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GitHub Basics

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Introduction to Open Source

2:55 with Kyle Daigle

GitHub hosts millions of open source projects. Become a member of an open source community by participating in some!

Further reading

GitHub built a great site for helping you choose the best license for your project. Based on what you care about with your project, the Choose a License site will help you pick a license that suits your project well. Not having a license is itself a license. It means you as the author retain full rights to the code. If you mean to share that code, be sure to pick an appropriate license.

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    [MUSIC] 0:00
    Now that you're comfortable with GitHub let's start giving back to 0:04
    the open source community. 0:07
    GitHub hosts millions of open source projects. 0:09
    What is open source software? 0:12
    Open source software is software that is modifiable and 0:13
    enhanceable by anyone because the software's license allows it. 0:17
    This code is publicly viewable on GitHub and 0:21
    doesn't require private access to view the code. 0:24
    You've probably already used some open source software. 0:27
    Actually, I can almost guarantee you have. 0:30
    Git, the version control system we've been using as a part of this course 0:32
    is open source. 0:36
    If you've written software using Ruby, PHP, or 0:38
    Python you've also used open source software. 0:40
    These software projects publicly share their code with the world and 0:44
    rely on their communities. 0:47
    People who use the software to contribute back to the project. 0:49
    You also created a few open source projects at the beginning of this course. 0:53
    When we created those public repositories 0:57
    we were sharing that simple code with the world. 1:00
    An important part of open source though is adding a license. 1:03
    A license is a text file that tells the world how they can 1:07
    use the code we've written. 1:10
    Lets go back to our first project now and add a license. 1:12
    Click on the repository you created in stage two named Treehouse. 1:16
    My repository is a little empty because I'm trying to show you something new. 1:21
    Your repository will have the Python project you added with Allison. 1:26
    Now, let's click the new file button halfway down the page. 1:30
    This will allow us to create a new file. 1:35
    We'll call this file license. 1:37
    License is the standard name for the file that holds your projects license. 1:40
    By using the license name here GitHub can help us by providing prefilled license 1:45
    templates. 1:49
    On the right side you should now see the ability to choose a license. 1:51
    This will show a variety of licenses that GitHub can provide out of the box. 1:55
    Of course you can always use your own by just adding it to the repository. 1:59
    For this project let's choose the MIT license in the drop down. 2:03
    There it is. 2:07
    GitHub prefilled the files contents with the MIT license. 2:08
    Now all we need to do is commit the license. 2:12
    We'll scroll down to the bottom of the page, and we'll just use the prefilled 2:14
    message that GitHub already added, and commit this to the master branch. 2:18
    Let's just click commit new file. 2:23
    That's it. 2:26
    Here's our new license. 2:27
    Now anyone who comes across your open source 2:31
    project will know that they can use it, modify it, and redistribute it. 2:33
    Not every license is so permissive though. 2:38
    You could read more about different types of licenses in the teacher notes. 2:40
    There are a ton of open source projects that can use the help 2:44
    of a Treehouse student like you. 2:47
    In our next video we'll show you how to find a great open source project 2:49
    that you can contribute to. 2:53

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