No Code? No Problem.

Contributing to Open Source Without Writing Code

Konstantin Taletskiy

Who here has wanted to contribute to open source…

but felt like they weren’t ready?

The barrier isn’t technical

It’s social

The currency in open source is trust

  • Time
  • Presence
  • Frequency

Show Up

Community calls · Camera on · Introduce yourself · Take notes · Welcome newcomers

Documentation

Ecosystem Stewardship

More ways to contribute

  • Issue triage — reproduce bugs, ask clarifying questions
  • Answer questions — Discourse, Zulip/Discord, GitHub
  • Accessibility — screen readers, keyboard nav, color contrast
  • Translation — JupyterLab supports 20+ languages because of volunteers
  • Writing & speaking — including ⚡️ talks like this one

Why this matters

  • Free maintainers to focus on what only they can do
  • Build trust that makes code contributions easier later
  • Make the project welcoming to the next person

Pick one thing this week

  • Found a typo? Fix it.
  • Unanswered question? Answer it.
  • Broken link? That’s a PR.
  • Community call on the calendar? Show up.

You don’t need mass expertise.

You just need to start.

Thank you

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This talk

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