Referring to Operation Timelord

[Yuriy Kozlov]

Hi Patrick,

On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 9:06 PM, Patrick Dickey <pdickeybeta at gmail.com> wrote:
> I was reading the Operation Timelord page, and it said that if you
> wanted to help out, contact the team at the development portion of the
> contact list.  I'm not sure if this is the right e-mail address/mailing
> list or not.  So, I'm willing to offer up my help in any way that I can.

Glad to have you helping!

>
> As for coding, I've got some experience in Java and Visual Basic.NET.
> I've also had programming courses in Pascal, FORTRAN, COBOL, and other
> obsolete languages.

Frankly, none of those languages specifically is going to be
particularly useful,
but the general experience is helpful and I'm sure you could easily
learn Python, which is what many Kubuntu and Ubuntu utilities are
written in, if you wanted to.

>
> I have a blog, in which I intend to frequently post about Kubuntu and
> Ubuntu.  In fact, Kubuntu is my preferred distro.  The blog is at
> http://patscompservices.blogspot.com (although I plan on moving it in
> the near future).
>
> I can probably help out with promotions and maybe some triaging of bugs
> (as long as it doesn't require coding experience in C++ or other
> programming languages).  If it requires some experience in coding, I
> may be of limited use in triaging.

Triaging doesn't require coding experience.  If you do decide to *fix*
some bugs though,
you'll need Python or C++.  Basically, what we need with triaging is
all the help we can get with sorting through the thousands of bug
reports filed on Launchpad.  As part of Project Timelord, we've
adopted a new policy[1] to reduce this load, but this is not ideal.
More specifically, we need to narrow down and prioritize any bugs
introduced by Kubuntu packaging as well as any critical upstream KDE
bugs that may make the Kubuntu distribution not fit to release.  Any
other KDE bug reports in Launchpad need to be forwarded upstream so
the platform/application developers can fix them.

So your job as a triager is:
a) Confirm the existence/validity of the bug to your best ability.
b) Prioritize the bug.  This can be the most difficult part because
every issue on its own seems important.
c) Make sure all the information that can be gathered that might help
a developer fix the bug is attached to the report.
d) Send it to the right people.  This usually means assigning it to
the correct package in Launchpad and/or linking to an upstream report
(filing one if necessary).

You can learn all about triaging at
https://wiki.kubuntu.org/Bugs/HowToTriage
The information there is general to Ubuntu, but applies to Kubuntu.
Feel free to get on IRC and ask us or the Bug Squad any questions.

>
> If this is the wrong place for this, please let me know where to send
> my information.   Again, I got this from the "Help Wanted" link on the
> Operation Timelord page.
>
> Thanks, and have a great day:)
> Patrick.
>

This is the right place and it's great to hear from you.

~ Yuriy

[1] https://wiki.kubuntu.org/Kubuntu/Specs/LucidBugTriagePolicy