I'm a mostly self taught programmer and I've recently been struck with the inspiration to create something amazing that changes the world. After thinking it over for a moment I realized I can't do it alone so what I want to do is join in an open source project. It doesn't have to be game development. I'm asking here because the community is awesome (though I haven't been in quite some time), and as far as I could tell from snooping around the site sourceforge doesn't have a general forum.

So I'm not sure if I should work on a well established project thats been at a commercial level for years or if I should try to get in on the bottom floor of some up and coming project. To be honest the latter sounds better to me. The primary goal here is to learn and expand my skills because truth be told, I've been programming some language or another for a long long time but I have nothing great to show for it, and not so much confidence in my skills.

So guys recommend me the most amazing and exciting open source projects you know of or give me hints on finding some leads and picking myself. Thanks.

edit:
Sorry about that Tom.

I guess this isn't a Help Wanted post, but it's certainly not a technical beginners question. So I'm moving it to the Lounge.

Depends on language and what you want to get involved with. What about the various Linux GUI systems, such as KDE and GNOME?

If you don't mind an open-source game, I can recommend one I like. I've been involved in a cross-platform open-source MMORPG for a few years now, but I only started really coding for it about a year and a half ago. It's called Daimonin.

The biggest strong point on the game itself is the community. However, lately our numbers of both developers and players have been down. The game goes through regular cycles of ups and downs, though. Our recent low numbers were likely a result of long-term (about a month) server instability caused by a server update. The new version of libc was slightly incompatible with our server, which caused some issues that were difficult to diagnose.

As far as the coding front goes... The server is written in C, the 2D client is written in C, the 3D client (which still has quite a bit of work to go before it is playable [we intend to have both a 2D and a 3D client capable of playing on the same server]) is written in C++. The third-party (split from the main project a few years ago so that games which handle maps similarly could use it) map editor, Gridarta (also open-source), is written in Java. We use Lua as a server-side scripting language to enhance maps and write quests. We also use perl for several utility scripts. There is a little bit of other languages like Bash and Python thrown in on the side.

The server code is fairly tangled, though. It's approaching (if not over) 20 years old now, and it has been worked on by many different people of widely-varying skill levels (Crossfire, the game from which Daimonin forked, started as a University project, but since it has also been worked on by people with no formal coding education). The server engine itself has great potential but needs some rewriting in a few areas. The client2D is fairly well-written, but still has a few big issues.

Hope you'll take the time to at least check out the website (daimonin.org). Feel free to PM me here or there for any more info you need.

P.S. I'm not just some guy trying to recruit people. I had a question regarding my own game engine, but answered it myself as I was typing my question. I'll likely be sticking around these forums for a while.

@compscialien: I do mostly Java lately but I know c++ as well though I'm probably rusty by now. I don't really mind learning a new language, that'll probably be the least of what I'll need to learn to really contribute any given project. I'll look into those projects and see if there's anything to pique my interest.

@_person_: Thats interesting. Truth be told I'm a little afraid of 20 year old c code (It's two years younger than I am lol). I'm pretty interested in networking so a MMORPG might be a good fit. I'll definitely check out that project.

One library I've been working with recently, and which has some smart people working on it, but is young enough (<year) to have ample issues needing addressed whilst actually having an active userbase, is PCL.

First of all: kudos for looking to join a project instead of wanting to start one. That's the first step towards enlightenment ;)

I think you should go out there and just try lots of open source software, tools, libraries and games alike. See what you like and find interesting, and then start by improving some small thing. Chances are that that's the best way to find something that is both interesting to you, and useful for the project.

I mean the latter seriously. I have a long on-and-off involvement with Widelands (C++ project with some Lua scripting, slow-paced real-time strategy game with a big emphasis on economic networks) -- shameless plug -- and it's surprisingly hard to deal with someone who just shows up and "wants to help" without having a clear idea how. One reason for why it is hard is that we don't have the manpower for a proper hiring-type screening process to figure out where this new person might be useful. The other reason is that experience tends to be disappointing: many people show up who are initially eager to do something, never to be heard from again. So it would be rather tedious for us to "assign" these people to do crucial tasks, hence we don't normally do it.

The best experience is always with contributors who have just played the game for a while and have some ideas for how to improve it. For example, recently somebody new came up with the idea of improving the colour assignment for the graphs of the in-game statistics window, and he just did that after some short discussions on the forum. Nobody told him to do that - it was his idea, he confirmed with the core developers and "regular crowd" that it was considered a good idea, and then he went off to do his thing. We had a short back and forth with pointers for improvement once he submitted his merge request, and everybody was happy.

Keep that example in mind when you approach an open source project. (Note that going through a Google Summer of Code project, if you qualify for that, is probably quite different.)

Now I personally think Widelands is pretty cool and I would be happy to see fresh blood there, but as I said, to each his own ;)

Another really cool project (full disclosure: I also used to contribute there) if you're into more low-level stuff would be to hack on Mesa3d. That project provides the open source OpenGL drivers, and they're always short on man power. Be warned though: while there is no magic, this is not for the faint hearted. Also, it's probably not a good fit if you've never done any OpenGL (or at least Direct3D) programming.

Not to criticize anyone here. I am wanting to join some open source game programming community also. I have been reading articles here for years. I have always wondered why gamedev.net doesn't have any open source projects, frameworks, games, tasks, bugs or whatever that I could work on? I just find it funny that the replies to this topic are all projects that aren't from the gamedev community. Unless I can't find it on the site or I don't know what to search for. I think it would be cool as a gamedev community to work on a framework, games or whatever code. Please someone tell me I am wrong and there is some link somewhere I missed.