Re: hi team!

[Manuel Prinz <manuel@debian.org>]

Hi Andrea!

Am Freitag, den 25.09.2009, 08:01 +0000 schrieb Andrea Neroni:
> I would want to join the Debian Science Team because some packages are
> useful in my studies and everywhere developer recommend to join a team
> to start contribution.
> Since I'm new to this I need a bit of help for improving my knowledge
> of the Debian distribution and packaging/mantaining the system.

Thanks for your interest in Debian Science! There are a lot of ways to
contribute, i.e. by fixing bugs or maintaining packages. You can look at
the current bugs at the Debian Science bug page [1]. Information on how
to use the bug tracking system (BTS) can be found under [2]. If you
register an account on Alioth [3], you can request to join the Debian
Science project. This will give you access to the Subversion and Git
repositories of the group, to which you can commit your fixes. Sending
them to the BTS as patches is fine, too.

If you are interested in packaging, I recommend to subscribe to the
debian-mentors mailing list. You can ask questions there and learn by
just reading. Additionally, there are three documents that are have to
read: The Debian Policy Manual [4], the Debian Social Contract [5] and
the Debian Developers reference [6]. Also, there is a Debian Science
Policy Manual [7] (which needs updates here and there, I'm working on
it). It covers some things that should help making work for the team
easier. Then, go find a package you care about. Helping with existing
packages might be easier at first. If you feel confident, create a new
package. You will need sponsoring to get the package into the archive.
The process is mentioned in the documents I cited.

If you have further questions, don't hesitate to ask us!

Best regards
Manuel

 1. http://blends.alioth.debian.org/science/
 2. http://www.debian.org/Bugs/
 3. https://alioth.debian.org/account/register.php
 4. http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/
 5. http://www.debian.org/social_contract
 6. http://www.debian.org/doc/developers-reference/
 7. http://debian-science.alioth.debian.org/debian-science-policy.html