Get Involved
As with any open source project, Lantern will only be truly successfully if you help out. Right now we're in a 'beta' state, with tons to do before we spread it to the world. And most of the tasks we need help on require no programming knowledge. Developers are of course more than welcome, but this page is for everyone else to find a way to help make Lantern great.
Lantern is currently in private beta, but we are accepting applications for 'Ambassadors' - early testers who are excited to get involved. If you're interested in one or more of the tasks below please mention it in your application. We are particularly interested in people with trusted contacts in both censored and uncensored countries. But a willingness to dive in to any of the tasks below is all you really need.
If you have an uncensored internet connection, you can make a difference simply by keeping Lantern running. Every additional user sharing her connection makes the Lantern network work that much better, and that much harder to block for censors.
Whether or not you have an uncensored internet connection, you can also help by inviting people you trust to join the Lantern network. Lantern relies on a large network of users who trust one another to share internet connections, so the more trusted connections in the network, the better Lantern will work. So if you are an early user please spread Lantern among your trusted friends to help the network grow.
At the current 'beta' stage of development one of the most valuable things you can do is report to us if it is not working for you. The ideal way to do this is on the users forum. If you don't feel comfortable with your name in public feel free to use dummy account / name. You can also use the 'contact' form from Lantern itself to send a message privately to the core developers.
The most important thing to let us know is if you are in a censored country and are unable to connect at all. But feel free to report more minor errors, and also to make suggestions about ways that Lantern could work better for you. Try to give as much detail as possible. See this how to report bugs effectively for general guidelines. For Lantern be sure to include your operating system, where you are, and if you are in 'give' or 'get' mode (all users in censored countries are automatically in 'get'), and what version of Lantern you're running.
The above is 1.0.0-beta2, you should see some number there.
If you are a fluent speaker of another language and would like to help translate Lantern's web site, documentation, or the application itself, we would welcome your participation.
See Translating Lantern for more information.
We also welcome people who are interested in helping spread the word about Lantern. We are mostly software developers, but unlike most developers our software will only work if lots of people in uncensored countries run it. So we welcome ideas and actions to get more and more people to run Lantern. Social media campaigns, magazine articles, blog posts, videos, kickstarter, etc. - if you've got experience promoting great stuff then get in touch. And no idea is too big or too small. For right now just introduce yourself on the users forum. If we get enough people there we will start a dedicated forum.
This collaboratively-maintained wiki documentation is a work in progress. If you see an area that needs more work and you would like to pitch in, we welcome your help. Right now you needed to be added to the Documentation Team to edit, just let us know of your interest on the forum. Then to edit just use the "New Page" or "Edit Page" buttons near the top of any wiki page.
If you are a developer and are interested in helping build Lantern see the Contributing page.
Besides running Lantern on your own computer to share an uncensored internet connection, you can also pledge a one-time or monthly donation to sponsor a Lantern cloud proxy, which provides an additional high-capacity internet connection to the network 24 hours a day, even while your computer is off or disconnected.
Alternatively, if there is some feature or bugfix you'd like to see in the next version of Lantern, you can sponsor its development.
Please contact the Lantern developers about either of these options if you would like to inquire further.
You can also just make a 1-click microdonation to the cause in general using Flattr or GitTip:
Thank you for your interest in contributing to Lantern. A vibrant and active community is vital to our existence.