I have added a couple of comments below, based on my small (but to some noticeable) experience.
Jan On 16 November 2012 15:39, Rob Weir <robw...@apache.org> wrote: > As you have probably seen, we're currently doing a call for QA > volunteer, supported by a blog post, the website and social media. > They all direct users to an "Introduction to QA" page: > http://incubator.apache.org/openofficeorg/orientation/intro-qa.html > > We've been promoting this for a week now and have received 5 or 6 good > responses. Of course, not everyone who responds will become a > longer-term volunteer, but this is how we start. I invite anyone with > some spare time (ha!) to jump on the QA list to help > coach/mentor/orient the new volunteers. Their initial experience, in > the first few days and weeks, is critical. > > This QA promotion follows some initial experiments with putting > targeted calls for volunteers on NL home pages. You cans see an > example here: http://www.openoffice.org/hi/ > > This approach has been very successful, perhaps because we get the > plea in front of exactly the audience that can most help in the > translation tasks. In some cases we received 2 or 3 volunteers for a > language within a few days of adding this kind of message. I'm > hoping we can do a broader call for localization volunteers as well. > Juergen has promised a blog post on this topic, based on his ApacheCon > presentation. > > Next up I have a call for marketing volunteers: > http://incubator.apache.org/openofficeorg/orientation/intro-marketing.html > We're still reviewing that page, and I need to prepare a blog post. > Hopefully we can start promoting this in a week or two. > > Which all brings us to Dev. We all know how critical developers are. > I'm pretty sure that was why beer was invented. I saved Dev for the > end because I wanted to "fine-tune" the recruitment approach before > doing Dev. I'd like to brainstorm a little on what kind of > information we should gather together, in the form of new material or > links to existing (or updated) material, to make an "Intro to Dev" > page, in the style of the ones above. > > Assumptions: > > -- Volunteer has practical C++ and platform skills on at least one > core platform. It is not practical for us to teach someone C++. > > Goals: > > -- Volunteer is able to download and build AOO > > -- Volunteer is able to run AOO in a debugger > > -- Volunteer is able to fix an "easy" bug in Bugzilla > > -- Volunteer is able to submit a patch to fix the bug > > -- Volunteer understands the basics about how we work on the lists, > how we make decisions, etc. > -- Volunteer understand the structure of the AOO source tree. -- Volunteer understand how QA work hand in hand wih dev (this is something I still do not understand). > > IMHO, someone who does the above, and repeats it 3 or 4 times, and > sticks around for a month or more, and is not a jerk, then they are > probably a good committer candidate. I think that would be one > success metric for us. > > Considering the above, I think we'd want the Intro to Dev page to > feature (not necessarily in this order): > > -- Link to intro on Subversion > The apache introduction, was very helpful for me having experience with other version control systems. > -- Patch submission instructions > which should include a brief mail, saying "I will work on" > > -- Link to the Building Guide -- but might need a refresh > not "might" that is an absolute must...there are at least 3 different build instructions for Ubuntu, and I actually ended up doing a 4th variation (thanks to help from the list). I will gladly help here. > > -- Link to a debugging guide (does this even exist?) > +1 -- Link to Bugzilla and a pre-defined search for unclaimed "easy" > bugs. (Also, we need to mark some easy bugs in advance) > +1 -- Link to OpenGrok for source search. -- Description of source tree, especially what is "dead" code. > > -- Link to previous write up on Discussion lists, Apache Way, etc. > +1 > > > Also, another idea was whether we might make the initial build > experience far easier for the developer if we encouraged the use of a > single platform and version. A developer can use whatever they want, > within reason, of course. But what if we said, if you use Ubuntu > 12.04 LTS then here is a script that will install the exact pre-reqs > you need and bring down the build, set all the flags and kick off a > build? In other words, control the environment and we can make the > initial build be painless. In a world of virtual machines, this is > possible. > +1, but even better offer a prebuilt directory tree, ready to debug. > > Anything else for the guide? What else does a new developer need to > know to get started? Also, is anyone interested in helping me put > this together? > If wanted, I will be happy to assist, since I still have a lot of my problems in fresh memory. > > > -Rob >
