GirlScript Summer of Code Learning And Experiences: From Contributor To Project Admin
GSSoC stands for GirlScript Summer of Code. It is a three-month-long Open-Source Program conducted by the GirlScript Foundation for beginners. This year I am selected as project admin for the program. (GSSOC'22)
In this article, I am going to share my experiences from being a contributor in an open-source program to the project admin & mentor of one.
How I started?
My first open-source contribution was to a friend's repository. After doing some small contributions I came to know about GSSoC program and I took part in it. This was the first big contribution from my side to any open source project. Before that, I had some experience contributing to EbookFoundation / free-programming-books. From that, I learned to communicate over issues and to make pull requests properly. This previous work helped me a lot during GirlScript Summer of Code.
What I Learned?
Successful contributions during the program definitely acted as a confidence booster for me. Now, I was more confident to work on any open-source project. While contributing I went through some issues and pull requests where project maintainers were discussing things and I tried to understand their workflow, and how they manage things.
After some time, I decided to take part as a project admin in an open-source program. Hacktoberfest was the best time to do so because many newbies were going to start their open source contributions in the month of October.
What Next?
I had created a repository to host small JavaScript projects. It was for personal use first but after the decision of participating as a project admin, I created a GitHub organization ZeroOctave and added the same repository inside that. Hacktoberfest was going to start so I thought of taking my chances and as expected some good contributions were added to the repository. I was enjoying my role as a maintainer while guiding contributors for the contribution to my repository.
Just after Hacktoberfest, some more open-source programs were going to start so I applied with my repository and got accepted in two of them. Those programs were Infinite Clone Conspiracy & DWoC'21. These programs were not big enough to attract many contributors but still some good projects were added to our repository and some new members also joined the GitHub organization.
GSSoC!
GSSoC stands for Google GirlScript Summer of Code. As I mentioned earlier, GSSoC'21 acted as the starting step for my open source journey. After 1 year when another version of GSSoC came back, I decided to participate in my project this time. I filled out the registration form with my organization and project details and got selected as project admin. It's a 3-month long program currently going on, many new contributions are coming into our organization repository. ZeroOctave Javascript Projects is our project repository that is the part of GSSoC'22. Till now 200+ issues created and 200+ pull requests merged.
While doing my work as project admin and coordinating with my project maintainers, I am also focused on enhancing my tech skills. So that I can contribute to some good open-source projects out there.
Invitation For You!
If you are a beginner, you are welcome to contribute to our organization. If you are an active open source contributor or maintainer, you are welcome to join ZeroOctave. Join zeroOctave to add your projects, guide newbies or write articles related to open source.
Invitation Links