 Hey everybody welcome back to the channel today. I'm gonna talk a little bit about Foss software, so That should be a surprise everybody because I talk about Foss software every day on the channel That's what the channel is about. Linux is literally right in the name of the channel. Oh Sometimes I state the most obvious things but seriously today I'm gonna talk a little bit about how you can contribute to soft software Foss software now. I am not a developer This is going to come as a surprise to a lot of people. I'm not a developer. I'm a Wanted to be a developer and then I realized that I'm not good at developing things. I'm just not good at it I can't I couldn't problem solve my way out of a box and problem-solving is a huge deal when it comes to developing applications and stuff Now I've been working on that problem. That's just kind of a hobby, but that's beside the point I've been a Linux guy for three almost oh over four years now and full-time Linux I've Briefly had some dual booting experience with Windows because of games and podcasting and stuff, but almost immediately I Erased that as soon as I can so I'm a Linux guy. I want to contribute to Foss software. I'm Foss. I saw software is kind of you know saying Foss software, you know, but anyway I really want to contribute to open source stuff How do I do that when I'm not a developer and this is something that you might be asking yourself too? How can I contribute to? open source Programs open source projects if I don't know a lick of Python or I don't know what C C even is or What the hell rust is and it's a good question There's many ways you can do this Obviously the biggest way you can contribute to any open source project is by giving them money now in this day and age When the economy is in the crapper and everybody's you know Broke for the most part unless you're like build gates or something giving money is kind of hard now I mean a lot of times people can afford to throw two or three dollars at a couple Projects, but there's so many open source projects out there. You can't contribute money to them all you just can't even if you're very well off You can't give them all each ten dollars a month You'd be spending thousands of dollars a month just on contributing to you know, the software program projects that you enjoy I mean just for example if I were to give money, I would want to give money to OBS. I don't want to give money to audacity I'd want to give money to Well, I don't know probably the suckless guys, you know, just there's tons of these programs or Projects that I would want to contribute to and I don't have that kind of cash Most people don't have that kind of cash. So what's the solution the solution is very easy Well, there's I guess there's more than one solution. I was gonna just to talk about Documentation so the easiest way I guess would be to contribute to documentation because for the most part a lot of open source projects have really really crappy documentation one of the the premier examples of this actually that I can think of just Off the top of my head is BS PWM BS PWM has probably the worst documentation of any Major window manager out there that I know of it doesn't even compare to something like Qtile or I3 which have fantastic Documentation so if you wanted to contribute to BS PWM But didn't have the money to do so and you didn't know any code that you could contribute to fix bugs or whatever the easiest way to be go and help with them with documentation and That is the same way with any open source project that Anybody can go through and contribute documentation now. There are processes that each Project Requires you to go through in order to do so some of them will be more open to it than others. I think most Projects would probably be very well open to it as long as you've proven that you can do the work And you're not going in there to sabotage something and doing crappy documentation Obviously if you're going to do this, you'd want to make sure you do it, right? There's that thing and you'd want to make sure you follow the process, but the easiest way to do this is to find out whoever is doing the Development and maybe they have a contact person if they're a big enough project or whatever Contact that person and say hey, I would like to contribute documentation whether it's a man page or a You know a help page, you know in the terminal or if it's on a website or something or maybe you know a little bit of You know web development or something, you know some HTML or CSS and you want to help design Design their website or fix bugs on their website. Whatever all this stuff can be done for free and use whatever knowledge You have of just the software that you use and that's a big deal Now I didn't even think about this when I was doing the you know thinking of this video but the other way you could contribute to Open-source software is by doing something like what I'm doing. You know create a YouTube channel become a Linux evangelist Become the next Brian Lunduk. Don't lose your color like he did though The funny thing is when I just said color the color of my room changed for some really reason Edit it again. I don't know what's doing. I need a new camera desperately. Hey Become a Linux evangelist get out there and proclaim and shout from the rooftops that Linux and opens our software as a Amazing and that everybody should use it get a Twitter account and start bugging people all everybody, you know makes it start a YouTube channel or go into YouTube comments and and Help people with problems or whatever and these are the things that everybody can do I guess I'll go another good way of helping open-source software would be to help solve bugs if Even though you don't know anything about Developments you can go through like say on ask a boon to and help people who are having problems You may not be able to answer all those more technical complicated developer prep questions But if somebody doesn't know how to use apt all that well you could do that or you could You know any of these the simpler questions just go through and ask you could also create a blog get on Create a WordPress blog or whatever Get yourself a cheap donate domain name or even if you know just use their You know free domain stuff and write tutorials on how to use apt how to use they you are how to enable You know Samba or whatever these are things that you can learn how to do and share your knowledge with other people And that's a great way of contributing to the floss community So really a very short video on saying that Everyone should if you use open-source software you should contribute in some way Even if it's something stupid like creating a YouTube channel, you know that is Surprisingly growing with people watching it, you know, I'm just tickle pink that everybody suppress subscribe in my channel But really I wasn't really expecting that and I enjoy being able to say you know, hey, I'm a Linux guy I will love being a Linux guy. I'm gonna be a Linux guy until they take Linux away from me And I want everybody else to be a Linux guy, too I want everybody to use as much open-source software as possible Whatever your reason for liking open-source software go out there and Proclaim That's why you like it and why other people might like it who are similar to you and You know, they're just innumerable ways that don't involve having to shell out hundreds of dollars a month or whatever to support Your open-source projects. There are other ways than having to learn what rust is and you know Programming, you know, cuz I know I know rust is a programming language. That's where my knowledge of rust stops Same thing with Lua. I don't know anything about Lua. I know a little bit of C because I've used DWM I know a little bit of Python because I've used Qtile but I couldn't write a program in those things so I mean My way of contributing is to stand up and say hey use open-source software I also Contribute on forums and stuff and help people when I can on reddit. I mean wherever I mean There's just so many ways so many freeways The only thing it really takes is an investment of time and so just say you spend 10 minutes a week even I mean Whatever whatever amount of time you can give you should give because it it The more early the more open-source software is out there the you know better for everyone It's even better. It's even good for the proprietary software vendors because it gives them competition and stuff, you know, so Anyways, it was kind of a rambly ranty Dumbass video, but I can't help it. That's the way all the videos are if you don't know that by now I can't help you if you like this video give it a thumbs up if you didn't give it a thumbs down If you are interested in supporting the channel, you can subscribe. I do Faust related content seven days a week Which is surprising. I haven't had that much of a commitment to do anything in years You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook and all that stuff And you can support us on patreon at patreon cop comm slash linus cast I'm gonna be redoing those tiers or whatever on patreon to see whatever pretty soon But I'm also will attempt to figure out what the hell's going on with it with the camera Because the camera keeps shifting shifting like sometimes it's red sometimes it's yellow. It's dumb. Anyways, I'm gonna stop talking now I'll see you tomorrow