For a first time participant in a open source development, a large project like CloudStack can be both intimidating and difficult to find ways to participate. In this talk, I'll spend some time discussing the journey that I went through with the CloudStack community, hoping to share some insights into what it's like to work with the fantastic engineers, documentation writers and testers that have grown into the vibrant CloudStack community.

1. 6 MONTHS IN
What I've Learned about Apache Projects

2. WHO AM I:
Chip Childers
Work = SunGard Availability Services
CloudStack Committer / PPMC Member
@chipchilders
http://chipchilders.com
chip.childers@sungard.com / chip.childers@gmail.com

3. APACHE IS A SPECIAL PLACE:
Individuals rule!

4. So how did I get started?

5. First I lurked…

6. Start Commenting as a User…

7. Find something small to
contribute:
• bug fix?
• doc fix?
• Take on something that’s not “sexy”

8. Sometimes that small thing
becomes a large thing…
For me, legal issue resolution for
our first release

9. Keep at it…

10. Remember that at Apache,
Contribution pays off

11. Plus, if you’re not having fun and
solving problems for users,
you’re doing it wrong

12. How can we work together
better?
• More active design debates on list
• Let’s focus on getting more user input
• We need to work out a roadmap