Blender development is run by volunteers, so new help is always welcome.
There are a number of different things you can do to get involved, from directly working on the Blender source code, to writing documentation and various other tasks.
We host our own 'SourceForge' style projects space, at projects.blender.org. Here the official Blender Foundation release is hosted (bf-blender), but there's room for other Blender or 3D related projects as well. We're open for developers to create experimental Blender trees or even complete forks. Just make an account at the projects site, a link for proposing projects can then be found at 'My Page'.
Sources
The Blender source code is licensed under the GNU General Public License and is available through the blender.org SVN server.
The source code is available in multiple formats:
Useful reading and things to do for (new) developers:
Contacting developers
If you want to contribute a piece of code, you can send us a "patch", which is typically a text file generated with a "cvs diff" command. Writing a clear description what the patch is intended to do is important.
Provide patches in the patch tracker, but email the developers mailing list to notify them.
Full instructions on making and submitting patches can be found on the Using Patches page.
Also Python scripts you'd like to see included in our releases you can post in the Patch tracker. You can also contact the maintainer of the Python Resources page to have it linked.
Read Bugreports about how to handle verifying and reporting bugs.
A group of active Blender users have established a Documentation Board, to organize and write full and freely available end-user documentation.
You can also view the Documenting Blender page, a collection of various articles describing the Documentation Project. They offer an overview on the procedure of obtaining Source Documentation, editing, and submitting back to DocBoard.
Volunteers interested in documentation translations can contact the DocBoard as well.
For translation projects of the Blender interface we're establishing a new project. Please apply by mailing to projects(at)blender.org
As a Blender user panel, to give feedback on development and come with proposals for new Blender features, we've organized the Functionality board.
Information on Blender in general, downloads and documentation, can be found on the www.blender.org site.
The Blender Foundation considers education and training projects crucial for a succesful Open Source project. We are currently coordinating knowledge on this area, sharing experiences, and evaluating proposals for official (certified) training programs on the bf-education mailing list. Everyone interested in the topic is free to join.
We currently maintain three sites:
A small group of system administrators, designers and moderators maintain the sites.
You can join the team for www.blender.org here.
We also want to regularly refresh our demo gallery at www.blender.org. If you have interesting demo material online, just send let us know!
The Blender Foundation acts as an independent public benefit corporation, to facilitate the open source Blender projects. Individuals or companies interested to support this financially can read more about it in the sponsor prospectus or visit the donations page.
We also run an e-shop where documentation and Blender goodies are sold. All revenues from the shop are used to cover Foundation expenses.
