Ask HN: Which Free Software or Open Source Project Needs Help?
8 em-bee 6 6/30/2025, 12:18:27 AM
(this was posted last year, and i thought it's time to repeat it. i mostly copied the text and rules to avoid confusion. i hope that's ok)
Let's match Free Software and Open Source projects that need help with people looking to contribute. Think of this as "Who's Hiring" but for Free Software or Open Source projects looking for volunteers - a semi regular thread to surface interesting projects that could use more hands.
Please include: Project name and description (if not widely known); Tech stack; Areas needing help (DOCS, CODE, DESIGN, etc.); Level (BEGINNER-FRIENDLY if applicable); Email address, Project website or other means of contacting you.
Ground rules:
Post only if you maintain/run the project
One post per project/suite
No commercial recruitment
No thread complaints
Readers: Only reach out if you actually want to contribute.
I've been working on Habitat for the past year and a half on my own. It's a FOSS self hosted platform for communities to discover their local area.
I'm using PHP/Symfony, Docker Compose, Ansible, Leaflet JS/OpenStreetMap, HTMX, Cypress, TipTap, Dropzone, PhotoSwipe, Bootstrap
If you have experience with any of these, it would be wonderful to have some help.
- The idea: https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/location-based-social-net...
- A build update and plan: https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/building-habitat/
- The repository: https://github.com/carlnewton/habitat
- The project board: https://github.com/users/carlnewton/projects/2
I've added some "help wanted" and "good first issue" tags to some items in there.
This project actually has several pieces some of which are usable independent from each other.
Some parts are written in C, but some parts are specifications which are independent of the programming language that is used for implementation.
https://github.com/zzo38/scorpion
Some things that help would be possible with, includes (but is not necessarily limited to):
- Support TLS in scorpiond.
- Better support for TLS in astroget.
- Support HTTP POST and HTTP PUT in astroget.
- Additional protocols in astroget.
- Bug reports for these programs (and patches to fix them if you have them).
- Suggestions relating to the specification (including if any part is unclear).
- The improved TLS library interface (see the "tlslib" directory). OpenSSL is confusing, and having a better API would be helpful. (Many things are I cannot figure out how to work with OpenSSL)
- Fonts for other TRON planes.
You may also use IRC or my NNTP server for communication (e.g. in case you do not have a account on GitHub).
A game engine for puzzle games such as Sokoban, Hero Hearts, etc. This program was started as a FOSS version of Everett Kaser's MESH:Hero engine, because I wanted to play Hero Hearts on Linux and I wanted to avoid many of the limitations.
Written in C with SDL1 and SQLite3. Some of the scripts needed for compiling are written in JavaScript (but perhaps should be rewritten in C).
Some things that it would be possible to help:
- Bug reports and feature suggestions.
- Improvements to the software.
- Conversions from other puzzle games.
- If anyone has made any interesting puzzles with this.
- The puzzles in the FALLING set that use the Closer Seeker class do not work properly, and I do not know what is wrong. Do you know?
https://github.com/zzo38/freeheromesh
You may also use IRC or my NNTP server for communication (e.g. in case you do not have a account on GitHub).
A game engine with many similarities like ZZT and MegaZeux.
Written in C with SDL1.
There are many things that help is possible (you are not required to help with all of these things):
- Bug reports (and patches to fix them if you have them)
- Feature suggestions
- Complaining if some documentation is unclear or incorrect (and suggestions about how to improve it)
- Porting
- Code review
- Testing
- Use of the software, if you are interested to use it for making any game
https://github.com/zzo38/superzz0
You may also use my NNTP server for communication (e.g. in case you do not have a account on GitHub).