Beginning as an open source developer

[cpufreak2589]

I'm not sure of the best place to ask this, so I've decided to start here. I'm a college student majoring in Computer Science, and I've realized that I am bored with the basic textbook assignments day after day. Given my preexisting affinity for open source and my use of it in day to day life, I decided that I would like to start honing my coding skills on my own and to contribute to something I care so much about by doing it. I want to start contributing to an open source project.

I'm working on the technical part already. I know C++ and java, and I was considering picking up python (a class is requiring me to self-teach a niche high level language), as I have seen many OS projects written in it. What I need help with is getting my feet wet. I don't know what I want to work on, I use ubuntu, mythtv, and openmoko software in my daily life, and I would like to contribute to (or even create) something that I'll use. I am unsure how to get started, or rather, how to find the "door" to this community of coders. What do I need to do to find a project I like, how do I get involved, what can I expect to be able to contribute as a new programmer? Are there sites devoted to coders finding projects? Something like monster mixed with facebook for open source projects? What language SHOULD I learn, or what technologies/platforms should I focus on first? I have some free reign in my classes coming up in future semesters, so I would like to fit in this open source contribution wherever I can.

Forgive me if this is horribly off-topic for this board, like I said I don't really know where to put this, I haven't met any coder-friends online or in person, and I have never come across a large enough forum for programming to feel like I'd get a good answer by asking. If anyone could even point me in the right direction, I'd be grateful.

[patryk77]

Nice thing about open source, possibilities are endless.

It all depends on your experience, current knowledge and interests (whether you are ready to hack the kernel, or you would rather work on games or whatever). You can find a project you like, look at the bugs / feature requests, or see how you would improve it.

A good place to start if you want to help improve Ubuntu is:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/

You could write patches to fix certain bugs.

Otherwise, another great place would be http://sf.net Sourceforge.

There are tons of projects there. You can fix one, improve one, revive one or start a new one :)

Good luck!

[imdano]

The best way to get involved is to scratch an itch. Pick an app you already use and think you'd like to improve or fix a bug in, and either browse their bug tracker for something that looks like a fairly simple fix, or (even better) go after a bug you've noticed when using it yourself. When you think you've fixed a bug or made a useful enhancement, submit a patch to the developers. They'll usually be happy to accept it or give you some constructive criticism on it. If you're planning on making a big change (not a good idea when you're getting started) you should talk to the developers about it beforehand, so they can give you some guidance before you write a ton of code, only to find out the developers want it implemented a completely different way.