Different Types of OpenMRS Developers

There are several ways to contribute your programming skills to OpenMRS:

1. Be a casual developer

   • A casual developer just takes on tasks when they have time. Tasks are usually able to be completed in a few days time (less than 4 hours of programming)

   • A good place to start is probably the list of Introductory Tickets or Curated Introductory Tickets. Before starting work, assign the ticket to yourself by clicking the Claim Issue button.

   • You can work on any current unassigned active tickets. Before starting work, assign the ticket to yourself by clicking the Claim Issue button.

2. Be a project developer

   • We have many larger Unassigned Projects

   • These are typically 2+ week projects

   • If you ask for one of these projects, a "mentor" will be assigned to you to help you through the project.

3. Be a project mentor

   • We have been proud to be a part of the Google Summer of Code since 2007.

   • We can only take as many students as we have mentors, so providing your time here is helpful

   • Mentors are only asked to spend about 5 hours per week over the summer helping their student

   • "Helping their student" is defined as 1) email support 2) project direction 3) code review

4. Be a project mentor (non-GSoC)

   • The unassigned projects are all things suggested by real world needs.

   • You add a new page to that section to make a project available.

   • Get some feedback from the developers on the Developer's Mailing list

   • Wait for a student volunteer to accept your project

   • Help guide that dev through the project and see it completed

5. Contribute to code review

   • There are regular code reviews where developers look at tickets with attachments or branches that need merged to trunk.

   • This is a line-by-line review of the code to keep code quality high.

   • The more eyes on the code, the more helpful it is, so we welcome everyone that is interested

6. Contribute to a specific implementation

   • There are clinics and hospitals all over the world using OpenMRS. These clinics often do not have a programmer available to them.

   • These clinics have modules and projects that would be helpful but no one to make them.

   • We can put you in contact with these installations for work on a custom project

   • (Travel is not required! ... But might be possible some day)

There are other way to be involved that may not be listed here. Send a note to the Developer's mailing list with your idea.

Contact other developers in our IRC channel or on the mailing list for help with any of these.