Re: [cross-project-issues-dev] Preferences (topic was touched in "Eclips

[Denis Roy <denis.roy@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 07/17/2013 12:58 PM, Doug Schaefer wrote:

That's why we need to grow the contributor community. The more hands we have on deck the more we can do this kind of analysis and planning and get things done.

I suspect that the codebase for any mature Eclipse project is quite intimidating.  As someone who's not involved in day-to-day Eclipse dev, here's what would help me out, regardless of the project:

0. Have a Contributing page.  CDT does this right:  http://eclipse.org/cdt/developers.php

1. Resist the urge to fix simple bugs, like typos and UI glitches.  Instead, add the keyword "bugday" to those bug reports.

2. In those bugday bugs, provide some clues to would-be contributors: "clone repo git.eclipse.org/gitroot/cdt/org.eclipse.x.git then look for SomeClass.java"

3. Post a link to "easy" bugs on your contributing page: https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/buglist.cgi?keywords=bugday&keywords_type=allwords&list_id=6294809&query_format=advanced&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&product=CDT

4. Tweet about your bugday bugs.  Blog about them.  Put them on your homepage.  Talk about them in your project forums.

5. Don't be too nit-picky with the patches you get in.  Shower contributors with love. I suspect most at Eclipse.org get this.


Since I use nothing but OSS at Eclipse.org, I'll often engage with projects to provide fixes and improvements if it's easy to do so.  Just yesterday the FUDForum software maintainers offered me committer access after I submitted maintenance patches for code I contributed years ago.

Denis