2019 Hacktoberfest is a go!

You can register here and check out the amazing branding for this year :ok_hand::fire:

Since 2018

Last year we achieved an incredible amount for this site, we went from a blank two page website to a beautifully designed blog site with posts from a huge range of different people contributing both to the blog and to the code.

Since last year, I’ve become more involved in the Tech Nottingham community - I joined the Women In Tech Notts organisers team and then two became one as we joined forces with the Tech Notts team to make an UBER ORGANISING TEAM. I’ve loved doing more with the community and meeting so many new amazing people along the way and I’m really excited to be leading a Hacktoberfest workshop at this months Tech Notts event on the 14th October.

I also spoken at WiT in August about Free and Open Source Software, a topic I really enjoy and especially for helping underrepresented groups get their voices heard in software development which ties in really nicely with running this site for Hacktoberfest!

If you’d like to read more about the history of this site and learn what Hacktoberfest is all about, take a look at last years post here.

This year

This site is still here and still welcoming any and all contributions with open arms! I’m looking forward to seeing what this looks like by the end of the month.

New things you can expect to see? More blog posts from more people, more build configuration tools, maybe a site redesign, and we’re excited to start work on a game.

Check the existing issues to see what people are working on and add your own if you have an idea or you’d like to see something!

But why contribute?

If you think this all sounds great but you’re still not quite sure what the point of it all is, think about all the Free and Open Source software you use everyday - if you use Google search engine, all those servers are running on OS software. A lot of applications and websites are all using OS, the JavaScript framework this site was built on? It’s Open Source. Ever used Gimp for photo editing? You got it, it’s also Open Source.

Projects that are open allow anyone to contribute, this means software can be more inclusive to everyone - if you see something you don’t like, you can request it to be changed and even make that change yourself if you’re able to. This is especially powerful for underrepresented groups whose voices aren’t getting heard in the designing and building of a lot of products. Be the change you want to see.

Practically speaking, if your company or business uses OS tools or products - you should be giving back and supporting those projects. What would happen if those projects went away or were no longer supported? If that would leave your business in a critical space, you can think about what you can do to support the project either through code contributions or monetary contributions.

I’m sold, sign me up

To get started contributing, first you can sign up to GitHub if you haven’t already and make sure you’ve registered for Hacktoberfest.

Head over to the contributing guide and README for all the instructions on how to get up and running and what to contribute.

If you’re not sure about anything - drop me or any of the maintainers/contributors a message and you can always raise a PR to fix or add any more information. Reach me on Tech Notts slack, twitter or email.

Remember, contributions aren’t all code, it takes more than code to make a successful project. Documentation always needs help, translations of docs or content, design input, help with user experience, copy writing, photographs or graphics. And if you don’t want to fix/add something - simply letting the project maintainers know about bugs or things they could improve on is a huge help.

Happy Hacking :wave: