After finishing work on the release, and renewing the website, the next big
project is to make it easier to contribute. One thing I just finished doing
is cleaning up the remaining pieces of the website that required manual help
to get translated, so now it should be easier to add new languages and to
maintain them. I'll write to the translators mailing list about this.
Aklis and me (mostly him) have been working on setting a new development
infrastructure, composed of two pieces:
* Gitlab: https://devel.trisquel.info
A git code management system similar to github in features, but fully free
and under our control. Users will be able to clone a project, apply and track
changes, and request them to be reviewed and merged into the production
branch. By now we will only allow registration by request to the
trisquel-devel list, at least while the platform and workflow gets tested.
* Jenkins
A continuous integration system that would build new packages automatically
when there are new versions of a helper in the gitlab production branch, or
when there is an update from upstream requiring a package to be recompiled.
This two pieces should provide a much simpler way for developers to join.
User flares and permissions:
We are going to use the Drupal user profiles to manage the contributor
structure of the project, extending what we already have by marking users
with different flags: Member, Translator, Developer, Documenter... each one
linking to a page explaining the role and how to request it.
---
Some replies:
> The idea is that trisquel remains rubens project
I have no plans of reducing my involvement on the project, but as long as it
is considered "my project" I'm doing something wrong. This needs to be a
community effort, regardless of how many hours I personally invest in it.
> This project does not have a public system for inviting newcomers
True. We need to make the "how to help" pages in the wiki more prominent and
straightforward. There are wrong perceptions from newcomers on what does a
distro do, so we constantly get people saying "I'm a $language developer, how
can I help?" or "I want to translate the programs in Trisquel". We don't
develop, we adapt. And we only translate our own website. This needs to be
clearly stated, with links to direct those volunteers to upstream projects.
We also need to list the tasks we *do* perform in clear way, so people can
join those efforts easily.
> I tried to write a patch and posted it on developers mailing list, but
after four days it's neither been rejected nor accepted to be posted to the
mailing list. It made me feel that something's fishy here.
I apologize for that. This is one of the reasons we are changing the workflow
and implementing gitlab/jenkins: it makes it things like this hard to miss.
Also, it would allow for more than one person to review and approve code.
Right now this contributions depend on me going through the lists and the
issues manually, and I get way too much email.
> The Developer Meetings[...]
We should restart those ASAP. I'm going out for a week, but I think that
after it we should start using this new tools and workflow, something that
should start with a developer meeting. I'll follow up when I'm back.
>So quidam's comms are not good by non-geek standards
Quite true... I don't follow the forums too much. People sometimes point me
to interesting posts like this one. The fastest way to contact me is usually
the #trisquel channel in freenode.
