[Cialug] Linux Volunteerism

[Matthew Nuzum]

On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 7:19 PM, Randle Boyd <lowmaine at mchsi.com> wrote:
> One of my New Year's resolutions is to help out on an open source project.
> I have read about the various Ubuntu groups, such as LoCo, BugSquad,
> Development, Documentation, etc.  In the past, the club has done an Install
> Fest.  Is anyone in the group actively working (coding, testing,
> documenting, fixing bugs, etc.) on any of the various Linux distributions or
> releases?  If so, do you wish to comment on the experience?
>

I was active in the Ubuntu community in 2005. One thing led to another
and since 2006 I've been employed by Canonical on the Ubuntu project.
Even though Canonical's staff is growing it's hard to describe how
much of the work that is Ubuntu gets done by volunteers. *a lot*

There are several ways you can help. You could help Ubuntu (or another
linux distribution) by contributing to the things that make it unique.
For example translations, artwork, community support and etc.

Another way to help is to find an upstream project that you like and
contribute to it. Help test and confirm bugs, make documentation
changes, try to improve the user interface or help support users.

Both are meaningful contributions. Ubuntu, Fedora, etc are big
projects with thousands of contributors so you need to find a smaller
group to be part of. If you're not part of one of the smaller groups
you feel like a little fish in a big pond. In the smaller groups you
feel like you can have significance a lot like you would if you were
part of a littler upstream project.

-- 
Matthew Nuzum
newz2000 on freenode, skype, linkedin, identi.ca and twitter