# Meet an Open Source Contributor: Paul Horton **February 03, 2022** By Sal Kimmich 2 minute read time Editor's Note: We're celebrating February 3rd, the day the term ["Open Source" was first coined](https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/02/03/0435213/how-i-coined-the-term-open-source#:~:text=The%20phrase%20first%20entered%20the,never%20been%20published%2C%20until%20today.), as World Open Source Day here at Sonatype by recognizing our incredible maintainers and contributors, and the open source projects they support. Read all about Paul Horton's journey below. ## What Was the First Open Source Contribution You Ever Made? My first (real) open source contribution was some typo fixes [in a readme file](https://github.com/sonatype-nexus-community/cheque/commit/3d9ff2868633377b1a68923267a02bf926e5e0e7). ## What Was Your Journey to Becoming an Open Source Maintainer? As per most, I'm a self-taught techie. I've done development throughout my career, among many other things. However, as I joined Sonatype there was a "hey, we need help" for CycloneDX Python tooling - and I enjoy writing in Python. Make no mistake - I'm no Python guru (far from it!), but the projects needed some help. It was interesting, and I felt able to help - so I did. Never looked back. I've learned so much, and also met a bunch of great people (virtually) on the journey. ## What Do You Wish People Understood About Being a Good Contributor? Consistency - and being present. One-off contributions are of course helpful, but consistency within a project or area really helps. You bring more than just your coding skills - you become an expert in the project and related material, which only leads to a better project. ## What Non-Code Contributions Are Worth Contributing? Loads. Documentation is an easy one, but what I love to see as a maintainer is real users of the projects, raising ideas and requests for new features or fixes, and then engaging with us to work out the right way forward. ## What Is One Thing You Wish You'd Known Before You Started Contributing to an Open Source? More Python? ## Open Source Is Both a Philosophy and a Legal Framework. Does the "Spirit" of Open Source Impact the Way You Code With Your Contributing Community? Absolutely. If this was a commercial venture, you'd think about your customer's needs. In open source, your customer is potentially everyone. To me, this means we have to: 1. Document well 2. Take all feedback with grace - what is obvious to you as a Maintainer, clearly wasn't - so we can do better 3. Be collaborative - open source is about the community anyway! 4. Be good custodians - open source doesn't (generally) benefit from Software Architects and Teams of highly paid engineers, but we can still try to ensure a project retains its key focus and purpose ## Who's Helped You on Your Open Source Journey? Key people who've helped me: - [github.com/jkowalleck](https://github.com/jkowalleck) - [github.com/bhamail](https://github.com/bhamail) Written by **Sal Kimmich** Sal is a developer advocate for open source at Sonatype and passionate about helping engineers, ethical hackers and digital enthusiasts understand the complexity of modern software development. With over a decade of experience as a machine learning engineer in the healthcare and tech for good sectors, their work is now focused on filling the cracks in the open source software supply chain to build a better digital future for all of us.