All the code for the various Tranzakt Project's repos is open source and free-of-charge for people to use, and there is no formal obligation for users to contribute back to this project, but we would like to think that people will be willing to help improve it in return for the benefits that they get from using it. So, thank you for even considering contributing to this project.
There are many ways that you can potentially contribute to this project, a lot of which do not require you to be an experienced PHP or Javascript programmer.
- Helping other, less experienced community members is an easy way to give something back, particularly if you have no experience in programming or coding.
- Another great way to give something back is to use your own experiences in using our software and its documentation, and the shortcomings you found when using it (especially as a new user), to improve the documentation for others.
- We want both our software and our documentation to be accessible to people whose first language is not English, ideally by having translations of all the strings we use in the code and the documentation into all the worldwide languages (though this is a challenge to achieve). We intend to implement an automated AI-driven approach to providing an initial translation of new strings, but these sorts of tools can and will make awful mistakes which need to be corrected by humans who speak the language both fluently and colloquially. So if English isn't your only language, and you spot places in the programmes or the documentation where translations are not yet done or where the language is incorrect then please jump in and make improvements.
- Coding - if you have the skills (or are willing to learn them) there will always be opportunities for making code improvements, fixing bugs you have found in your own usage, filling in gaps in the functionality that you found (either in core functionality or the wider ecosystem) or even extending the project in an entirely new direction.
- If you don't have the time or the skills for any of the above, then please consider making a one-off or regular financial donation, that would be very helpful to defray essential costs for e.g. SSL certificates, hosting infrastructure and services, cloud services such as AI, etc. The Tranzakt leadership do not make any money from these projects - we believe in Open Source being a non-commercial team effort - but in rare circumstances we may also need to pay for commercial coding or testing services from 3rd parties.
Whatever route you use, we will be grateful for any help you choose to give us.
If you are not sure what our priorities are, please look for Open Issues, for Github Projects (to-do lists), or contact us to find out what we would ideally like you to work on.
As previously stated, there is absolutely no legal obligation for you to have to contribute back to our projects, however the Open Source community is based upon the idea that users contribute back to the projects in return for the benefits that they get from being able to use the software free of charge.
How much is a reasonable contribution will depend very much on the size of the project and the amount of benefit you get from it. In the end, it is entirely up to you how much you contribute back, but here are our rough rules of thumb that we would consider meet the moral obligations:
For small projects, the benefit is probably tiny, and no contributions are expected however a donation for a cup of coffee might be nice, and anything else is a bonus.
Medium projects are consdiered to be those that are useful but not core to what you are trying to achieve. The level of contribution expected on these projects might be:
- Financial - a one off donation of 1% of the programmer's monthly salary
- Time - contribute as you find issues in your usage up to 5% of developer time.
Major projects are consdiered to be those that are core to what you are trying to achieve, and that you will be using each and every development day. The level of contribution expected on these projects might be:
- Financial - a monthly donation of 5% of the programmer's monthly salary
- Time - 5% of developer time.
When making a contribution of either code or documentation, you will be doing so on the explicit formal understanding that:
- You (or the team if the contribution is a joint effort) have either created the intellectual property yourself through your own efforts in your own time; or
- You have created the IP yourself through your own efforts whilst employed, and your employer has given you explicit written authority to contribute the IP back to the project; or
- The IP was sourced from another open source project whose license allows for code to be used in a different project and whose license is compatible with this project's license.
We believe that these options will cover the vast majority of contributions, however if you are uncertain about whether your contributions meet these criteria, please contact the project's leadership team for clarification.
More specific and explicit terms for Indiviual and Coroporate contributions can be found here: