The intent of Hacktoberfest is to help support and grow the open source community. All backgrounds, regardless of skillsets and expertise are welcome. There is something for everyone!
By the end, you should be the proud owner of a GitHub account, and enough know-how to engage with the community and contribute back.
Contribute enough, and you can be the proud owner of a Hacktoberfest T-Shirt and other swag.
The majority of open source projects are built and maintained by individuals who do it because they're passionate about it. More often than not they are estatic to have help, and will welcome any efforts you put towards their project.
These connections last, and can greatly help you in your career.
Reference: https://twitter.com/johnpreese/status/1182294225024700417
Open source is a lot like the wild west. Projects are written in different languages, have different workflows, and approaches to solving problems. If you've always been curious about a specific language or technology, there's an open source project for that!
Reference: .. I think we're good on this one.
With the software we use being out in the open, you have the power to recommend approaches and suggest changes. If your software does not do everything you want it to, add an issue to the repository, or better yet add a pull request.
Reference: ACR Docker Labels
Often times the software we depend on has bugs, and we have to work around them in one way or another. Instead of implementing a workaround, you have the power to fix the root cause! This is not only a cleaner solution, but we're not the only ones who are (or will) experience the problem.
Reference: Azure KeyVault SOPS Support
GitHub hosts more than just software. Many of the supporting documentation also lives in GitHub. You don't have to be a programmer to contribute!
Reference: Kubernetes Casing
Azure DevOps. GitLab. BitBucket. They're all just facilitate ways of interacting with git. If you're familiar with git, picking up these software suites are just a matter of learning the UI.
Concepts such as: commit, pull request, and fork should be what you would expect.
If you're working on your own code, you probably don't need to fork. But in the scenario where you need to work on someone else's code, forking is a best practice.
Forking enables you to work on your own local copy of the source, and only push the parts of the code that you touched. Otherwise, you'd have to pollute the upstream with branches and create unnecessary noise.
Reference: https://help.github.com/en/articles/fork-a-repo
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Create an account on GitHub. A link to their signup page can be found here.
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Sign up for Hacktoberfest. You'll need to associate your GitHub account from the step above.
Note: You'll need to do this to qualify for your shirt!
Source
Examples
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Is Markdown more your jam? Microsoft would love your contributions.
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Want to just dive into something? Contribute a drink recipe or just add a funny joke.
During Hacktoberfest, most GitHub repositories will label issues that they feel are a good fit with Hacktoberfest.
If you're interested in contributing even more, you can find all of the issues with the Hacktoberfest label here.
If you're looking for something more step-by-step, this repository has some documentation showcasing how to fork repositories and commit to an upstream.