Re: [Gnewsense-dev] Interested in contributing

[Sam Geeraerts]

Op Wed, 8 Jan 2014 12:43:31 -0500
schreef A Beadle <address@hidden>:

> I am interested in contributing to this project.

Welcome.

> For various reasons, I won't be able to do very much until perhaps
> around June or July.
> 
> However, I am interested in joining the project now, and getting "up
> to speed" in the meantime.
> 
> My skills include coding in c, c++, python, and bash.
> I have a basic understanding of how packaging works.

I'll lazily refer you to an earlier welcome message [1].

> I have made an account on the wiki and in Savannah, and I will be
> asking to join the gNewSense group in Savannah soon.
> 
> Question: What is actually involved in creating a new release of
> gNewSense? The latest release is based on Debian Squeeze, which seems
> rather old. I see that the next release will be based on Wheezy, and
> I'm wondering what it takes to do a release.
> Helping to do releases in a timely manner is something that I am
> interested in.

The short version is: copy Debian, configure Debderiver, patch branding
and freedom issues, generate an image.

The slightly longer version is that it took some figuring out how to
keep it working when we call it gNewSense instead of Debian, how to
deblob Linux, how to support the Yeeloong properly and to set up our
infrastructure. There's also: building and testing everything on 3
architectures, figuring out if user problems are due to bugs, version
lag or lack of freedom, writing documentation, combating spammers and
trolls, welcoming and mentoring newcomers, tracking (security) updates,
clearing up license ambiguities, pushing bugs and patches upstream and
keeping users informed. Not necessarily in that order. :)

I expect that we can port most of our patches (except Linux) for Parkes
easily to Parkes+1. But before we start on that I want to get the bug
count down some more and clean up a bit.

[1]
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnewsense-dev/2013-10/msg00032.html