At Hazelcast, open source is not only a business model; it’s the foundation of our company. We believe in the right of users to access, read, and improve upon our work.

Because we know that it’s not easy to get started in open source in general, especially within a specific project, we participated in this year’s Google Summer of Code. This is only the beginning, though. We intend it to be our first of many. Yet, the next GSoC is expected next year.

Fortunately, there are other worthwhile initiatives that are much closer. For example, October is traditionally the time for Hacktoberfest, a month-long celebration of open source software, promoted by Digital Ocean. To contribute, you will have to make 4 successful Pull Requests to open source projects and DO will send you a t-shirt. We want to help you get that shirt!

In order to help you start to contribute, we will be hosting an online meetup to introduce you to Hazelcast, what it is about and our products. From there, we will explain how you can get involved in the Hazelcast Hacktoberfest project.

You can already check relevant issues on GitHub: they are labeled with good-first-issues. Of course, nothing prevents you from trying another or even propose your own. After all, this is open source. Just be sure to sync with the developers so that they can steer you in the right direction.

Register, and let’s meet on October 6th, 6 PM CEST. If you cannot join, we will be recording the meetup. Future updates will be announced on Slack.

And to finish on a fun note 😺