Find your way to Apache

Contribution
Sagara Gunathunga
ASF Commiter/PMC member

| Tech Lead at WSO2

Can I contribute
to Apache ?

Q/A Engineers

Business
Analyst
System Admins

Software
Engineers
Tech Writers

IT Students

Researchers

Web Developers

How can I find right

project for me ?

http://projects.apache.org/indexes/quick.html

You can find lot of contribution opportunities

on Apache Incubator projects.

Visit the project web site and go

through the documentation.

Subscribe to user and dev mailing lists.

Download the binary distribution and

spend some time with samples, tutorials
and user guide.

Found issue while running

samples ?
Documentation may be out dated.
No proper guide exists.
Mentioned steps are not clear.
An issue with sample or project code.

Get some helps from blogs, mailing list

archive, forums or write to mailing list.
http://mail-archives.apache.org/

http://markmail.org/

http://www.nabble.com/

 Try to fix broken samples, improve

existing samples or provide new samples.
Update or correct documentation, write a
blog to share your experience.

Attach your works as a SVN patch in the

JIRA project.

Most of the Apache project use SVN to

manage source codes and JIRA to manage
issues. You can find those locations from
project web site
SVN : http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/hadoop/common/trunk/
JIRA : https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HADOOP

SVN : http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/axis/axis2/java/core/trunk
JIRA : https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/AXIS2

Check out source codes and build the

project locally. Maven and Ant are some of
the most popular build systems used by
Apache projects.

Use SVN command line tool , graphical tool

or IDE plug-in to generate patches.

Attach your patch to appropriate JIRA

issue. It can be source code patch or
documentation patch.

Few references for patching process.

http://www.apache.org/dev/contributors.html
http://httpd.apache.org/dev/patches.html
http://jakarta.apache.org/site/contributing.html
http://pushpalankajaya.blogspot.com/2011/09/docum
entation-patch-submission-for.html

Keep your eye on project user mailing list

and help others to solve their issue.
One of the best approach to learn project
internals and start your contribution.
If you know the answers don't hesitate to
reply.
May be you can find a new issue, you can
fill a new JIRA issue and fix it.
Others will recognize your effort !!

Participate to discussions on project dev

list regularly.
Participate to discussion on dev list with
your opinions/arguments.
If something difficult
to understand don't hesitate to ask
questions.
Suggest your new ideas don't spend
time for self judgment.

Go through the JIRA project and find a

simple issue to work on.

Try to reproduce the issue using provided

samples and configuration.

Read previous comments and spend some

time for background reading.

If you need more inputs or clarifications ask

them by commenting on JIRA or dev list.

Attach your current works as a patch and

ask community to review your works.

Study some of the important programming

techniques.
Debugging
Unite testing
Remote debugging
Profiling
Memory analysis

Expose your experience and ideas to others.

Do you have a blog ? Maintain a blog
regularly.
Usually we have seen lot of revolutionary
ides from users and new contributors.
If you are a student, GSoC is the best way to
start your contribution ( with some privileges).
Write to dev list asking possible GSoC
project ideas or come up with your own
ideas.

Project specific contribution

Most of the Apache projects maintains their
own new contribution guides.
Look for "New contributor guide", " How to
contribute guide", "developer guide" etc.
Don't hesitate to ask on the community
development mailing list
visit http://community.apache.org/.

Apache communities
Try to organize small events like MeetUps and
BarCamp in your town , office or university.
We have volunteers and resources to help
you.
What do you need to care ?
Venue - better to find a free venue.
Refreshments
Ask to bring laptops.
Notify among your local communities.
Contact ASF.
Small event list :
small-events-discuss-subscribe@apache.org
Apache event LK list :
http://groups.google.com/group/apache-event-lk

Thank You !

sagara@apache.org
http://ssagara.blogspot.com