A Technical Writer's Roadmap to Connecting with Developers by Contributing to Open Source

Introduction

In today's tech-centric world, the collaboration between technical writers and developers is essential. Bridging the gap between these two disciplines is often seen as a daunting challenge, but there's an innovative and exciting way to foster a deeper connection: by contributing to open source.

What is Open Source

Open Source is a term that refers to making the code or entire build of a digital product or software public so that people can modify, update, or share. The ability to share or modify its design is because it is publicly accessible.

Open Source License

An open-source license is a grant that permits technical and non-technical individuals to participate in open source. One of such licenses known as the ‘copyleft’ license, specifies that anyone who releases a modified open-source program must also make the source code public. While others demand that anyone who alters and shares an open-source program with others must also share the source code without charging a licensing fee for it.

Open source can affect the way people study, modify, use, or distribute the software through its license.

Why Contribute to Open Source as a Technical Writer

There are several reasons why you need to contribute to Open Source as a technical writer. However, let us consider four that stand out:

• Enhance your skill set: Contributing to Open Source can help you grow your writing, analytic, error spotting, and documentation skills faster. You would be able to study more advanced program codes and contribute to them, write better documentation, and share with others. This will give you the opportunity to learn about a wide variety of projects across Ecommerce, Cyber Security, FinTech, Machine Learning, Sustainability, AgriTech and many more.

• Wall of Defense: Your contribution to a software product code can help to spot errors, which will then be corrected, updated, or upgraded more quickly to help others keep the program secure for users to keep using without endangering their devices or organization's workstation.

• Community: You can easily become a part of a community of enthusiasts, designers, developers, and technical writers by sharing your contribution to a project. These are people in the tech world who write, test, use, distribute, and modify the software they have an interest in improving.

• New Technologies and Perspectives: Contributing to open source projects can give you a practical way to learn and play around with the latest technologies and tools. You also learn to look at problems with a different perspective, mostly from the perspectives of the developers working on that project and this can help you approach problems from a different angle.

How to Get Started (Open Source projects you can contribute to)

GitHub offers a diverse range of open-source projects that you can easily search for and contribute to as a technical writer, but I would like to provide a more specific direction as to what project you can jump on now. This is to help you overcome the stress of searching through Github, which might become time-consuming.

Here are some awesome Open Source projects for you:

• Build Trust: Ockam's Build Trust project is introducing trust into data-in-motion, by allowing users to have more granular control over decisions on trust and access. It focuses on applications that need guarantees of data authenticity, integrity, and confidentiality. Ockam allows you to add these controls and guarantees to any application.

Link to project: Ockam Build Trust

• CHAOSS Project Africa: CHAOSS Project Africa is a project that contributes to open-source communities by helping them understand their health better. As open source is now a critical part of nearly everything we do, understanding the health of open-source communities is really important.

Link to the project: CHAOSS Project Africa

• Hacktoberfest: Hacktoberfest is a 31-day celebration of Open Source projects, their maintainers, and the entire contributor community in October. Maintainers of open-source projects pay additional attention to newcomers and assist developers with their first pull requests on GitHub.

Link to projects: hacktoberfest projects

Essential Tips for Technical Writers Seeking to Collaborate with Developers through Open Source.

1. Understand the Open Source Landscape

Understanding the open-source landscape is essential before beginning any open-source project. Know what Open Source is all about, read through other contributions made, and study the space before diving in. This helps to promote a cooperative atmosphere where developers from all over the world collaborate on projects while exchanging knowledge and enthusiasm for technology.

2. Pick the Right Open Source Project

One of the most important steps is choosing which open-source project to contribute to. Think about your hobbies, your experience, and the project's potential effects. Start with endeavors that truly excite you and allow you to apply your abilities. GitHub and GitLab are well-known platforms that are great for finding projects.

3. Communication is Vital

Successful cooperation with developers requires effective communication. Participate in the project's messaging services via forums, chat rooms, and mailing lists. Engage in dialogue by contributing questions and offering support. Developing connections and comprehending the requirements of developers is the cornerstone of meaningful contributions.

4. Documentation Guides

Every project has its own documentation guidelines or format, such as how-to's, manuals, API references, and more. Adjust to the forms and requirements of the project's documentation. Gaining a variety of documentation skills will make you a more adaptable contributor.

5. Understand Technical Terms

Developers frequently utilize code names and technical language. Translating this complex language into terms that are easy to grasp is an essential part of well-written documentation. To make sure that the intended audience understands your documentation, collaborate closely with the developers.

6. Version Control

Software tools for version control, such as Git, are essential to open-source projects. Learn how to use these platforms to efficiently collaborate on documentation. Contributions will be easier if you understand pull requests, branching, and merging.

7. Mentor and Share Knowledge

Knowledge exchange is vital to Open Source communities. You can mentor newcomers as a technical writer, assisting them with the documentation process and assisting them in becoming contributors. In addition to fostering the project's expansion, this improves your standing in the neighborhood.

Open Source Beyond Software Documentation

Open Source is beyond software development and documentation; it is an expression of your willingness to collaborate with other developers, technical writers, and open source enthusiasts in the Open Source community to make an impact in making software codes and documentation readable.

It is also an attitude that seeks to promote an act of opinion sharing to make a project better. It is paying it forward so that others can learn from the mistakes and make projects in the open-source world well-documented.

What I didn't know about Open Source

Open Source products are made accessible to the public, which means anyone, anywhere in the world, can easily reproduce an open source software, modify its code, and reuse it for other purposes. Then I began to wonder, if I am making software open source, how would I make a profit with my product? This bothered me a lot, for a very long time.

But recently, I discovered that although Open Source solutions are free, its support services, such as installation, use, maintenance, and troubleshooting, are not free of charge. Open Source project developers can charge a fee to provide those services to their users.

Conclusion

Contributing to Open Source is just a career-transforming experience, it is life-changing. Connecting with developers through open-source projects is a rewarding journey for technical writers as it does not only enrich your documentation skills but also fosters relationships with the developer community.

In doing so, be open to feedback from developers and the open source community, collaboratively reviewing documentation and actively participating in peer review processes to ensure its quality and accuracy.

In this guide, we've covered what Open Source is, its license, reasons to contribute to Open Source as a Technical Writer, Open Source projects you can be part of, essential guidelines for collaborating with developers, and Open Source beyond software. By following these guides and principles, you can bridge the gap between developers and technical writers, building a more collaborative tech ecosystem.