Contributing as a first timer

[zimon-cocos]

Greetings,

As a person starting with open source contributing, what is the correct approach to contributing code? I noticed an issue that is open and seems doable, is it alright to submit a pull request, provided that the code meets the guidelines and recommendations specified by the developer guide?

Or should I contact someone specific, other than writing a comment in the issue's discussion, before opening a PR? I want to prevent unnecessary work for the maintainers and me as well, in case the issue is already taken into account.

This is the issue I have in mind: linuxmint/mintstick#136

Thanks.

[klangman]

Start with something small and easy so that the maintainers can review it quickly. In open source there is a bit of a reputation that is needed before anyone is going to accept larger and complex changes. If your change is small, an obvious improvement, safe and well written, then it will likely get merged but maybe not until we get closer to a release. That's my experience anyhow.

[cplittlfield]

The kernel maintainers, for example, require the pull request to be broken down into small, reversible steps. As GregKH says, "make your changes so clearly and obviously correct, that I would be an idiot not to take your code." I'm sure this applies to the Mint team, as well.