Contributing to open source

As you know by now, Kubernetes, Prometheus, Helm, and all of the 120+ projects curated by CNCF are all open source. Contributing to open source projects can be challenging at first, yet it is a rewarding process that helps you to learn, build new skills, and sometimes even teach others.

Why is that? Here are some good reasons to consider:

• Improving software: It’s not a secret that even the best and long-standing projects have bugs and regressions. If you encounter wrong, unexpected behavior or find a bug, the least you should do is the following:
  1. Check whether the problem is already known in the project community.
  2. If not, report it.
  3. Finally, if you’re feeling comfortable enough, try to find the root cause and propose the patch to the source code.

This ensures that the whole community benefits from it.

• Improving your skills: It is not always about coding and software development. User interfaces, design, documentation...