The beauty of free software is that you don't need permission to work on someone else's code.
this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2026
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Yeah I think the hard part is finding which code to work on
The one that you already use. Surly there is a bug that has been gnawing at you and you can be the one to fix it.
I just found stapi.co, a star trek api that is not very actively maintained. I had the idea to bring that project up from springboot 3.0.x to springboot 4.x.x (the most recent one). That idea came ti me an hour ago and thusfar I've froked the project,but can't get it to run yet haha
this is why i recommend everyone going into software use linux and open source as much as possible
then you naturally find projects to contribute to
Makes sense. Might be hard though.
Would be a good idea to start by adding what types of programs you are good at, i.e. the projects.
Also, there is no lack of OSS projects to work on. Take for instance:
- LibreOffice
- any of the project you might find on invent.kde.org and bugs.kde.org
- Blender
For paid work though, it becomes harder. You need to be good at advertising yourself correctly to the correct client and I (as someone who failed to advertise myself) am not the correct person to give suggestions on that.
What are you looking to do? Front end? Backend? Complex? Crud? Graphics? Audio? Iot? Plc?
Just looked in up and plc sounds interesting along with graphics, are you contributing to any repos?
All my experience with plc programming was done professionally with systems way outside the common person budget(for example for one of them just the software to connect to it was 5k per year). I know there are cheaper alternatives but don't have experience with them.
Maybe backend and complex, I'm unfamiliar with lot and plc, but audio sounds interesting aswell
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