If it has crossed your mind to contribute to an Open Source project, but GitHub just seems too daunting, then I’d suggest reading this tutorial.
The bit that got me was how to actually contribute and this section explains it perfectly (I think). Before, there were too many origins the odd upstream and far too much pushing and pulling!
The key steps (which I have got wrong on numerous occasions before reading this tutorial) are:
- Create a Fork of the repository you wish to contribute to (the upstream repository), to your GitHub account (the origin repository)
- Clone the origin repository to your working machine (the local repository)
- Add the upstream as a remote
- Create a local branch off the master branch
- add in your features and test them
- commit to your local repository
- push those changes to the origin (your GitHub repository)
- Create a Pull Request to include it in the main project (i.e. ask the maintainer to pull in your changes).
This tutorial does refer to BitBucket but the principles are exactly the same and is a reference I keep on coming back to.
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