "CLI tool that scans your codebase for environment variable issues". The other look like fake questions, so people get angry and flag your post. Also, posting the same project every day will make people angry and flag your post.

A good strategy is to write an interesting post about a problem you solved with your project or a problem you solved while doing your project. But it must be interesting. What is your most interesting technical anecdote?

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