As someone who retired, thinking he might get involved in OS projects, or volunteer for research, let me give you my perspective on contributing time. I will write in the first person, but am trying to give a point of view that may represent others.
1. Even though I am offering free work, it does not mean I do not want to get something in return. In this case it could be learning to program under the guidance of some cooperative mentor. If the attitude is 'get a book, learn to program, get some experience and then come back and we might let you spend your time here', my response is likely to be '@#$% you!', or 'if I wanted to learn on my own, I would work on my own project, not yours'. 2. If I test or document, I would expect friendly, polite, supportive and timely responses to what I submit. If I get treated as if my work is unimportant, or not good enough, I might as well get paid for it. 3. I can tell you from experience that it does not require English to be a professional programmer. I once took a class in C, and the best student in the class, a very experienced assembly and c programmer, who could barely speak English and took the course because he needed the certificate to work in the US. He occasionally helped the teacher with coding. 4. There is a web site called http://www.landshare.net/about/, which tries to put together people with available land, people who want to grow stuff, and people who can teach how to garden or farm. The idea is that the guys with the experience would teach the guys with time and desire how to use the land that is available. I think this is the only viable way to consistently work on OSS. Get together people with software needs, people who are willing to spend the time developing it, and people who can teach the second group how to develop for the first. It can be virtual groups, of course, and the outcome would be more people who know how to code using OSS development tools, and have experience coding in them. Cheers, Z. -- Check out my web site - www.words2u.net
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