Best Place to Start

I've been using FOSS Software for  over 15 years, but I've never contributed to any projects.  I don't do PC Programming professionally, and have never really had the time or felt comfortable with my skills to try and help with any projects, but I've decided maybe that's time to change.   Since I know C++ and some Qt (Intermediate skill level) and I think CAD needs some good representation in the FOSS world I decided I would like to try and contribute to LibreCAD.  Having never been involved with any FOSS project I really don't know the best place to start.  I'm in the middle of setting up a laptop that I will be using for development (running Arch Linux) and have Qt Creator installed and downloaded the LibreCAD code from git.  I don't have it compiling yet, it gave me errors about boost which I didn't have installed, and my internet access is a bit inconsistent at the moment so I haven't fixed this.  I figured while I'm trying to get my system set up I would start by posting here asking for suggestions/advice on what to do/where to start since this whole concept of working on a FOSS project (or even a large scale program) is new to me .

You are welcome to help this project.

To build LibreCAD, you need boost and MuParser:

On ArchLinux:

[root@dasus ~]# pacman -Ss boost
extra/boost 1.53.0-2 [installed]
    Free peer-reviewed portable C++ source libraries - Development
extra/boost-libs 1.53.0-2 [installed]
    Free peer-reviewed portable C++ source libraries - Runtime
community/boost-build 2.0_m12-4
    Boost build system
[root@dasus ~]# pacman -Ss muparser
extra/muparser 1.34-2 [installed]
    A fast math parser library

After that, it's simply build&run in the source folder:

qmake librecad.pro
make -j6
unix/librecad

We want to get 2.0 stabalized soon, please help us on Windows, OS/X as well.

Thanks,

Dongxu

Deus Invictus wrote

I've been using FOSS Software for  over 15 years, but I've never contributed to any projects.  I don't do PC Programming professionally, and have never really had the time or felt comfortable with my skills to try and help with any projects, but I've decided maybe that's time to change.   Since I know C++ and some Qt (Intermediate skill level) and I think CAD needs some good representation in the FOSS world I decided I would like to try and contribute to LibreCAD.  Having never been involved with any FOSS project I really don't know the best place to start.  I'm in the middle of setting up a laptop that I will be using for development (running Arch Linux) and have Qt Creator installed and downloaded the LibreCAD code from git.  I don't have it compiling yet, it gave me errors about boost which I didn't have installed, and my internet access is a bit inconsistent at the moment so I haven't fixed this.  I figured while I'm trying to get my system set up I would start by posting here asking for suggestions/advice on what to do/where to start since this whole concept of working on a FOSS project (or even a large scale program) is new to me .