Asankha C. Perera wrote:
Of course you and anyone else is more than welcome to contribute. Initially you can file JIRAs, reply to user queries on the list and help them, update documentation, provide simple patches etc.. Then once you are familiar with the codebase, and the style of code locks to the same phase, you would be in a much better position to make more important contributions. Since we mainly communicate over the mailing lists, thats how both the dev and user communities gets to know you, and how you build your credibility within the community. I would also suggest the Wiki for any new ideas if they cannot go into a mail or JIRA.. and also suggest thinking out loud in email and JIRA's so that people knows what you are upto before you do something. See how many emails Senaka is exchanging on ws-commons [8] and the frequency, and I think its a fine example of iterative and collaborative development in Apache projects
There's no rule or process for how someone contributes in the way we do things in Apache. Its perfectly fine for someone to take on a challenging or hard part and do it. If what you're saying was the mindset when we started axis2, then it would never have existed as the approach would've been to learn the entire morass of axis1 code before doing anything new!
I think we should be encouraging radical innovation and people jumping into the deep end. If the code isn't right or good we should be giving the right feedback to get it improved. Support the person thru the process of doing it right - that way they learn how to do it, get the feedback and nurturing from the community and end of the day you have a committer in the making.
The worst thing to do is to rewrite it without prior indication of such a plan; that simply demotivates people from becoming contributors.
“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime."
Sanjiva. -- Sanjiva Weerawarana, Ph.D. Founder & Director; Lanka Software Foundation; http://www.opensource.lk/ Founder, Chairman & CEO; WSO2, Inc.; http://www.wso2.com/ Member; Apache Software Foundation; http://www.apache.org/ Visiting Lecturer; University of Moratuwa; http://www.cse.mrt.ac.lk/ Blog: http://sanjiva.weerawarana.org/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
