on Wed, Oct 16, 2002, Sean 'Shaleh' Perry (shalehperry@attbi.com) wrote:
> On Wednesday 16 October 2002 14:58, deFreese, Barry wrote:
> > Since my posts usually get ignored we'll see what happens with this one.
> > :-)
> >
> > Since I don't have a great deal of money yet (When I win the lottery I
> > promise to send big checks to Debian and Samba!! :-) ) what is the best way
> > to contribute to the open source community? I've poked around on
> > sourceforge to see if I could lend a hand but many of the projects that I
> > found are probably a little over my head at this juncture. The initiative
> > here is two-fold.
> >
>
> 1) submit useful bug reports.
>
> 2) read existing bugs reports and offer help, suggestions, etc. Often
> developers are unable to reproduce a bug and it is much harder to solve a bug
> you can not see.
>
> 3) write tutorials, howtos, web docs, etc. Write a puff piece for
> freshmeat, slashdot, etc.
>
> 4) join mailing lists and help out those just starting. Read what
> other people say. You can learn a lot this way.
>
> 5) find a bug that is bothering you and try to fix it. Focus just on
> it. If it is obviously too hard of a bug see if you can find a
> smaller one. Alternatively try to add in a feature you are missing.
> Again start small.
Really good advice all around from Sean.
WRT documentation, I'll shamelessly plug a TWiki I've been organizing as
a collective brain dump for technical issues, TWikIWeThey:
http://twiki.iwethey.org/
...and answering a few questions:
- Why are you doing this? Because I find my own documentation to be
some of the more useful stuff I refer to. And occasionally hear
from others who share the view. This puts these docs where both I
and others can get at them.
- Why a Wiki? Because its easier to add/modify material than it is to
do same on my own (ISP-hosted) website. Because the best ideas in
my own pieces have come from other people. Because there just
aren't enough good docs on the 'Net. Because searching mailing list
and Usenet archives tends to suck after a while (too much
repitition, can't correct errors).
- What's a Wiki? Why TWiki? Well, see the FAQ. Basically, really
nice feature set. Simple markup. Some very nice add-ins.
Searchable.
http://twiki.iwethey.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WebFAQ
http://twiki.iwethey.org/twiki/bin/view/TWiki/WelcomeGuest
- Why not other sites (especially LDP and/or
http://wiki.debian.net/)? I see Wiki-based docs as a possible
supplement or new direction for LDP -- HOWTOs tend to get dated very
quickly. WDN...I've looked it over, in large part I think TWiki is
better suited than zwiki, again, toolset and such.
Peace.
--
Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
What Part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
Übersoft: We Aim.
http://www.ubersoft.net/
Attachment:
pgpJSxDbC6JOr.pgp
Description: PGP signature