Am 24.10.2009 um 14:44 schrieb Duncan:
Robert Welz posted on Sat, 24 Oct 2009 10:42:48 +0200 as excerpted:
I am a gentoo user and software developer for a quite a little
while. I
found out that I have some spare time and I like to prepare myself to
become a package maintainer.
Are there any links that provide volunteers with the neccessary
know how
of how to maintain a project? I have some money to buy a dedicated
machine, preferrably an AMD 64. Projects could be something in C++
combined with networking or PHP/Perl stuff.
Just in case I decide not to volunteer for private reasons these
papers
may be beneficial for others, too.
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/handbook/handbook.xml
That's the Gentoo developer handbook, which is a good place to get a
feel
for what's involved at that level. Note that there's both the formal
Gentoo dev political process documented and Gentoo technology
(ebuilds,
eclasses, metadata, common mistakes, etc) guides.
Generally, the idea is to start on something small and work with the
current devs. Once they know you, the rest more or less comes
naturally
over time. Know that there are many who ultimately don't make /
that/ big
a commitment, but who have time to help with the smaller stuff
that's the
first steps toward full developership anyway.
The bug-day Saturdays are a great way to get started. Or choose an
area
(Gentoo project) you're interested in, hang out here and/or on the IRC
dev channel and/or the the individual project lists and/or channels,
follow the bugs for that project, help comeup with and test patches,
etc.
Many of the projects have testing overlays where stuff that's not
ready
for the main tree is worked on. Java has a big one, as does KDE, both
with a lot of help from non-(gentoo-)dev project testers, many of
which
have commit rights to they project overlays. There's also the
experimental projects, or projects that started that way, that are
headed
toward merging into the Gentoo mainstream now. Gentoo-prefix,
devoted to
making it possible to install Gentoo packages in a user's home dir
or the
like, on Linux or other platforms, is a big one that's headed toward
merge at this point.
Another way to start if you have specific applications you are
interested
in is with proxy maintainership if a package is in the tree, or the
Sunrise overlay, for packages not yet in the tree. A proxy maintained
package has a non-(gentoo-)dev doing much or all of the real work, bug
fixing, etc, working closely with a full Gentoo dev (or project/herd
if
it's herd maintained) doing the final commits to the tree but often
little else, at least once the relationship has been established. The
Sunrise overlay is for packages not yet in the tree, but that have
various Gentoo community users maintaining them. There's a few Gentoo
devs that work with them, helping them get the packages into full
Gentoo
shape, so ultimately, if a dev finds the package useful, they can
bring
it into the main Gentoo tree where it may continue to be proxy
maintained
by the same community user. Of course, there's more packages than
devs
to maintain them, so not all packages ultimately make it into the
tree,
but Sunrise is there for them as long as there's someone in the
community
interested in doing the maintaining at that level.
The various arch teams have arch-testers (ATs) as well. These guys
help
the devs on the arch teams test packages for keyword stabilization,
etc.
Don't forget the Gentoo Documentation Documentation project as well.
They could certainly use some help from someone willing to learn the
way
Gentoo handles its docs and get their hands dirty helping to maintain
them. There's always documentation updates that could be done! =:^)
Many, probably most Gentoo devs come in thru one of these paths,
starting
out working with a project in an overlay or with a proxy maintained or
sunrise package, or as an AT. Other quite active users at that
level are
content to stay active at that level without ever becoming full Gentoo
devs for whatever reason (time, politics, whatever). Either way, they
can rest well, knowing they're filling a vital role in the Gentoo
community, and thru it, the larger free/libre and open source software
community.
--
Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman
Thank you very much for the explanation. It is a very very helpful
introduction. I will start work now and when winter is over, lets see if
I have found a project which fits to me and my work experience.
At the moment I work for a Company in Mannheim which does a Linux and C
++
based server which is very intelligent and once configured quite slick.
My own preferences, which started as a hobby during studies to become a
Mathematc/Physics teacher is web server with a centralized email
system but
redundant accounting. LDAP was intergrated after a complete study,
Postgres
is my favourite database. I don't like MySQL (but I don't hate it).
I am medium expert in WxWidgets, becourse I started writing C++ software
after reading a lot about C++, STL. My favourite computersystems are
my MacPro
and my 2 Linux server, one hardend gentoo and one vhost. I think I get
a little
t...@home Mini ITX for development and I am looking forward too see you
again here
once I finished with my training.
regards,
Robert
