Try these strategies to better utilize contributions from your project's episodic volunteers.
How to become an amazing contributor (to an open source project)
It's a busy morning here in New York City. My email inbox is full of pleasant surprises. The first is a patch for one of my open source projects. A second will appear this afternoon. A third should come late at night—or maybe tomorrow–from a new contributor. Alongside my day job, I contribute and manage open source projects. The number of projects I work on has grown from a couple of small tools to well over a dozen in the last three years. Open source has become a great way to learn new technology, experiment with modern software development practices, and, of course, meet other like-minded engineers. I find that seeing great contributors send working and tested code provides a unique feeling of accomplishment, as powerful as having many satisfied users of my own applications or strong revenues posted by the employer that pays my bills.
The Minimally-nice Open Source Software Maintainer
Being involved in open source software is rewarding, yeah? You start off contributing to your favorite project, and it feels so heartwarming when that project’s maintainers recognize your effort. Then a few years later you somehow end up responsible for that project, and maybe some satellite projects, and people are clamoring for your attention, and your inbox is never empty, and it’s exhausting and terrifying, and the skills necessary to cope with all the personalities involved are entirely different from the skills you used to get your foot in the door in the first place.
Passive Open Source
I used to be an active contributor to open source projects, but that was when I was still in college - I had a lot of free time and it was some good learning experience. I even managed to get involved with several open source projects when I start my first job in a big company.
Twelve tips for growing communities around your open source project | Ben Balter
Publishing code isn't enough. Twelve practical tips to attract users, welcome contributors, and grow a healthy open source community.
Scaling Open Source communities
Successful Open Source projects must transition from pure volunteerism to include paid contributions, mirroring how public goods like roads evolved historically.
Finding Users for Your Project
Help your open source project grow by getting it in the hands of happy users.
A method for giving credit to organizations that contribute code to Open Source
By tracking organizational contributions in Git commits, we can give organizations more tangible reasons to fund open source and help sustain it over time.
The Few, the Tired, the Open Source Coders
The open source movement runs on the heroic efforts of not enough people doing too much work. They need help.
The Missing Middle of Open Source
Why serious, maintainer-driven projects struggle to sustain themselves—and what it will take to fix it.
Open Source Resistance
A direct-action manifesto for maintainers keeping open source alive on company time.
Non-Coding Contributors in Open Source
The tradition of privileging only technical skills triggers imbalance and inequality.
Growing a contributor base in modern open source
In the Node.js project, new contributors account for ~50% of all contributors per month.
Contributor Covenant | Contributor Covenant 3
The most widely adopted code of conduct in open source. Stewarded by the Organization for Ethical Source.
