Meet an Open Source Contributor: Paul Horton

What was the first open source contribution you ever made? 

My first (real) Open Source contribution was some typo fixes in a Readme:

https://github.com/sonatype-nexus-community/cheque/commit/3d9ff2868633377b1a68923267a02bf926e5e0e7

What was your journey to becoming an open source maintainer?

As per most, I’m a self-taught techie. I’ve done development throughout my career amongst many other things, but as I joined Sonatype there was a “hey we need help” for CycloneDX Python tooling – and I enjoy writing in Python. Make no mistake – I’m no Python guru (far from it!), but the projects needed some help, it was interesting and I felt able to help – so I did.

Never looked back. I’ve learnt so much, and also met a bunch of great peopl

e (virtu

ally) on the journey.

What do you wish people understood about being a good contributor?

Consistency – and being present. One-off contributions of course are helpful, but consistency within a project or area really does help. You bring more than just your coding skills – you become an expert in the project and related material, which only leads to a better project.

What non-code contributions are worth contributing?

Loads. Documentation is an easy one, but what I love to see as a maintainer is real users of the projects raising ideas and requests for new features or fixes and then engaging with us to work out the right way forward.

What is one thing you wish you’d known before you started contributing to an open source?

More Python?

Open source is both a philosophy and a legal framework. Does the ‘spirit’ of open source impact the way you code with your contributing community?

Absolutely. If this was a commercial venture, you’d think about your customer’s needs. In Open Source, your customer is potentially everyone. To me (Read more...)