Yesterday, in my post about why working on the web is so great I mentioned a tool called GitHub. While GitHub is only a tool it is a really awesome tool because it makes it unbelievably easy to version control your code and for another user to submit a patch (aka pull request) or report issues to you. Increased collaboration is important for any project but it's even more important for open source projects.
Software isn't Free
It should come as no surprise that software isn't free. It takes many programming hours to build new features, many hours to diagnose and fix bugs, hours to plan the roadmap, and many many hours of support helping your users.
There are some great open source projects that have highly efficient monetizations models. Just look at the totally free software WordPress; they have WordPress.com, WordPress VIP, Akismet, VaultPress, etc, that bring in money. But for many open source projects there isn't a good monetization model and without cash flow to support the hours of development the project dies.
Now what happens for projects that don't have a good business model? Well unless they have a dedicated community to keep it going these projects quickly become outdated and become security vulnerabilities. And the last thing that you want is an outdated piece of software that leaves your site ripe for a hack.
Enter 24 Pull Requests
This is where 24 Pull Requests comes in. You can think of 24PR like an advent calendar but for pull requests. The idea here is to encourage you to look at the open source projects that you use everyday and to submit a pull request! There are so many great open source projects that need just a little extra oomph to get some work done.
Take a moment to think about all of the plugins or themes you use on your sites, now think about all the libraries these plugins & themes use, now think about the server side software that runs your site. You're probably using 100 different pieces of technology most (if not all) of which are open source.
Look through the 774 projects currently listed on 24 Pull Requests and try to find one that you use. If you're familiar with the WordPress world you'll probably know some of these:
You Don't Need to be a Super Programmer
Many of these projects have plenty of issues that can be solved with 30 minutes of effort. Or if you don't have time for that then just fix some white space! You can make the spacing consistent so that another developer will have an easier time reading the code. Honestly, every little bit helps.
Walking the Talk
While I'm going to primarily dedicate myself to the Blogging for Benjamin contest this month I do plan on doing some contributions. In fact I've just submitted a pull request to WooCommerce.
Remember that nothing is free and make sure to support your software.