Getting involved in ubuntu (was Re: metapackages)

[Matt Zimmerman]

On Tue, Sep 27, 2005 at 11:54:02AM +1000, Taryn East wrote:
> being one of said programmers I figured I should take this opportunity
> to leap into this conversation and say: what sort of stuff do you need
> to get involved in ubuntu development?
> 
> Apart, of course, from joining this list...
> 
> mostly the wiki seems to describe stuff that goes beyond "just getting
> started" - such as becoming a memberi/official maintainer.
> 
> The "how to contribute" page points you vaguely at MOTU, which then
> points to MaintainerCandidates which mentions something about Launchpad
> (without explaining what launchpad is, but it seems to take you to the
> dedicated ubuntu-dev team which seems more than I'm able to do right now).

The MOTU team is intended to provide a starting point for people who are
asking this question.  You can get in contact with them via this
mailing list, or #ubuntu-motu on IRC.

> It also seems to be a bit circular as it states that:
> "In order to become a maintainer, you must first be a member of the
> Ubuntu project."

It is intended that anyone joining the development team should also fulfil
the requirements of becoming an Ubuntu member.  In practice, the process by
which this is accomplished is still being established, and so not everyone
goes through the process in the same order.

> but to become a member... you have to have contributed to projects
> right?

To become a member, you must have made some substantial contribution to the
Ubuntu project.

> which means you need to become a maintainer...

Certainly not.  First, there are many ways to contribute which don't
involve software at all, and second, if you wish to contribute code but
aren't a maintainer yet, an existing maintainer can act as a mentor and
commit your changes for you (this also gives you a chance to get feedback on
your work and learn the tools and processes).  This is a common pattern in
open source projects.

> [who really isn't criticising the doco on this, just pointing out that
> it seemed unclear to me...]

Documentation contributions qualify for the membership guidelines...;-)

-- 
 - mdz