Around the year 1960s, acquiring Software was fairly easy. Companies like IBM and Honeywell marketed their Hardware products with free Softwares. Back then, anyone could use Software with no restrictions; you could even distribute or modify them. In about 10 to 15 years, Software usage increased significantly, which led many companies to distribute them for profit. This would later create various branches in Computer Software.
Open Source is a public Computer Software and source code that grants anyone equal opportunity to study, manipulate, distribute, or copy a Software and its source code at the discretion of the open-source license. Open Source is more beneficial than its predecessor because it allows users such as students easy access to learning tools, which would create more capable developers that could help build the community.
In an Open Source community, asking questions is common, whether it is a Developer looking for a second opinion on how they should implement their method or a Student looking for advice on fixing their code. But the kind of answer you get depends on how explicit and concise you ask them. Hackers (expert programmers) love intellectual questions that stimulate their problem-solving skills, which is why it is recommended to know how to ask smart questions.
Before you ask your question, you should at least do some research about your problems. You could search the web, such as Google, to see if another person has already asked the same question as you. Stack Overflow is another site that you could check; it is a community dedicated to technology. Inspection and experimentation are urged before consulting for help.
When asking questions, they should be precise and informative—chronologically describing the steps before the error but in a concise way. It would be best if you did not ask vague questions as it will be ignored. There is also proper etiquette for posting questions. Questions should be sent in an accessible format, with a meaningful subject header. It should also be grammatically correct as misspellings or shortcuts are urged against. Also, once the problem is answered, you should follow up with whoever helped; you could do this by redoing the subject line in the forum to “Fixed” or sending a brief message stating the problem and thanking whoever helped.