Has anyone here ever contributed to open source projects at all? Any tips/pointers?

Basically Im working as a BA at the moment but Id like to get more involved in development. Im quite happy in my current role at the moment and I reckon if I pushed for a move to development too soon I could end up doing monkey work/working on projects Im not interested in. Basically my plan/scheme is to get involved in some open source projects in my spare time more aligned to my areas of interest and then later mention my intentions to people at work with the hope that Id be able to move to an area Id already had some experience in. Im not necessarily looking to become a full on developer (would be silly tbh... as Ive got a fair bit of business knowledge too) but more a BA who also does a fair bit of coding would be a decent position to be in.

Bit of background - Ive done some java at uni but am now interested more in C++ - how competent does someone have to be in a particular language in order to contribute. - i.e. would a relative n00b such as myself be able to start making small contributions (i.e. write a few small fixes for consideration/small bits of functionality - nothing too complex etc...) or would it be better to wait until Ive become more competent.

My reasoning is that writing schoolbook type bits of code at uni is completely unrealistic to the real world and plenty of development work involves fixing/modifying other peoples code. The act of doing a project at uni is great but the actual coding side of it is a bit basic whereas real world applications a huge in comparison (for example the core system at my place at the moment has several million lines of code not to mention all the additional moules etc...).

my plan is to get involved in some open source stuff closely aligned to the areas Im interested in, build up a bit of experience and then move to a team in work that is also involved in that area.

good idea or crap idea? (Id be glad if someone can tell me if Im being a numpty now as it will save me a lot of time/effort)

It would be very closely related to the area I work in and pretty much directly relevant to the team I want to move into (in about a year or two).

Fortunately HR have forgotten to give me a contract since I joined (had a lot of faffing about with paperwork being sent over from the US head office and the contract itself never got sent) however that is a very good point. Im not employed as a developer so I dont think theyd be able to claim IP rights at te moment over stuff I create in my spare time but it may well be a messy area in future.

These days it works along the lines of.  If you do bits of your own work while being paid for it, then your employer has the right to claim some or all of the rights.  However if you do work outside of works time (even if it relates to your job in some way), then its yours.  The IP clauses in contracts arent enforcable.  I checked this with a lawyer friend just before I started my present job.  He used to specialise in Trademarks, Patents and IP law.  His view was that if you are giving up your own time, and not doing _anything_ at all (He stressed that point) while in works time they cant touch you.  

Basically I asked because there is a clause in my contract that states all websites, trademarks and IP belongs to the company.  he laughed and said itsa great get-out if I want to finish work without the required notice, because its come up in law previously.  Aparrently the clause isnt legal in the UK, and various courts have ruled that.  meaning case law invalidates my contract.  

Think its more a case of you have to okay the work with your employer.

If youre doing extra work in your own time you still have to declare the work (moonlighting folks... bad mmmkay) to your employer due to the working hours statute. If it is deemed they have a vested interest in the product youre producing then they can terminate your contract of employment, or if it comes out that intellectual property of theirs was used then they can prosecute you for damages.

As for working in the open source arena, there are way too many bad practices to deal with that go on out there that to get involved in my opinion would actually set me back in my development to be honest.

Open sourced development is a LOT more standard than closed source development.

And open sourced development on a platform such as openBSD (NOT linux) is as regimental as it gets.

Most decent open source projects are done by people paid to do it.  Eg, Fedora, Firefox, Java.

I did some open source stuff today, I opened the bottle and splashed the ketchup onto fish and chips...Mmmm