From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Junio C Hamano Subject: Re: Helping on Git development Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2011 11:29:28 -0700 Message-ID: <7vehzjugdz.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: "Eduardo D'Avila" , git@vger.kernel.org To: Andrew Ardill X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Wed Sep 14 20:29:45 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@lo.gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.180.67]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1R3uDO-00064K-9E for gcvg-git-2@lo.gmane.org; Wed, 14 Sep 2011 20:29:42 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1757320Ab1INS3e (ORCPT ); Wed, 14 Sep 2011 14:29:34 -0400 Received: from b-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com ([208.72.237.35]:57642 "EHLO smtp.pobox.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1757261Ab1INS3d (ORCPT ); Wed, 14 Sep 2011 14:29:33 -0400 Received: from smtp.pobox.com (unknown [127.0.0.1]) by b-sasl-quonix.pobox.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id EC5624E27; Wed, 14 Sep 2011 14:29:32 -0400 (EDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed; d=pobox.com; h=from:to:cc :subject:references:date:in-reply-to:message-id:mime-version :content-type; s=sasl; bh=MXRM43/a7n6gcxvETsIQ5+POTzs=; b=eUk8Un TU2RfAJVH55dQCR2bn/4sv1t/s4XAPqBi5fNqu4pTzV3hC0if98hUFtvBVqU/Egm AikOfoF4Q6fpFaavmTKvTuG4LOf2QGdysdHSa34YRnjsE2vkxxqciP35nHDPEv5D ZfF+hlIcBHpiH2oLKXbIFijv9bTgGdbc1CzQg= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=pobox.com; h=from:to:cc :subject:references:date:in-reply-to:message-id:mime-version :content-type; q=dns; s=sasl; b=ndrhMJRnqMweeNyRo12X9BH1qB/39j7C vg9Gd4inxoUxvIK227WFRMXbxt6ituNiwttkSE5r41nfs6dL4b1DQ5qieGWfJdTc I3FssXTe7xDBOHHibyiqsnne9C1ePMwRTzrYzG/lTKepgVvyYFhSYxL8YCZYKHhX Op0Fdsqu0zg= Received: from b-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com (unknown [127.0.0.1]) by b-sasl-quonix.pobox.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id E3DA84E1C; Wed, 14 Sep 2011 14:29:32 -0400 (EDT) Received: from pobox.com (unknown [76.102.170.102]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by b-sasl-quonix.pobox.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 6348B4E1B; Wed, 14 Sep 2011 14:29:32 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: (Andrew Ardill's message of "Wed, 14 Sep 2011 15:16:32 +1000") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.2 (gnu/linux) X-Pobox-Relay-ID: 7D786516-DEFF-11E0-A539-9DB42E706CDE-77302942!b-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: Andrew Ardill writes: > On 14 September 2011 13:05, Eduardo D'Avila wrote: >> Hi, >> >> I have being using Git for some time now and I am very satisfied with it. >> Now I'm considering giving back by helping on its development. >> Is there any bug listing which I can check if there is some point I can help? >> Any suggestions on other ways to help are also welcomed. :-) > > Hi Eduardo, as stated in the README, > > The messages titled "A note from the maintainer", "What's in git.git > (stable)" and "What's cooking in git.git (topics)" and the discussion > following them on the mailing list give a good reference for project > status, development direction and remaining tasks. > > Additionally, I think the README should include something like > > If you are looking to contribute to the project, a good place to start > is http://git-blame.blogspot.com/p/note-from-maintainer.html and in > Documentation/howto/maintain-git.txt I am moderately averse to hardcoding that URL that is guaranteed not to survive the maintainer change in our README file. The howto/maintain-git document mentions the periodical "A note from the maintainer" posting to the list that has the same text, which is a more appropriate reference. As to contributing to the project, right now, I think we have enough people who want to write code and documentation for Git, but what we lack are bandwidth to (this is not meant to be an exhaustive list): - review the patches on the list and help perfecting them; - distilling random wishes from the end user community while winnowing chaffs that are unrealistic or do not fit well with the grand scheme of things, to come up with a concrete proposal and a patch series to move the discussions forward in a productive way; - "on boarding" new contributors, helping them to become a useful member of the community, teaching how to write a good bug report and how to sell a new feature (i.e. "the perfect patch"); - dig list archives to point people at age-old discussions to non-issues that have long been resolved to squelch noise; and - remind original submitter, people who were involved in the discussion, and people who should have been involved but who weren't, of a worthy but stalled topics from time to time. The first two need to come from more experienced folks whose judgement I can trust (iow, not a newbie task). Others are "project secretary" tasks that can be helped by anybody who is good at tracking things, perhaps except for the last one that needs a good taste when judging which topic is worthy of reminders.