How Can I Help With OpenShot?
OpenShot is Free Software (as opposed to "freeware") - "free" as in "freedom" and not just "doesn't cost money". You have the right to use, study, modify and (re-)distribute this software as you see fit, under the terms of the GNU Public License Version 3. We are a community-backed project, made up of contributors who believe in creative and user freedom, and therefore squirrel time away from our own lives to work on this amazing piece of Free Software. We aren't funded by any giant corporation, but by your generous donations. Our work for OpenShot does not make us any money, but we still do it anyways because we love it, and we are doing our small part - as contributors - to make OpenShot a little better everyday. We believe that in the not-too-distant future OpenShot will be for video editors what noted Free Softwares like Firerefox is for web-browsers, or VLC is for media players.
If you really want to get serious, you should watch this TED talk by Dr. Richard Stallman, the godfather of the Free Software Movement, himself. But here are some important pointers:
- OpenShot is free: both in terms of money and in terms of user freedom.
- OpenShot will always remain free because of the license it is available under.
- OpenShot has a lot of capabilities and potential. The following video was made entirely using OpenShot:
- OpenShot is super simple and easy to use.
- Because it is Free Software, you are ensuring that posterity will have an awesome tool to pursue their hobby/passion of film-making with.
First of all, it is not "your" software, but "our" software. Yes, even your's! And you, too, can do your part - however small it might be - to make OpenShot better. And yes, OpenShot probably sucked and you probably lost a lot of your time, and we are sorry for the inconvenience. Yes, OpenShot has a ton of performance and stability-related issues, esp. on windows and mac. Most of our contributors use GNU/Linux, and because of that, OpenShot is used, tested and fixed more on that front and mac and windows front lags way behind. But the thing is, we do not have a paid developer working to fix the issues. What we have are willing contributors who come around, tinker with the software, see a problem, file a well-written report regarding the problem (although the "well-written" part isn't as common as we'd like it to be) and, occasionally, even fix it. Yes! That is how OpenShot is developed - by the community! This video further clarifies how Free and Open Source Software progress in general.
Great! Welcome to the team! There are a lot of ways that you can help. Here are a few pointers:
- Donate: This is the easiest way to help. There are a lot of costs that are involved with keeping a Free Software project running. Those servers don't run themselves, now do they?
- Be Kind: Yes, OpenShot most likely sucked, and you are angry, but please try to understand that the contributors aren't making any money off of their contributions. And if OpenShot sucked for you, chances are, it sucked for the devs, too. Yet, we can make it better, together. So please be nice.
- Be Grateful: There are just a few of us working even in our free times to bring you this amazing piece of software. And a few grateful notes would really make our day and help us continue to do this. Everybody needs a little loving sometimes, don't we?
- Test! Test!! Test!!!: We need more testers (and not just users). You could test the latest daily builds on your platform and report any new (and long overdue) bugs that you might encounter.
- Reporting: If you a bug, a crash, or any kind of performance issue, submit a proper report over at our issue reporting page with all the necessary details. Remember, the clearer you are, the easier it is for our contributors to come around and fix it.
- Keep in touch: Once you report a bug, look out for any emails that you might receive from the forums. A contributor might be asking some question to you regarding something that had not been made clear enough. Other than that, do show us some love on Twitter and Reddit. Remember, OpenShot is "us". We are a team. A family. And OpenShot is as good as we all help make it to become.