For a lot of people in the IT sphere, especially those who program for fun, Open Source is seen as this awesome concept - software built for the people by the people; and a lot of people really want to contribute to open source projects but don't know where to turn. I was, until very recently, one of these people. Those green squares on my graph were commits to my own repositories (not very flattering, I know).
Fair Warning
I see that there are a few Linkedin Bros who, once in a while, flaunt their Github contributions graph, saying how they are 10x engineers and that if you want to get a nice job which pays a nice salary, you should totally contribute to Open Source.
This blogpost is not meant for you. If you are here, seeing Open Source as a means to your end, and not as a community-oriented effort, then you are unwelcome here.
"Just Find Something To Contribute To"
If you have watched videos or those darn Linkedin posts about how to even get started contributing to Open Source, you must have found the "advice" of "just scroll on github and find something you want to contribute to".
This is, in my experience, absolutely useless. You will not find projects which are easy to contribute to by scrolling through public repos on Github. What you will probably find are many repos where your skillset has no place. Then out of those which you could contribute to, you will find many which are already fairly popular and mature and which you are likely inadequate to contribute to in the first place. Finally, you'll find repos which are absolutely dead, abandoned for years already.
This isn't how you start contributing to Open Source.
Open the Definition of Open Source
Many people want to contribute to open source - that's a fact. But a lot of them don't realise that Open Source doesn't mean only code. Open Source lives through the community around it. Open Source is the code we build. Open Source is the infrastructure we maintain to share it. Open Source is the website we distribute the code through. Open Source is the wiki and docs hosted to help people use it. Open Source is the FAQ and question boards on which people help fix issues.
Open Source is more than just code.
How To Actually Find a Project To Contribute To
Don't try scrolling through public Github repos. Instead, get involved with tech communities near you. In Mauritius, there's the MSCC, Frontend.mu, PYMUG, Cloud Native Mauritius etc etc... Join these communities, attend meetups, and meet people. You'll find that many of them will have Open Source projects and would definitely appreciate a helping hand for any of the tasks I talked about above. Alternatively, hang around in Discord communities related to your interests. For example, I'm in some homelabbing servers because that's something I like doing, so it's something I can help with when people have issues or need help with projects.
In most cases, you won't find projects to contribute to. The projects will find you.
Don't do Open Source because you want to add green squares to your GitHub chart. Do it because you like the project, the community, and actually want to help.
Conclusion
I'm sure that everyone has and will have unique journeys with the world of Open Source. I'm just talking from my own perspective and what I think would help people get into the Open Source community and get contributing. So, uh, take my advice. Or don't. I'm finishing writing this while eating chips in a Mc Donalds after work, after one of my contributions to the CapibaraZero documentation got accepted.