I first came across the term “open source” about 20 years ago and through various projects I found communities that supported and contributed to software that was freely available under various licences. Joomla is licenced as open source and it in turn sits on open source software including PHP, MySQL / MariaDB, the webserver software whether it’s Apache, NGINX and the server itself on a version of Linux (or Windows, which is not open source) All of this relies on contributors to add functionality, test changes, provide support through forums, repositories and documentation.

My own contributions started out with me posting small articles about issues I’d had with getting something to work, for example a difficult migration from Joomla 2 to 3. I used to post on a small blog and answer questions on StackExchange and then I joined the Joomla Forum, which eventually got into writing articles for the Joomla Community Magazine.

Why Contribute?

Why did I share this information? Because I in turn had relied on searching for answers and was grateful for someone else’s experience in solving my own technical issues. One habit I’ve got into is marking up any custom code that I create, including the reason I wrote a function, for example, and a link to any web page that helped me achieve this solution. Pass it on, someone will benefit from your experience and may well find it helpful.

How Much Time Should I Spend Contributing?

When using forums there are names that crop up again and again and it seems like these people are always posting. Some people do, and their businesses may allow them time to spend working within the community. Other contributors pop up at odd hours when work permits. There’s no rules about how often you should post but when you do, being nice, listening to other contributors and being relevant are helpful ways to approach it. And every little bit of time you spend counts in improving Joomla and the community that creates it.

Ways To Contribute

There’s a variety of ways to contribute, and it’s not always about providing technical expertise. Here’s some of them:

Provide an answer to someone’s query

A large number of answers to technical questions come from responses on forums. If you see a query that you can provide an answer to, add a comment. Your experience may help someone get on with their task or project.

Create or add text to documentation

Joomla’s documentation is a collaborative task managed via GitHub and published at https://docs.joomla.org/ - there are lots of contributors.

Test new releases

Every version of Joomla is tested by countless users to make sure every feature works. Everyone comes to a task with their own use cases so the more people that see and test Joomla before the next version is released, the better it will be and the fewer bugs might be reported.

Report a bug

If something doesn’t work, you can report it, via GitHub or the Bug Squad on Mattermost

Test a bug that’s been fixed

Sometimes call a “pull request”, ie on GitHub, as with new releases, once a bug has been fixed it needs testing.

Be a leader

If you have people skills then leading a group of contributors may be your thing

Every area of Joomla needs management and there are a number of team leaders who oversee activities within the community.

User group meetups

Once upon a time people used to meet in person but latterly it tends to be online via Zoom, Google Meet, etc.

Spread the word

You could start writing articles for the Joomla Community Magazine which comes out online every month.

Places To Contribute

If you sign up to the Joomla Community’s Mattermost you’ll find channels for all of the above, and knowledgeable people contributing to all of them.

https://volunteers.joomla.org/

https://joomla.stackexchange.com/

https://joomlacommunity.cloud.mattermost.com/

https://forum.joomla.org/

https://manual.joomla.org/docs/ for changes see the main page on https://github.com/joomla/manual