So you want to contribute to open source?

[Matthew East]

Hi Pete,

On Wed, 2007-03-14 at 17:26 +0000, Peter Savage wrote:
>       * Planning out his ideas
>               * Talking to community about needs
>               * Planning time and structure
>               * Looking for projects to build from
>       * Choosing a language to code in based on it's merits
>               * Comparisons of different languages / methods
>               * Rapid Application Development
>       * Registering and using Launchpad properly
>               * What are all the options in LP?
>               * Releases/Milestone usage
>               * Setting it all up
>       * Writing the code
>               * Structuring your work environment
>               * Bazaar, how to use effectively
>               * Presentation
>               * Commenting
>       * Packaging the code
>               * Ubuntu Packaging Guide - Nuff said
>       * Bug triaging
>               * Getting started on bug triaging
>               * gdb and the like
>               * Effective use of LP
>       * Managing teams
>               * Teams in LP
>               * Assigning tasks to team members
>               * Evaluating team members strong points
>       * Effective communication
>               * Keeping people in touch
>               * Communication email/blog/mailing list
>       * Continual management
>               * Keeping things fresh
>               * Holding events

Some brief comments:

I tend to agree with John that you need to focus a bit on who you are
writing for, whether it's more general or whether you wish to limit
yourself to the Ubuntu community.

I think from what you've written that it's the latter.

A great deal of the subject matter you've identified already exists, or
is in the process of existing. So, starting from roughly where I think
that a user is likely to land first:

http://www.ubuntu.com/community/participate
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ContributeToUbuntu
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDevelopment
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HelpingWithBugs
https://help.ubuntu.com/6.10/ubuntu/packagingguide/C/index.html
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BuildingCommunity
https://help.launchpad.net/

And so on.

My personal view is that this sort of thing isn't an appropriate subject
matter for a printed book; people wanting to contribute to Ubuntu are
likely to have the energy and the ability to get online and browse
through the enormous Ubuntu websites.

As you mentioned, people definitely don't find this information as
easily as they perhaps could (although this has improved a lot in recent
times).

So instead we should focus on ensuring that everyone can access the
information that exists easily, and that all the relevant areas are
covered. The Ubuntu book also contains lots of material that if
necessary can be used to supplement what already exists.

Matt
-- 
http://www.mdke.org
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