Linux Foundation publishes guide for new open source contributors

The Linux Foundation on October 1, 2026 published a new LF Research report, Getting Started with Open Source Development: A Practical Guide for New Contributors, alongside a blog post by Hilary Carter reflecting on a panel about starting in open source held at the Nerdearla conference in Buenos Aires.

What the report covers

The Linux Foundation said the report was authored by Dr. Ibrahim Haddad with a foreword by Linux Fellow Shuah Khan, and reflects peer review input from open source enthusiast Doug Byers. According to the blog post, it is aimed at anyone moving from using open source to helping build it.

Carter wrote that while developer interest in contributing is high, knowing where to start remains a challenge. The report was discussed on a Nerdearla panel moderated by Leandro Colombo Viña, with Stormy Peters of AWS, Megan Knight of ARM, Roberto Luna Rojas from the Valkey project and MySQL and MariaDB creator Michael "Monty" Widenius.

Before you start

The Linux Foundation says building a clear mental model before touching code is critical, because open source relies on a voluntary, asynchronous model in which maintainers oversee upstream repositories and evaluate proposed changes, rather than tasks being assigned by engineering leads.

The report says new contributors must navigate project licensing, developer agreements and behavioral guidelines before submitting a change, and that understanding whether a repository uses a permissive or copyleft license determines how the contribution can be used.

It also says adhering to legal attestations such as the Developer Certificate of Origin through commit sign-offs, or executing a Contributor License Agreement, keeps pull requests moving without administrative delays.

Steps the report recommends

Step 1: Start from an existing technical context. The Linux Foundation says beginning with software, frameworks or tools you already use daily greatly reduces the learning curve.

Step 2: Check project health. The report advises evaluating signals such as recent commit activity, issue response times and welcoming maintainer messaging to identify healthy, supportive communities.

Step 3: Adjust to the project's tooling. The post notes that GitHub and GitLab rely on standard pull or merge request workflows, while other foundational projects use mailing lists or Gerrit change-based reviews.

Step 4: Start small. The report says maintainers welcome documentation updates, bug triage, test coverage and localized translations as eagerly as new code.

Step 5: Keep contributions clean and focused. It recommends good commit hygiene, pull requests tightly focused on a single issue and accepting review feedback constructively, saying trust is built over time through repeated, reliable participation. The blog post refers to accompanying visuals outlining these processes, which are not described in full in the text.

Making the case at work

For engineers seeking approval to contribute during work hours, the Linux Foundation says framing the request around business value is effective. Citing its ROI for Open Source Software Contribution report, it says organizations engaging in open source contribution see a 2x to 5x return on investment, and that companies maintaining internal private forks average $670,000 annually in maintenance workarounds as roadmaps diverge from upstream.

The post suggests proposing a narrow, time-boxed contribution on a production dependency, framing contribution hours around measurable outcomes such as landed bug fixes or triaged issues, and highlighting research that it says shows active upstream engagement accelerates product development cycles by 10 percent on average.

On imposter syndrome

Carter wrote that imposter syndrome affects people of all skill sets and frequently holds back potential talent. Drawing on the Linux Foundation's earlier Mentorship in Open Source report, the post says nearly two-thirds of mentees entered structured programs lacking confidence in their ability to contribute, and that LFX Mentorship helps 90 percent of participants build strong confidence by the time they complete the program.

What to do

• Build a mental model of how the project works before writing code, including its licensing, developer agreements and behavioral guidelines.
• Check whether the repository uses a permissive or copyleft license, since that determines how your contribution can be used.
• Sign off commits for the Developer Certificate of Origin, or execute a Contributor License Agreement where required, to avoid administrative delays.
• Choose a project from software, frameworks or tools you already use daily to reduce the learning curve.
• Assess project health by looking at recent commit activity, issue response times and how welcoming maintainer messaging is.
• Learn the project's review tooling, which may be GitHub or GitLab pull and merge requests, mailing lists, or Gerrit change-based reviews.
• Start small with documentation updates, bug triage, test coverage or translations, keep pull requests focused on a single issue and accept review feedback constructively.
• To get employer buy-in, propose a narrow, time-boxed contribution on a production dependency and frame the hours around measurable outcomes such as landed bug fixes or triaged issues.

Read the original from Linux Foundation →