Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@×××.net>
To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
Subject: [gentoo-dev] Re: What to do for better support?
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:35:00
Message-Id: pan.2008.06.12.13.34.37@cox.net
In Reply to: [gentoo-dev] What to do for better support? by Takashi Yoshii
1 Takashi Yoshii <yoshii.takashi@×××××××.com> posted
2 4850DC5F.7090800@×××××××.com, excerpted below, on Thu, 12 Jun 2008
3 17:20:47 +0900:
4
5 > I've got nothing to BTS so far, because my trial was so successful. So,
6 > maybe I should...
7 > - Test more packages of "sh" to find and report bugs?
8 > - or Test "~sh"s to change them to "sh" ?, or "" to "~sh" ?
9 > - or Test using (or providing?) binary at place like tinderbox?
10 > - Any others? (perhaps, seeking arch maintainer...)
11
12 Hi. I know little about SuperH personally, but perhaps the following
13 will be helpful general orientation and pointers toward more.
14
15 AFAIK, the Gentoo sh arch is severely understaffed ATM, and that's an
16 understatement. (I /believe/ most of the work has been done by one
17 person (possibly two), who has other Gentoo responsibilities as well, not
18 to mention the fact that Gentoo devs are all volunteers, so he has a day
19 job too.) That is why as you mentioned it has no current release or
20 stable profile.
21
22 Thus, if you have reasonable skills and a decent amount of time to
23 dedicate in the medium term, preferably two years or so minimum so the
24 mentoring time investment has some return, what Gentoo on that arch could
25 really use would be a dedicated arch developer. Yes, the personal
26 investment isn't trivial by a long shot, and it's entirely possible you
27 don't have that sort of time available to dedicate, but if you do and
28 want to, read over the dev handbook and seriously consider starting the
29 mentoring process.
30
31 If you don't have that sort of time or skills available, even a shorter
32 term lower time investment could be very beneficial for the arch. A
33 number of archs have what's called an arch tester position. This is a
34 fairly well defined position where you aren't a Gentoo dev but you work
35 very closely with one or more Gentoo devs, with them doing the final
36 commits based on your testing and results. Many such closely cooperating
37 users have ultimately become devs themselves, while others have remained
38 at the AT position by choice, often due to lack of time and resources to
39 be a full dev, but wanting to give what they can. While becoming a dev
40 has a purposefully longer testing and mentoring process, becoming an AT
41 is much simpler, altho there's usually (archs differ in AT procedures a
42 bit) a general ebuild quiz involved.
43
44 Then there's folks like me, who spend a lot of time on the various
45 channels/groups/lists/forums/etc (often being more comfortable in some
46 than others, I'm not an IRC person for instance and rarely do forums, so
47 spend most of my time on the lists/groups) trying to help out as best we
48 can, but who haven't taken a formal position of any sort. Of course,
49 that may lead to more later, or not. Personally, I don't consider myself
50 really skilled enough at this point to be a dev (tho I've been asked),
51 tho it's also a matter of not yet having really decided to make the
52 commitment and buckle down and do it.
53
54 So whatever level you are comfortable and chose to participate at,
55 welcome! Gentoo can put you to work, particularly with your alternative
56 arch experience! =8^)
57
58 Here's the developer handbook, which can be a very good place to start
59 even if you aren't directly targeting that initially, and should at least
60 answer some questions you no doubt already have, as well as provide you
61 some idea of what's involved if you do wish to head toward devhood.
62
63 http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/handbook/handbook.xml
64
65 If you're looking more at AT, that's to some degree defined by the arch
66 and arch-team in question, and certainly the dynamic on a small arch such
67 as sh will be rather different than on x86 or amd64, but here's the x86
68 arch-tester's FAQ, to give you an idea, at least.
69
70 http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/x86/arch-testers-faq.xml
71
72 Other than that, I'd suggest you contact the dev(s) for your arch
73 directly. The one listed for Sh is Mike Sterrett, aka mr_bones_ . You
74 can of course make yourself immediately useful by contributing bugs and
75 patches, etc. Many people find the bug day project very helpful at
76 introducing themselves to the larger community, for instance.
77
78 --
79 Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs.
80 "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
81 and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman
82
83 --
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