Here at Codethink we've recently been putting some energy into enhancing our onboarding process that we have in place for all new starters at the company. As we grow steadily in size, it's important we have a well defined approach to welcoming new employees into the company and introducing them to the culture of the organisation.
As part of this overall onboarding effort, we've created How To Git Going in FOSS: an introductory guide to the world of free and open source software and some common technologies, practices and principles associated with FOSS.
The guide started out being chiefly aimed at work experience students and summer interns, but it is in fact equally applicable to anyone who is new to free and open source software, no matter their prior experience in software or IT in general. It's hosted on GitLab and consists of several repositories, each designed to be a self-guided walkthrough.
It begins with a general introduction to FOSS, including explanations of the history of Linux and how to use git and git hosting services such as GitLab, and then moves on to excercises which take the reader through how to implement some of the things they've just learnt about.
The guide is fully public and available for anyone to try - if you're new to FOSS or know someone who is then please do have a read through and give us some feedback.
Contributions are also welcome, as we are keen to expand it and add some more complex exercises.
Would you like to read more?
More advice on getting into open source