[illumos-Discuss] gdamore wishes he knew what would motivate more developers to work on illumos bugs....

[Robert Milkowski]

On 07/12/2010 19:55, Christopher J. Ruwe wrote:
> It has been asked, that "gdamore wishes he knew what would motivate
> more developers to work on illumos bugs".
>
> My problem is that I a) would like to contribute to a professional
> minded open source operating system project, preferrably illumos or
> freebsd and b) don't know how to, especially since I am c) only
> semi-literate in C and have no developing experience.
>
> My interest is academically driven (I am a part-time student of
> computer science, concentrating on operating and distributed systems).
> However, I am not only limited in abilities (see c), but also in time
> (I work full-time as a master data manager in a large SAP project).
> Thus, I have to exercise extreme discipline with my time to make end
> meet (academically and professionally). Secondly, I am motivated by my
> wish to find some day employment in the architecture, management and
> operation of unixoid computer systems.
>
> I really would like to contribute in my admittedly limited scope. Now,
> I don't know where to start and what to offer. Most importantly, I
> cannot asses whether any "contribution" would generate any benefit to
> the project as such and would not generate further hassle to "someone
> to oversee the newbie".
>
> Furthermore, I am not afraid to admit, I am more than a bit intimidated
> by the "tone" on the list, although I am told that I should take much of
> what I interpret as "bad vibrations" with a grain of salt.
>
> Taking the "... what would motivate ...": Motivation is not a problem
> from my part, rather the "how". So, I would be interested in your
> opinion on whether and how somebody with very limited coding abilities
> and time could contribute to Illumos. (I would very well understand any
> conclusion leading to a "Sorry, chap, but you can't.")
>
> Thank you for thoughts, cheers
>    

I  suggest you pick up something literally trivial at first and try to 
get it interested.
That way you will get to know the process, people involved, build 
environment, etc.

Maybe something from oss bite size bugs? See 
http://hub.opensolaris.org/bin/view/Main/oss_bite_size

Best regards,
  Robert Milkowski