How I got selected in Google Summer Of Code in my sophomore year
Introduction
Hey everyone, Bhaarat Kumar Khatri this Side. I am a second year student .Currently I am purusuing Btech in Information Technology at Kamla Nehru Institute of Technology,Sultanpur.
I am a MERN stack developer who builds projects using these technologies.
This is going to be my first blog so i am really excited as well as nervous(#mixedFeelings). Purpose of this blog is to tell my open Source journey till Now so that other developers can get to know about it and how they can get started.
That’s enough introduction so lets get started………
How I got to know about open source and GSoC ?
One day when I was watching a YouTube recommendation section suddenly a video popped up “How xyz cleared Gsoc in his first year of college”. So I watched it and got to know about open source and a program named Gsoc. From then I started researching about it more and more on different platforms. Read some of the blogs about how others get started their Open source journey and selected at Gsoc.Then many things I got to know about open source. Few things started to fascinate me. One of them was the code that I am going to write will be used by thousands of people. Yaa and Gsoc stipend also fascinated me a bit(I will get paid for my work).
Yeeeennnn!!!!
How I learn skill set for open source ?
From my experience I get to know you should not be the master of some skills . You just get to know about the basics of a particular skill which is required for a project and you can master them on the go. Now coming to my scenario, I know the basics of HTML,CSS,JS,NodeJS,ReactJs,mongoDB. I learned all this skill for free using Free learning platforms like Youtube , Coursera, stack overflow etc.So anybody who willingness to learn can learn using these free resources.
How I selected an Organisation for GSoC ?
I don’t know why but this is one of the challenging parts for me.When I started selecting an organisation I had no clue how to choose an appropriate organisation which suited my skill set and which was going to take part in the GSoC Program. I also contacted many people through linkedin How they chose the organisation. After discussing many things, I applied one strategy.What I have done is that first I went to the GSoC Organisation Page and made a list of organisations which suit my skill set and are taking part in the GSoC program for at least from five year.
Then I went to the most organizations IRC channel (mailing channel) and sent my introduction, about my skill set and asked for help on how I should start contributing.Then from there community members helped me a lot. Luckily I started contributing for Wikimedia Foundation.
How I made my first Pull Request ?
After Joining IRC channel of the wikimedia foundation , with the help of community members I started setting up a local environment to start contribution.Then I started finding the issue in which I can start working. My first Issue which I worked on was quite simple CSS Based.
https://videocuttool.wmflabs.org/ is one of the projects of the wikimedia foundation in which I firstly contributed. I have simply adjusted button icon alignment.When i receive the mail Your patchset is merged i was like in the sky. I am like yeennnnnn My first ever is merged. So By this example I just want to mention that its really not tough to start contributing in open source.
After this patch merged I started contributing regularly for my org. During Contribution I learned lots of things. I enhance my skills very much.
How I selected my GSoC project
When my organisation is selected for the GSoC program then I read all the projects which need to be done during GsoC period. Then One Of the projects fascinated me the most “Update the sister portals of wikimedia Portals” then i did a deep research about it like what needs to be done, what are the ideas,Codebase and all stuff. After this I contacted the project mentor about starting to work on microtask. (Microtask are small tasks which help You to understand the codebase more deeply). Then I worked On them solve most of them.
After Solving Those tasks I worked on adding some new features with the guidance of a mentor which can enhance User Experience. One of them was “Added the hover effect on the wikipedia.org portal”.
How I write my first ever proposal
Firstly I Read lots of last Year Selected proposals and observe what makes a proposal better. Learn the art of writing a better proposal. I also read lots of rejected proposals so that I can know better what mistakes they made. Talk with the project mentor and take review from him.Is anything need to be improved or not.And Yaa after results my proposal get selected….XD
Conclusion
Open Source is for all anybody can be the part of this society and learn lots of thing learn development , communication skills also can make new awesome connections…..
So what are you waiting for? go and start contributing in open source…………