A worldwide enthusiastic representative FLOSS as Stormy is, have public encouraged contributors to share experiences about their communities around the world. So I decided to post about it since I usually have the support of two great communities such as GNOME and Fedora to do Linux events in my local community. Following the suggested structure, here are some experiences that I can make you know. Hope you do not mind to check every single link I pointed out to the words throughout this post because it has more posts of the job we do in Lima, Peru.

3 best places for finding new users

Universities and renowned IT companies

It is well known in Peru that the best programmers and IT people are studying in three top universities such as PUCP, UNI and UNMSM. And as you can see in the corresponding links, I did presented GNOME and Fedora in these three universities as well as in other universities around my country such as UIGV, UPN, UC, UPIG, UNA, UNTELS, UNSAAC, UNU, USIL, UTP, UNICA and UCSS.

IBM and PetroPeru are two renowned companies in Peru and it is attracted to newcomers to have the opportunity to attend and hear for free professional and expert experiences that use Linux solutions in their daily. This is inspired experience to many students and local enthusiasts.

Online IT communities such as training IT courses and IT channels

There are other IT communities that I use different platforms and usually the followers get in contact with this online communities in order to learn Linux and innovative apps that other communities can provide. This year I was invited to participate in an interview of DevAcademy channel with more than 7.3K followers around the world as well as BacktrackAcademy with more than 60K followers.

Newspapers and social network to spread a Linux event to the community

Maybe your contacts around are not so interested in using Linux or contribute with the projects, but by spreading the news of Linux events in a wellknown newspaper, we can expand the horizons and get people who really concern about Linux. La Republica is one of the top recognized newspaper in Peru and they helped us two years in a raw 2014 and 2015. Ads in social networks as Facebook and Twitter were also important to let us calculated how much people are interested.

10 steps to keeping new contributors once you have their attention

Installing Fedora and GNOME

I started virtually because it is a slow process to teach how to use Linux since you have always used another operating system. Some really enthusiastic people decide to do dual boot and others after the first talk about GNU/Linux decide to delete other OS 🙂

Using and interacting with the GUI and by terminal

Configuring IP, PE, DNS, editing configuration of keyboard and languages and many other commands that will help to use the system in daily activities.

Create an online group or chat to support each other

Some students are shy to speak out in English because they do not it well and it is preferable to start locally, so chats or groups in social networks were a way to communication that usually works, Whatapp groups also were an alternative.

Set up workshops to start little challenges to finish in GSoC



Workshops and hacking meetings periodically are important.

Make them part to other events as volunteers in the organization

I have experienced that my attends after a while become my volunteers in next events.

Show the different ways to contribute the project



Leyla is a student who started with us by design our events, then she become active in learning GNU/Linux commands as well as programming to help us in the workshops.

Build and Studying the code of a particular app

Felipe is on of our students that designed a simple game called Snake in GTK by first learning GTK.

Show the tools for specific contribution

Each team has their own tools and it is crucial to know them before start contribution.

Contact them with experts in the area they are having problems

Thanks to my trips abroad I was be able to know who is in charge of certain apps or areas so it was easier for me to send them mails when I can not answer a question from my students. I must thank people who have helped kindly and in time!

Teach to use the formal way to communicate to the community

IRC is the formal way to communicate in GNU/Linux even it is old, it has worked whenever we have a question in my local community.

7 steps for onboarding new community members

Sharing experiences besides the code such as lunch and after hacks

Work in pairs in a common project

Students of UNTELS are a great sample this time, they worked in their university and then integrated with us whenever w have a meeting. I want to share the work of Bressner from USIL because he has a clean documentation during our workshops.

Grouping members to do a challenge

Code is definitely a challenge but what if you challenge a group to write a song for GNU/Linux?

Playing “trivias” and prize the knowledge they have about the project

During the talks you can ask to the audience questions related to the topic and see if they are understanding.

Meetings to hack outdoor in group

This year we have a great chance to celebrate an event at the beach called Linux Playa, and the last year we went to the camp thanks the event called HackCamp 2016.

Foster them to post their work

Since the installation workshop and then step by step to reach a great contribution.

Congratulating the work of a member in public

I use social network to share his/ her posts congratulating the job.

How did you get started in your first project?

We did usually started by “jhbuilding” modules in the system.

3 best tips you’ve gotten for attracting new contributors

Show the OS Revolution video which shows all the efforts of GNU/Linux since MIT.

Explain the importance of GNU/Linux in computing history and in supercomputers.

I also highlight that GNU/Linux has an aggregate value such as knowing another language and I also present the job demanding from important IT companies.

Ways you find the right type of contributor and where to find them

One of my students in UNI university last year during my course of Operating System did a patch that has passed in production for GNOME. I am doing the same this year for my students as an alternative of final project. One of them got in contact with Athos Ribeiro of Fedora to solve a bug.