Re: Can I become a Debian package maintainer, how?
schoappied <schoappied@gmail.com> writes:
> Ben Finney wrote:
> > One of the smoothest paths to improving Debian and becoming a
> > contributing maintainer is to choose a Debian package that you use
> > yourself, and begin fixing some of its bugs in the bug tracking
> > system <URL:http://bugs.debian.org/>.
> >
> > This will be of direct benefit and, since you will be working with
> > the existing maintainers, will also start to teach you about how
> > Debian packages are maintained collaboratively.
>
> Ok... What to do mean by 'fix bugs'? I think I'm able to build
> packages, but I'm not a software developer...
One of the main tasks of a package maintainer is dealing with the bugs
(and the changes that fix those bugs) reported for that package. A
package maintainer generally needs to be able to be comfortable with
the programming languages used to implement the work, in order to deal
with bugs in the package.
If you want to contribute to a package without being a package
manager, there are many ways that don't involve programming:
* triage bugs (improve the quality of existing bug reports by trying
to get detailed information about exactly what the problem might
be), with Cc to the bug report so the information is captured
* improve documentation (many packages are in need of better
documentation, and non-programmer users of the package can often
have a more appropriate perspective for writing that documentation)
and submit changes to the package maintainer
* work on packaging bugs (read and understand the package maintainer
documentation <URL:http://www.debian.org/doc/devel-manuals>, and
help fix those reported bugs that are actually Debian packaging
bugs)
* anything else from <URL:http://www.debian.org/intro/help>
Thank you for your interest and I hope you find a way to contribute!
--
\ “And if I laugh at any mortal thing, / 'Tis that I may not |
`\ weep.” —“Lord” George Gordon Noel Byron, _Don Juan_ |
_o__) |
Ben Finney
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