Everyone is talking about contributing to open source but how exactly do you go about contributing to a project?

We have released a video course on the freeCodeCamp.org YouTube channel that explains why you should contribute to open source and how to do it.

This is a comprehensive course that explains everything from how to open your first pull request to helping maintain a project.

This course was developed by Eddie Jaoude. Eddie is a senior software engineer with 15+ years experience. GitHub recently listed him among the top 500 open source contributors in the entire world.

Contributing to open source can improve your technical skills and your communication skills. It can help you network with other developers and can even help you land a job.

Anyone can make a helpful open source contribution, from a complete beginner to an experienced developer.

Here are the topics covered in this course:

  • What is Open Source
  • Why you should care about Open Source
  • What is Git
  • What is GitHub
  • Example of a custom GitHub profile
  • GitHub features
  • GitHub Actions for Continuous Integration (CI)
  • Insights tab for more project information
  • GitHub Discussions for threaded conversations
  • GitHub Projects board like Trello
  • GitHub Wiki
  • How to find Open Source projects
  • How to write Markdown
  • Draft a Pull Request (PR)
  • Make money directly with GitHub Sponsors
  • Make money indirectly from Open Source
  • freeCodeCamp Open Source resources
  • Everyone is a Project Maintainer
  • How to customize your GitHub profile

Watch the course on the freeCodeCamp.org YouTube channel (1-hour watch).