On Mon, Jan 09, 2012 at 07:33:54PM -0500, Aayush Upadhyay wrote: > I'm a sophomore in college, and I'm a solid C programmer. I'd like to work > on an open source project, and the gcc compiler seems like a great one.
In addition to the other replies, you could also contribute to branches or to GCC plugin (or to the GCC infrastructure). For example, you could (if you wanted to) contribute to the MELT branch and plugin: http://gcc-melt.org/ Be however aware of one important point, specific to GCC and several other GNU software: the copyright owner is the FSF, and you need some legal paper to be done. Read carefully http://gcc.gnu.org/contribute.html#legal This implies practically that you get some legal paper signed by you and by your university (and by the FSF). Getting that paper signed takes burocractic time and effort: you'll need to convince people in suits (e.g. your University Dean) to sign a legal paper. You can understand this process as also being a screening procedure for your personal motivation :-) [I'm half joking here] Be sure that you won't be able to contribute to GCC (even to some experimental branches) without having settled the legal questions, which requires such documents to be processed. So if you are serious about contributing to GCC (or any branches of it), start working on these legal aspects today. They take a lot of time (months) to be achieved. I'm serious, if you want to contribute to GCC, worry about the legal aspects right now (this means getting a legal paper signed to transfer copyright to FSF and to share responsability in case you violated some copyright). And welcome to the GCC community, if you want to be part of it. Cheers. -- Basile STARYNKEVITCH http://starynkevitch.net/Basile/ email: basile<at>starynkevitch<dot>net mobile: +33 6 8501 2359 8, rue de la Faiencerie, 92340 Bourg La Reine, France *** opinions {are only mines, sont seulement les miennes} ***
