Engaging with community reading list

by Elena Blanco on 8 September 2009

Introduction

For the Engaging with Community Workshop, October 2009

OSS Watch produces a variety of material related to open source software all of which is available from the OSS Watch website. We have gathered here a taster selection of our material exploring the idea of community with the focus on how to participate in an open source community. Note: each of the suggested articles contain plenty of links for further reading so you can explore even further by following the links at the end of each briefing note.

A guide to participating in an open source software community: Participating in an open source software community can initially seem an intimidating prospect. However, such communities are ultimately composed of people, with all the virtues and foibles of people everywhere.
Can you contribute code to an open source project?: So you’ve written some code that tweaks a feature found in a piece of open source software that you use. You’re so pleased with this tweak that you’d like to contribute it to the open source project. How do you go about doing this? We explore the issues around copyright and institutional consent.
What is a software patch: Patches are the preferred way to submit contributions to open development projects such as open source software. But what exactly is a patch? Ross Gardler lifts the lid on the how and why of creating and contributing a patch.
Open Source Development - An Introduction to Ownership and Licensing Issues: When you write software, you are creating property.” From this much follows. Rowan Wilson examines some of the issues that arise in licensing software code in this short introduction to a complex issue.
Contributor Licence Agreements: A Contributor Licence Agreement (CLA) is required in order to accept third party contributions to an open development project, such as an open source software project. Ross Gardler and Rowan Wilson explain what needs to be in a CLA and how they can be managed.