As Software Developer and Project Manager, I have seen many Open Source projects that no longer exist or are not maintained. Why? For many reasons… But, one of the reasons is lack of contribution. Most of software programs users are just users, but not developers. Still, those users with no knowledge of software development can be very helpful in stimulating the life of outsource project.

I made a research on the web and I found many good blog posts about ways of contributing to outsourcing without coding. I summarize the most important information in this post. I hope that this information will be used by bloggers and web publishers which already use some outsourcing programs and tools for their own web sites.

1. Appreciation – contribute:

• Express your appreciation to developers (email, forum, post)
• Be polite when – reporting bugs or asking for new features;

2. Documentation (some open source projects have poor documentation) – contribute :

• Translate the documentation (or program text) into another language
• Read existing documentation, follow the examples, and make corrections
• Create diagrams, screen-shots, and graphics for documentation
• Develop spelling and grammar style conventions for documenters
• Convert documentation into useful formats.
• Build a glossary of technical terms (so non geek people can understand)
• Help write good documentation
• Correct spelling and grammar mistakes in documentation

3. Support (everybody needs it at least once) – contribute:

• Answer questions on forums, email lists, IRC
• Start or contribute online support group
• Help other people learn how to use the program (or programming library)
• Write how-to and post them in related forums or your own blog

4. Quality – contribute:

• Submit bug reports
• Suggest new features and options
• Submit some artwork (icons, backgrounds, logos) to use in the program
• Help maintain (text, images) a web site.

5. Publicity – contribute:

• Write reviews
• Write about new ways of using a program

6. Ideas – contribute:

• criticize the framework
• expose in the mailing list about its weaknesses
• How competition do better and explain how others do

7. Donate – contribute

• Money (by clicking the ads on the open source site, or donate money(donate button or a shop on open source site) )
• Hire Free Software developers
• Advertise in their web site if they show ads
• Contribute hardware
• Contribute bandwidth

This list is not complete. If you have more ideas, add them in the comment of this article.

Special thanks to Macedonian blogger’s community and the blog Panta Rei (MK Language blog), which is a big contributor of outsourcing projects in Macedonian and world community.

Tags | Open Source, Project management, Software