Re: [gentoo-dev] Becoming a Gentoo developer?

[Daniel Campbell]

On 04/12/2015 05:17 AM, Yanestra wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am long time user of Gentoo and I tinker with the idea of becoming
> Gentoo developer.
>
> I am a software developer by profession, but I am not quite sure if I
> should involve with Gentoo ebuild development.
>
> To be honest, I have not the slightest imagination what becoming a
> Gentoo developer might mean. Things seem to be abhorringly complicated.
>
> As far as I understand, there are developers, proxy developers, then
> there is something like Project Sunrise which I don't understand.
>
> There are apparently several different portage source repositories,
> basing on different software, and furthermore, there is layman. As far
> as I remember, portage is stored in cvs, where there is also git, and
> somewhere subversion seems to linger.
>
> And there is lots of documentation that appears to be outdated or
> strangely unattached to questions concerning organisation and overall
> structure.
>
> Can someone please tell me where to start becoming a developer? Do there
> exist something like quality guidelines for ebuilds?
>
> Why is there such a chaos?
>
> Thanks!
>

As someone who is undergoing their IRC interview soon, I think I can
answer some of these questions:

* There are developers, proxy-maintainers, and the Sunrise project.
Developers have access to the main Gentoo repository of ebuilds and do
their best to maintain a quality tree. Proxy-maintainers are regular
Gentoo users who "adopt" packages and pledge to help Gentoo developers
in maintaining them until either they become a developer themselves or
until another developer adopts the package officially. The Sunrise
project is a separate tree where developers and users collaborate in
getting new or specialized packages into a semi-official repository.
Developers assist users in getting ebuilds up to snuff and help them
build practical skills in contributing to Gentoo in a more structured
manner.

* Documentation, like the rest of Gentoo, is powered by volunteers. If
you find any missing, erroneous, or outdated information, please file a
bug or, if you have permissions on the Wiki, edit it yourself!

* The general structure of Gentoo as an organization is somewhat simple.
The Council makes all the big and important decisions, while developers
have their own "herds" for specific goals (say, the perl, lisp, java,
and games herds), which also correspond to projects with the same goals.
The Foundation exists to give Gentoo adequate monetary and legal support
in carrying out its goals as a distribution. Everything else is pretty
much just a bunch of developers working together.

* Gentoo's official tree is in CVS for now, but there is a git migration
planned. I don't know the timing or exact plans for the immediate
future, but my guess is things will be switching to git over the long
term once logistic problems are solved. SVN repositories are available
over layman only, as far as I'm aware.

* Layman itself is a way to activate other repositories. That method is
partially deprecated in favor of /etc/repos.conf/ files, which allow for
greater, clearer control over repositories. Current releases of layman
will interface with the new way of managing, and there are tools in
place to make migration (mostly) painless.

* The way to begin your journey to become a developer lies mostly in
just helping out Gentoo, studying the Devmanual [0], and contacting
recruiters to see if there is a mentor available for you.

If you're interested in becoming an ebuild developer, you should try out
the ebuild quiz [1]. For the most part it just takes a cautious and
attentive eye, some adequate knowledge of bash, and familiarity with
common building and admin tools. Since you're a developer by trade, I'm
sure it wouldn't be a big problem for you to reach developer status. It
takes time and effort, but in my personal opinion it's been worth every
moment.

I hope this helps!

~Daniel

[0] https://devmanual.gentoo.org
[1] https://wwwold.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/quiz/ebuild-quiz.txt