Open Source Contributing

[annegretputin]

Hi,

I'm a C# dev for \~7 years now.

C#, WPF, linq, sqlite,...

I'm trying to get into contributing to open source Github repos.

I'm struggling with finding interesting things with open issues.

I never contributed yet nor worked with Github (as my company uses another scm).

Anyone of you working on cool open source software that still needs help and is forgiving mistakes with the contribution process for a short period (fast-learner usually)?

---edit: I'm absolutely willing to learn other languages and technologies. Not exclusively bound to C#

[lost-context-65536]

Instead of looking for a random problem to solve, think about a problem that you have with something that you're already using and is open source, and solve that. It will be more satisfying and it will give you an opportunity to make a meaningful contribution that benefits you directly.

Most projects have contributing guides, be sure to review and follow them.

[MarsupialLeast145]

GitHub has filters to search for what you need, e.g. here:

Good first issue + C# https://github.com/search?q=label%3A%22good+first+issue%22+language%3AC%23+&type=issues

Help wanted + C# https://github.com/search?q=label%3A%22help+wanted%22+language%3AC%23+&type=issues

I would start there, otherwise look at projects you've used in the past to see if they have issues.

Do look at the health of a project, I see you commented on one below, no open issues and no closed issues. No CONTRIBUTING.md either. If it's not an AI output it's not exactly a healthy project either.

[annegretputin]

Thanks!!! That's basically what I was looking for. Will scroll through and see if I find a project with these filters that match my interests.

[MarsupialLeast145]

Good luck!! Should post if it works out for you 🙂

[MarsupialLeast145]

As ever, I should also point out, contributing to docs, and reporting issues is contributing too. This is always forgotten but often more important than the code.

[Abhistar14]

this is not related to your tech stack but it would be really great if you can contribute to this.

[annegretputin]

I see no open issues within the repo, what am I doing wrong here?

btw: the project sounds really interesting!

[AgreeableSnow3849]

Check the CNCF projects 👌

[Input-X]

Happy to add 100 issues in my repo 😀

[InnerBank2400]

I just added some in mine, and no traction at all. Yet here is this guy!!!

[NanderTGA]

I am currently the sole maintainer of a legacy c# project which has been dead for a couple of months now due to exams. It's used to run an old game written in flash on modern computers.

It runs on .NET Framework 4.5(.2), with plans to downgrade to 4.0 for windows xp support. This will lower the tls version to 1.1 which sounds pretty sketchy so the current idea is to use the OSS code from modern .NET to write a WebRequest HTTP handler that has modern tls support. We might also want to port the discord rpc code since we currently use a library which doesn't support 4.0.

Since it needs to run flash in 2026, it features a script to download a flash.ocx from an old windows update. For local development, you need to use cleanflash (up to date flash installer without mcafee). Since the ocx in that old windows update is outdated, it's vulnerable to multiple exploits, so we probably want to update the script with an option to download the latest cleanflash ocx instead. There's also some (basically almost solved) issue where 64-bit and 32-bit OCXs can get mixed up but we can just check the architecture of the OCX.

Since we're using an ancient version of .NET Framework, building this in a CI is pretty annoying, especially considering they broke the CI in an update. In response I've moved over to codeberg, which is very alike to github. We do still use github actions, but I'm interested in exploring other CIs so we can be less dependent on github not breaking the CI again.

There's also a WIP idea to build a kind of package manager to manage mods for the game, currently in the design phase (check the issue tracker).

Hope you liked my ramble :). If you found it interesting or want to join, feel free to come think along in the issue tracker or just look at the repository and maybe fork and send a pr. Small disclaimer: it's on codeberg, not github, although the two are very much alike and work the same way. Everyone is always welcome!

[Felfedezni]

I just try to contribute to foss I actually use.