Contributing for non-coders

Aaron Peters, who is a coding tinkerer at best, describes some ways that non-technical folks can contribute to open source projects.

- Aaron Peters,

It takes a village to run an open source project, or so the saying goes. Or would, if software were a thing back when that saying came to be. It nevertheless still applies to open source, which moves forward thanks to the efforts of contributors around the world.

Specifically, thousands of developers write millions of lines of code to create all the components that make up our favourite operating system. From the kernel to base utilities to desktops and applications, many of these contributors volunteer their time to improve and grow the FOSS ecosystem.

But even more people use the software, but aren’t developers. If you, like the author, are among this group, how do you go about lending a hand? In this article, we’ll explore a variety of ways you can pitch in to help an open source project, none of which requires writing a single line of code. And what’s more, the work you do can actually benefit you as well. It’s a win-win!

Creating open source software requires a number of skill sets. We’ll look at some of these in terms of the value they bring to the project, as well as what skills and tools you need to get started.

1 Quality assurance

Commercial entities have a fiduciary duty to their customers to produce software that’s free of defects. Open source has a similar responsibility, but projects likely don’t have funds to staff a quality assurance (QA) department with people dedicated to testing. Open source projects are always looking for contributors to help make sure the software is as bug-free as it can be.