Many Ways To Contribute To Open Source

Writing code is one way to contribute to open source. There are many ways all told.

Here is a list:

1. Create a new project – start a new open source project around something you are interested in – ‘scratch an itch’
2. Use Cases – use open source software in new domains, see if it works or not.
3. Peer Review – review specs, designs, architectures, user interfaces, and code and provide feedback
4. Testing – provide any kind of testing assistance – including usability testing
5. Documentation – create documentation where it is missing or lacking
6. Translations – translate not only documentation but also web sites, wikis etc
7. Features – create new features or plug-ins
8. Forum Help – Learn how to use an open source package and then help out people who are new to the project
9. Bug Fixes – take bug cases from the case tracking tool and fix them
10. Scalability – perform soak testing, load testing etc and publish the results
11. Configuration Diversity – test and use the software in less common configurations
12. Tell the world – use press releases, blogs, twitter, conference presentations, barcamps etc  to let people know that you are using open source software and that it works for you.
13. Building and packaging (thanks AHinMaine) – build the software for your platform and make the binaries available

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