user: Can you give me some tips on how to get into contributing open source projects (e.g. on websites like GitHub)?

assistant: Yes I can. In general you would follow these steps:

1. Find and download the latest source code. Usually open-source projects have at least two "branches" of the source-code:
     - One that is the latest "stable" version, where typically only small issues are fixed, intended for normal users  and 
     - one "development" version that includes all the latest changes, not fully tested, usually used to implement and additions and larger changes.
  If you want to contribute, you typically want to use this development "branch", so your proposals are compatible with the latest changes so other developers can test your proposals.

2. Find and follow the compilations instructions and requirements and dependencies to try and compile the program for your operating system. You can then test this "development" version. This is important, for example to check that the change you want to make was not already implemented in the development branch and to test the program after you have made your changes. Other developers are generally willing to help you with setting up compilation, but less likely to accept your changes if you don't put in the effort to compile and test your changes yourself.

3. make the changes to the source code, and test your changes. Also test of other parts of the program still work as expected, i.e: you didn't break anything else in the process.

4. contribute your changes. This depends on how (or if) the project is organized by the current developers. You typically create a "diff" file that lists only the changes that you made, compared to the latest version of the development branch. Other developers can then test your changes, also in combination with changes for other developers.

An exception to the the above could be when you want to contribute to an existing project without active developers and no developer that can be reached. In that case you would have to (temporary) take over development, and possibly make a copy of the project so you can continue development on a new website where you have the access rights to make changes.

Besides coding, you could possibly also help with other tasks, like answering questions from other users, organize bug-reports, write your own bug-reports, help with translations, help promote the project, help with documentation, etc. Some or all of these tasks may also be organized in similar ways to organizing changes to the source code, for example also use github.

Specifically for github, you would create an account for the github website, install the git source-code management tools for your operating system, use git to "clone" the source code of a project and regularly update it to the latest development branch. You can manage your own changes by creating additional branches yourself. You then create a "pull request" to give other developers access to your changes. Eventually your changes could be added to the main branch of the project.

Git also tracks which contributor worked last on each line of code, so if new issues are discovers later, you may be contacted to help resolve the issue.

In practice the details of the procedures varies between open-source projects. If you can contact the current developers, it is always good to discuss what you plan to do. The existing developers may be able to point you in the right direction, help you and increase the chance that your changes will be accepted into the official version of the software.