Speaking of Open Source Contribution, Here Is My First Code Contribution Ever

My journey of using open source software began at 2007 when I was still a high school student back then. It was my father, who introduced my to Linux, and it was Mandriva (unfortunately it was discontinued in 2011). I did not really know how he got the installer (or even how did he know about Linux in the first place), but it was just there, installed in the only PC at my home.

My first time in using this operating system, I was like, "what the heck is even this?" It was quite understandable as Linux is not as popular as today back then. Even in 2021, Linux is only being used in 1.93% for desktop OS worldwide, but in the other hand, it runs on 100% top supercomputer in 2021.

My dad succeed to brainwash me to use Linux for daily operating system. At first, it had my curiosity, but now it has my attention. Even, I write this note you are currently reading from Pop!_OS by System76 (even though I still dual boot my laptop with Windows 11, purely just not to remove the default installed operating system from the laptop manufacturer).

Hacktoberfest 2021

I knew since the beginning that with open source software, you are able to contribute to it. But, I did not really understand, what is contribution, and how to contribute. It was just an abstract concept for me. Like, should I write something and post it to the developer through mail? It was still in 2007, so please forgive me.

It is the Hacktoberfest, that really pushed me to contributing to open source project. I've been a long time Github user, but just grasp the concept that contributing to open source can be done within Github itself. Then I was thinking, "why the heck didn't I contribute since a long time ago?"

It was on September 2021, my first code contribution to open source, and it was for a project called Xplorer.

I know the Hacktoberfest is started in October 1, but I started to contribute to open source in September hoping that I will already get the concept of the contribution when it started.

This is not really my first contribution to open source, but it is my first code contribution for open source. My previous contribution was for Microsoft PowerApps Docs, but that's for another story.

Xplorer and my first code contribution

Xplorer is a modern file browser based on ElectronJS and written in Typescript. Justin, the maintainer of Xplorer, posted about this project on his blog which appeared on my news feed.

Open source project using Typescript? Count me in!

I am comfortable in using Typescript and have built many projects using it. So, I'll take this chance for my first code contribution to open source. When I forked the repository, the project barely has 30 stars, but today it has more than 1,5K stars!

Great job, Justin! Xplorer is such an amazing work!

Still in September, and knowing that Hacktoberfest is around the corner, I opened an issue, asking him to add hacktoberfest label for the project to attract another developers to contribute to this project.

For Hacktoberfest, I finally finished the four accepted-PRs challenge on this project (again, thank you, Justin!), and I mostly working on the user interface to enhance and beautify the project.

It's not much, but it was an honor for me to be able to contribute to this project, and if you are still looking for a project to contribute to, I definitely highly recommend you to take a look at Xplorer in Github.

And that's all about my first code contribution to open source, how about you? I want to hear it 😊

Disclaimer: this note is posted to participate in Open Source October event by Hashnode. Specifically for OSS First Timer category.