[lug] The changing Linux Community was Re: cp and rm

[Chris Riddoch]

Hugh Brown <hugh at vecna.com> writes:

> This is something that is interesting to me.  I have extremely limited
> programming skills.  I have the perception that if I were to try and get
> involved in contributing code back to the community, I would be laughed off
> or that I would be thoroughly overwhelmed by the learning curve necessary
> to get to the point required to be able to fix things that bugged me.
> 
> For now, my means of contributing is answering what I can on mailing lists
> such as this and by using the system at home.

I think that's my cue to chime in on this thread.

Contributing includes more than just coding. If you find a bug in a
program, and report it in a way that the programmers will be able to
understand what went wrong, that's contributing.

If you offer to maintain a website for a project, that's contributing.
So is writing documentation. (You knew I was going to throw that one
in there, didn't you?)  Helping someone fix a problem, whether it
involves programming or not, is contributing.  Showing up to
installfests to help out is, as well.

Maybe someone could add to this, and I could make a short
Contributing-HOWTO, or something. Brainstorm time?

-- 
Chris Riddoch       | epistemological
socket at peakpeak.com | humility