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On Mon, 2007-04-09 at 00:07 +0100, tom@xxxxxxxxxx wrote: > After reading neil's comment on how the release of etch was months of hard > work I looked back and considered why I had not got heavily involved into > helping projects out. > I realise that the main problem is where to start. You can read lots of > articles that tell you to start filing bug reports on projects that you > use/like but there is no real set up. > What I would like to try and do is to produce a section on the lug wiki about > getting involved but I have (again) no idea what needs to be put down. To > that end (+ getting myself involved in them) do people want to start > submitting posts on how they started or on what they would like to be there > to support them etc.. > I would first of all say well done on offering to support FOSS. I was talking recently with unSpawn, the admin of the rootkit hunter project, and he admitted that he was surprised, annoyed perhaps, that despite users wanting to use 'free' software they were not necessarily prepared to help support it. I would say, and am in this catgory myself, that support generally starts with bug reporting. If you are using the software and discover a bug, then it is not usually difficult to report this. You don't need to provide a fix, or even test any patch. Just reporting it is a good start. Although there may not be any standard 'set up', I know of no project which has no method available for users providing bug reports. For myself I have reported bugs in various pieces of software - everything from the kernel itself, to simple startup scripts. As far as I am concerned every one of them is at least a small help to making 'linux' better. It should also be remembered that a 'bug' does not necessarily mean with the code. I provided Philip Hazel, the author of the Exim MTA, with a list of documentation bugs many years ago. The documentation was, and still is, one of the plus-points with Exim. It is extensive and well produced - Philip's problem was simply a case of mispelt words and the occassional poor garmmar! From that point on I continued to provide Philip with documentation 'bugs', and based on that was asked to be a proof-reader/copy-editor of his first Exim book - for which I got paid by O'Reilly very nicely thank you! Although I have had to give up this 'bug fixing' due to other commitments, I like to think that the Exim project as a whole, including the docs, improved. I would agree with Neil Williams that you perhaps need to look at the software you use yourself rather than just choosing a project. Secondly, and again something I have been involved with, is that you may decide that a specific piece of software is currently missing, rather than joining an existing project. Some time ago, I was looking at the 'webmin' project to see if it could provide a simple to use web interface to the BIND DNS name server software. It did but only for BIND version 8. BIND version 9 had been available for a long time, but webmin did not support it. Since it was something we could use, I decided to start the project - to create a webmin module that supported BIND 9. (You can find it on sourceforge under 'b9ddns'.) The situation changed, and we (my employers) did not need the software anymore, as such I gave up the project. Ironically, although users used the software, and I received support requests for a long time afterwards, no-one was prepared to take over the project! To that extent I would agree with unSpawn - users use the software, but do not want to support it. So that's the first case, creating a new project to fill a gap. I am currently working on the rootkit hunter (RKH) project. (Again, this can be found on sourceforge under 'rkhunter'.) I found bugs in the software, and reported these. I provided some basic patches, and because the project had lapsed from its original author, I was asked by unSpawn, the new admin, if I would like to join the team. The main point here, is that this was a 'simple' project to join since generic shell scripting is generally easier to code and debug, at least for me!, than more formal languages such as C. It therefore was easy to provide patches as well as bug reports, and so become more involved in an existing project. I should add that we use RKH on our servers at work, and so the incentive to help was because we use the software. (Perhaps I should also plug that the next release of RKH is almost a complete rewrite, and much improved over previous versions!) I should add that RKH was, when I joined, an odd project. It is security software, and so something most users (?) want, but it was only supported by its original author. Secondly, he had not actually supported it for some time. My own emails and bug-reports to him went unanswered, and I gather this was so for everyone else too. As such the project was taken over, with the authors consent, and a team of developers formed. This was done by the new admin, unSpawn, asking on the linuxquestions.org (I think) security forum for developers. My point is that rather than 'looking' for a project to join, you may find that others will simply ask if people will help. > Another idea that I had that I suggested at what i think was the last meet was > that; we as a lug could 'adopt' a project (I suggested ppracer) and then > assist and guide people into getting onto the FOSS ladder > Hmm. A nice idea, but remember that support involves peoples own time and effort. I had no idea what 'ppracer' was, just did a google to find out, and it seems it is a 3D game. I'm afraid that that is not something I'm interested in, and so wouldn't really be inclined to spend my own time/effort on it. Having said that though, trying to find a project that most/all members of DCLUG would support is probably impossible. I think the thing is that if *you* are interested in ppracer, then by all means go ahead and help support it. John. -- --------------------------------------------------------------- John Horne, University of Plymouth, UK Tel: +44 (0)1752 233914 E-mail: John.Horne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Fax: +44 (0)1752 233839 -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html