This presentation is to introduce you to different ways of getting involved in open source community and how to get support. Most people are not aware of Open Source culture and they don't know how to be part of it. I hope this presentation will throw some light. This presentation was presented at Drupal Workshop held in May, 2010 in Hyderabad, India.

1. Talk with the Community
Common Rosources
for
knowledge, information & assistance
By Ipsita Mishra

2. http://drupal.org/user/172344
IRC Nick: ipsita
Currently working for Melity Inc in association with PCI Hyderabad

3. Objectives
To give a simple presentation of the various on-line resources for
seeking information and assistance in open source products and
technologies.
To encourage user to explore these resources to reduce their
dependency on others.
To better understand and utilize open source products and
technologies.
To increase participation in open source community.
To initiate and encourage the process of knowledge sharing with
others.

4. Resources Index
Mailing-lists
RSS Feeds
Forums
IRC
Drupal Groups

5. Mailing-Lists
Repositories of all the queries and their responses
from users associated with any open source product
or technology.
On-line communities which involves from novice to
experienced users to product developers.
Any issue or post from any subscribed user is
received by all the registered members of list.

6. How it works?
Every mailing-list has an e-mail address for posting issues to
list.
User can write an email describing the concerned issue and
post it on the mailing list's address.
Any issue posted to mailing list is broadcasted to all the
subscribed users.
Any user willing to respond can reply it.
History of each discussion is maintained in terms of threads.
Similar threads are combined together in categories. An archive
of such threads are also maintained.

7. Mailing-List Examples
Drupal Support List
http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/support
Drupal Development List
http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/development

8. Pros & Cons
Pros
One can learn from the problems other face with its possible
solution.
One can browse the list archives for all the threads regarding
an issue.
No need to visit the mailing list website for post's status.
Cons
Interaction is passive. User has to mail the issue and wait for
the reply.
Response time might increase a lot in case list users respond
late.

9. RSS Feeds
Abbreviation which expands to multiple meanings depending
upon the version.
Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0)
Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91, RSS 1.0)
RDF Site Summary (RSS 0.9 and 1.0)
RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently
updated digital content, such as blogs, news feeds or podcasts.
On Web pages, RSS feeds are typically linked with the word
"Subscribe", an orange rectangle, a feed icon, or with the letters
XML or RSS.

10. Examples
http://drupal.org/node/feed
http://groups.drupal.org/rss.xml
http://groups.drupal.org/node/3060/feed

11. Requirements
RSS Feed link (.rss, .xml)
RSS Feed reader/client

12. How to use?
All latest browsers (like Firefox and IE) have
integrated support, or extensions available for
reading RSS Feeds.
Many e­mail clients like Thunderbird also has
support for reading RSS Feeds.

13. Benefits
Provides latest updates.
Saves surfing time.
It gives the power of subscription to the user. Users are
given a free-hand on which websites to subscribe in their
RSS aggregators
It lessens the clutter in your in-box.
Unsubscribing is hassle-free.
Feeds can be limited to the full site or only specific
categories or topics of information.

14. Forums
Forums are web applications, or platform for
discussing and sharing content among on-line users.
Also known as web forums, message boards,
discussion boards, (electronic) discussion groups,
discussion forums, bulletin boards.
They are available for both technical as well as non-
technical stuff.

15. How it works?
Each forum has multiple categories of discussions.
Each discussion has collections of threads.
Searching and browsing a forum for a specific topic is
accessible to everyone.
Only registered/subscribed members of a forum can
post or discuss an issue.

16. Forum Examples
Drupal Forums
http://drupal.org/forum (List of Forums)
Support Forum
http://drupal.org/forum/18 (Before you start, Post
Installation, Installating Drupal, Module Development)
General Forum
http://drupal.org/forum/17 (News and announcements,
General Discussion etc)

17. How to Use?
Generally categories and discussion topics are fixed
by administrator of the forum. So you can't change
them.
Registered users can start a new thread against any of
the available discussions.
Like mailing lists it is always advisable to search the
forum for already existing threads against the
issue/topic. The moderators of the forums mostly
rejects the duplicate discussion threads.

18. IRC Channels
IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat.
Among various available chat servers irc.freenode.net
is dedicated for discussions in open source products
and technologies.

19. Requirements
IRC client
- X-CHAT
ChatZilla : Firefox Add-on (an alternative option)
IRC account (mandatory for accessing various
channels)

20. Some IRC channels of interest
#drupal-support
#drupal-hyderabad
#jquery
#apache
#ubuntu

21. Pros & Cons
Pros
You can put all your queries interactively in front of all
the available users.
Feedback response time is comparatively better then
other available options in most of the cases.
Seek clarifications on received feedbacks quickly.
Cons
IRC channels might not be available for the desired
product or technology.

22. Resources & Links
Links
http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/new2irc.html
Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IRC_commands

23. groups.drupal.org
Types of Group:
Geographical
Working Group
Event planning

24. Examples
http://groups.drupal.org/india
http://groups.drupal.org/translations
http://groups.drupal.org/hyderabad

25. Favourite Drupal Resources
Best Drupal Resources for Modules, Themes, and
PHP code
http://groups.drupal.org/node/14736 (Please
bookmark this)
A list of Aggregators, Blogs, Books & Podcasts

26. Few Examples
http://www.drupalmodules.com
http://www.webchick.net
http://www.lullabot.com/podcast
http://mustardseedmedia.com/podcast
http://learnbythedrop.com/
http://yadadrop.com/drupal-video

27. Thank you