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

[Matt Lewandowsky]

?If you find C intimidating and wish to get involved in other ways, stay 
tuned. As there are more developers, there will be more of a need for truly 
motivated individuals in a "support" role.

This may be helping to write documentation as the developer's native tongue 
is not English. It may be helping keep the bug database sane. It may be 
advocacy. At this point, it's not possible to tell exactly what will be 
needed, but there will certainly be more than just coders needed for the 
project to be successful.

There are also plenty of things which are *not* written in C which could use 
some love. Pop into the #illumos IRC channel on freenode and keep an eye 
out. Sometimes it's the easy stuff that no one has time to do themselves. :)

If you are sufficiently motivated, by the way, it's likely you'll start to 
pick up enough to tackle the smaller C bugs that get reported as you help 
out with other aspects of the project.

Almost every good open source project has proven that there's always room 
for someone with motivation, a sound understanding of the project's goals, a 
good personality, and the ability to do something (almost anything). :) 
Unfortunately, it's hard to find those the things appropriate for such 
people immediately when a project is still young, as illumos is.

As for learning the ropes, if you do are comfortable with some C, there is 
usually a friendly face on IRC to help out. Everyone starts not knowing 
anything about how to contribute, so don't worry about that part at all. 
illumos is a huge source base that is very imposing when you first try to 
figure it out. The challenge (which is at least mostly up to you) is finding 
things which you feel confident you can tackle, even if you might need some 
guidance. After all, you're going to need someone to look over it anyhow 
when it's done. :) (The OpenSolaris bite-size list is huge and a great 
starting point.)

And again, if you are currently just short on experience and time, there's 
always IRC. We try to be friendly and helpful. And it is a great way to 
learn. And it's a great way to share what you have learned to others. (It's 
amazing how quickly one can pick up information they didn't know they knew!)

Don't lose hope. If you can't find a perfect fit in the project now, you're 
bound to find someplace you fit in perfectly sooner or later. In the mean 
time, join us for the ride and enjoy being part of something awesome.

--Matt

P.S. As mailing lists are often considered to be "impersonal" by some kinds 
of people, it's sadly not uncommon to see people not on their best 
behaviors. Take most of the bumps you've seen with "a grain of salt", as you 
said.

-- 
Matt Lewandowsky
Big Geek
Greenviolet
matt at greenviolet.net http://www.greenviolet.net
+1 415 578 5782 (US) +44 844 484 8254 (UK)

-----Original Message----- 
From: Christopher J. Ruwe
Date: Tuesday, 07 December, 2010 11:55
To: discuss at lists.illumos.org
Subject: Re: [illumos-Discuss] gdamore wishes he knew what would motivate 
more developers to work on illumos bugs....

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
-- 
Christopher J. Ruwe
TZ GMT + 1

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