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Does contributing code count as contributing to the open source project community?

When it comes to contributing to open source projects, the general reaction is code level contribution, thinking that my code is merged by the community and I am a contributor, which is a common misconception. In fact, there are many non-code contributors in an open source community, and many key responsibilities in an open source community are ignored. Organizing activities can also contribute to the community:

  • You can learn from @fzamperin in Cuiaba, Brazil, and organize workshops or offline meetup meetings for your favorite open source projects
  • You can also help community members find suitable offline summits to submit technical issues
  • …

Technical writing or technical evangelism also contributes to the community:

  • Write or improve documentation for your favorite open source projects
  • Set up samples for how to use the open source project
  • Translate documentation into other languages to help developers around the world understand and use the project
  • Share tips on using the program on your official account or blog
  • …

Design and website development also contribute to the community:

  • Refactoring the open source project website to help developers better understand and use the open source project
  • Conduct user research to improve navigation and content
  • Build a style Guide to help the project have a more unified and complete visual design
  • Design stickers, T-shirts and accessories for the open source project
  • …

Apache Dubbo Samples SIG launched! Samples contributors are being recruited

Apache Dubbo has grown to 386 contributors, including code, tests, use cases, documentation, usage recommendations, and more. Dubbo Core currently has two very active evolution branches, 2.7 and 3.0. Version 2.7 has been put into production by many well-known enterprises, such as Ctrip, INDUSTRIAL and Commercial Bank of China, guazi Used Car, etc. The Preview version of Branch 3.0 has also been released in March. The first available 3.0 release is scheduled for June. The rapid evolution and iteration of the kernel has contributed to the rapid growth of Dubbo, as well as new challenges for the entire community and Committer core project team:

  • User examples and documentation related to the new Feature are missing. Users have no idea how the new features will be used, and scrolling through the code is the only way.
  • Stability cannot be fully guaranteed. During the iteration process, unit testing and integration testing are not effectively complemented, which leads to decreased test coverage and high regression costs. Worse, if some issues remain undetected in the release phase, they will inevitably be carried over to the user phase.

Due to the lack of documents and use cases, we have to deal with a large number of issues, including other online questions, to answer users’ questions. Some of them are because users do not know how to use a specific function, and some of them cannot run properly due to incorrect configuration. Stability decline is both to ourselves and users of Dubbo double whammy, constant problems will lead to users began to lose faith in release of Dubbo, core defender, and for those of us who spend a lot of energy to complete version has added to the user, it will make the whole team has become frustrated. No doubt for the Dubbo community, solving these problems has become an urgent task, as important in itself as the core feature development that everyone is passionate about, but we also realize that it will take a certain amount of effort to do this, and it will be very difficult for just a few of the current maintainers. Especially considering they have to take care of the entire Dubbo community. Against this background, we came up with the idea of gathering strength from the community, and today, with the unanimous recommendation of the core Committer members, Apache Dubbo has decided to form the Samples SIG (Note: SIG is the abbreviation of special interest group (i.e. interest group), in order to improve the above problems, such as lack of examples, stability, etc. There is no doubt that the SIG needs the active participation of developers, and of course, the core developers of the community.

Dubbo status quo

Of course, Dubbo’s testing and stability mechanism is not all bad for the stable operation of so many enterprises and instances. The following are some of Dubbo’s capabilities and operating mechanisms.

  • Unit testing. Unit tests are all located at _github.com/apache/dubb… 40% to 50% coverage, but unfortunately many of the recent additions, including 2.7 and 3.0, fall short in this regard.
  • Integration testing. Dubbo’s integration test project is located at _github.com/apache/dubb… The Dubbo Feature use case, which you can use as a Quick Start example project or as a functional reference manual (code), is built on top of which we build an automated integrated testing mechanism that enables full validation of all use cases.
  • Github Actions based automated testing process. This Workflow is triggered with every code commit, PR, and compiles the trunk repository, running unit tests, integration tests, and some code compliance checks.

Our improvement plan is to continue to improve on the basis of the above components. Through sorting, we conclude that the following contents need to be improved:

  • Unit test coverage of some of the new core mechanics and components introduced in Dubbo 3.0
  • User use cases and integration tests for some of the core components newly introduced in Dubbo 3.0
  • Dubbo key components, such as Zookeeper, Nacos, etc
  • Dubbo kernel unit test coverage of some core components, such as Registry, Directory, URL, FilterBuilder, Context, AsyncRpcResult, ApplicationModel, ServiceRepository, etc

Please pay attention to SIG’s contact information below for better ongoing collaboration and task progress updates.

Help and requirements for participants

Whether you are a student, a new Dubbo developer, a user, or a professional technologist, there are some things you can do to get involved in SIG:

  • Learn how to use Dubbo’s new features
  • Quickly understand the core workings of Dubbo
  • Have first-hand knowledge of Dubbo’s evolution
  • If you are an enterprise user, you can also jointly promote the stability of Dubbo and solve the problem of Dubbo’s enterprise landing
  • Communicate deeply with technical experts and peers in the industry to improve themselves and realize information sharing
  • Accumulate activity, become an open source Committer, become Apache Committer and have the opportunity to become an Apache Dubbo Committer

In addition, the community will also hold online and offline events from time to time and get exclusive gifts from community contributors. Our only requirement for participants is enthusiasm, continuing commitment to the Dubbo community and regular participation in our SIG’s communication activities to achieve collaboration with others.

Reference Documents:

  • https://opensource.guide/how-to-contribute/