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Michael Sullivan <michael@××××××××××××.com> posted |
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1167505335.16795.39.camel@××××××××××××××××××××.com, excerpted below, on |
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Sat, 30 Dec 2006 13:02:15 -0600: |
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> Now I do just about anything to avoid boredom. I'd like to help out; I |
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> love working with code. I'm not sure how qualified I am to work on |
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> large projects; I know the basics of C/C++ and Java, and I've worked a |
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> little bit with perl and python. What would you suggest I use to |
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> further educate myself to be of more use to the community? |
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There are all sorts of projects out there. I'll briefly discuss both the |
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Gentoo approach and something a bit more general. |
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First the general. One of the best ways to find a small project to get |
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involved with is to pick a distribution (of course, we're partial to |
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Gentoo here, but it can be any of them), install it, and find a particular |
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package you are interested in that seems to be pretty small. Most |
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distributions list the package home page for all their packages, so after |
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picking a few, have a look around their home pages and find a project that |
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fits your skills and interests, sign up for their mailing lists, lurk a |
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bit to get a feel for things or ask around, and go from there. |
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|
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If you are already interested in Gentoo as a distribution and would like |
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to do more, the general suggestion is to start with the handbook and |
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ebuild (5) manpage, and then as you work with Gentoo, find and file bugs, |
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supplying patches with them if you can. As you advance, there's the |
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developer's manual and the project pages for each project. You'll |
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likely find some more interesting and matching your resources than |
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others. If you want more to do, there's a whole bugzilla's load of bugs |
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out there you can look at and see about patching as well. Notably, the |
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first Saturday of every month is Bug Day, with a lot of folks both devs |
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and users pitch in and try to fix as many bugs as possible. There's a |
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preselected bug list, generally sorted on difficulty skillset needed, to |
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make it easy. The question of how one becomes a Gentoo dev is usually |
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answered: "By making yourself so helpful fixing bugs and the like that |
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existing devs can't miss you, and decide you'd be an asset to their |
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project." |
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|
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As wit other projects in the free and open source software community, many |
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Gentoo projects have their own mailing list and/or IRC channel as well, |
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and as you find what interests you, you can subscribe as desired. |
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Even if you don't feel like you're up to C/C++, there are all sorts of |
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needs both with Gentoo and with individual projects in general. Nearly |
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all projects can use help with documentation and localization (language |
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translation), and on their user mailing lists and/or forums. Gentoo is |
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certainly no exception. If users can answer questions, that leaves the |
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devs more time to code! =8^) |
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All of these are free, learn as you go, for the most part. All the |
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software you need and most of the documentation is free for the download! |
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All you need is a computer to work with and an Internet connection... and |
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the time and will to learn and to help others. =8^) |
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|
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-- |
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Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. |
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"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- |
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and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman |
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-- |
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gentoo-dev@g.o mailing list |