Open Source for Everyone: Why (and How) to Take the Leap

Open source is an integral part of our daily technological lives, whether it involves indispensable tools like GitLab and Mattermost, or languages and libraries like React and Quarkus. Taking the step to contribute remains an intimidating milestone for many people. However, pushing past this barrier and making that leap opens up very interesting opportunities, both on a human and technical part.

In this presentation, I will share my journey: from my very first contribution more than 8 years ago to the creation of my own open-source projects. My goal is to prove to you that anyone can contribute, whether you are a developer or not, and to give you the keys to get started with confidence.

Transcript

1. Open Source for Everyone: Why (and How) to Take the Leap Hacktoberfest event @Zenika Singapour - 2026/10/22
2. jeanphi-baconnais
3. Open source is the practice of publishing digital resources publicly alongside their source code or source files, enabling use, study, modification, and redistribution. It is historically and commonly associated with open-source software, software released with its source code. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source
4. Open Source is not just about code
6. My objective ? To convince you that everyone can add their own contribution to open source projects https://unsplash.com/fr/@anniespratt
7. My Open Source story …
8. At the end of my studies, open source was not for me #ImpostorSyndrome https://unsplash.com/fr/@markusspiske
9. Once upon a time … I had the SRE function 🤘 https://unsplash.com/fr/@proggga
10. My first CI/CD pipeline to deploy in production🎉
11. Share my experience https://unsplash.com/fr/@thoughtcatalog
12. GitLab Heroes Program For people involved in GitLab contributions
13. GitLab Heroes Program For people involved in GitLab contributions ?
14. Let’s start to install the GitLab Development Kit … Image generated by Gemini
15. Open Source is not just about code
16. - Documentation looking for something missing or fixing a mistake on links - Translation - Share contents (blog post, talks, videos, podcast, …)
17. My first contribution
18. GitLab Translation on Crowdin https://unsplash.com/fr/@joshua_hoehne
19. Let’s continue with Storybook translation
20. Benefits https://unsplash.com/fr/@jdent
21. 🗣 A lots of exchange with the community and the creator of Storybook 💪 Involvement on this project, add my feedback on the project (🤩 And I received some swags)
22. Open source communities
23. Communities are very important in open source
24. GitLab Hero program
25. Gitpod (recently acquired by OpenAI to expand Codex capabilities; formerly known as Ona)
26. Google Developer Experts
27. Benefits (News ✨) https://unsplash.com/fr/@jdent
28. A lot of contributions To “gitpod ify” some applications like Quarkus, GitLab, etc Created a GitLab group with some tools for and with Gitpod
29. I gave my feedback on some (new) products I tested some beta features I created and participated communities events - French GitLab Hero Coffee - A presence on Discord - GDE Meeting - Google Challenges
30. A example of an open source project with “visibility”
31. Nantes.community
32. 📝 A simple markdown project created after the Covid. 🙌 I also developed an API (on GitLab) to get all events from different platforms (Meetup, Eventbrite, Mobilizon, Guild.host, …) 🚀 The API is used on nantes.Community but some exchanges with differents similar websites in France are made.
33. My open source sum up: - I have a GitLab open source group - I created personal projects - I set public some GitLab CI/CD components - Gitpod tools, libraries and templates - Contributed on GitLab, Quarkus, Storybook, Gemini CLI, … https://unsplash.com/fr/@mbrunacr
34. Open Source for Everyone: Why (and How) to Take the Leap An advice: let’s go to open source! https://unsplash.com/fr/@kamilpphotos
35. Open Source for Everyone: Why (and How) to Take the Leap 🗣 Exchange with the communities An advice: let’s go to open source! 🎓 Learn and share 😱 Get outside your comfort zone 😎 Pride in contributing 🚀 Be challenged by the community
36. DANGER, AI 🤯 Maintainers receive a lot (too much) of PR generated by AI (and unreviewed) 🤖 AI can always find anything to review (for example for the documentation) ✨ Be careful and use AI appropriately https://unsplash.com/fr/@version2beta
37. Open Source for Everyone: Why (and How) to Take the Leap Thanks for listening me 🙏 Hacktoberfest event @Zenika Singapour - 2026/10/22