Linux Foundation Paving Way for New Kernel Developers

Jack Spine writes "The Linux Foundation has published a how-to document for developers who want to negotiate the hidden shoals of open source. According to both the Linux Foundation and the Open Source Consortium, developers can get frustrated with the processes in open source coding, especially for enterprise-class projects like Linux. 'A guide to the kernel development process' aims to encourage participation from new programmers by explaining what's involved. Some developers and businesses attempting to submit changes to the Linux kernel find themselves tangled up with the processes used, according to the guide, which was written by Jonathan Corbet, executive editor of lwn.net and himself a Linux developer."

Comments

direct link

[larry bagina]

here.

How much skill?

[colmore]

So I can pretty well follow a spec, an algorithm description, or pseudo-code in C. But I'm no pro. Do I have the skills to start contributing to a top-tier open source project like the kernel, gcc, apache, etc? I'm looking at this link, what others would people recommend for how to get started?

Re:How much skill?

[gbjbaanb]

This one.

Pick a project (you will have to filter the language to C for the more kernel-like projects), then offer to help out with some coding. The people running it should be happy for you to help out (just don't expect to suddenly become a respected developer until you've proven it) and should be able to provide you with more assistance in getting up to speed. Once there, you should have the confidence to tackle something more high-profile.

Re:How much skill?

[larry bagina]

1. use FREE software.
2. Find bugs, annoyances, or missing features.
3. submit bug report, enhancement request, or patch
4. watch bug report get ignored or closed, watch patch get rejected for using 4 spaces per tab instead of 2

Re:How much skill?

[Thiez]

5. Write javascript webpage that can change the indent style of code (K&R, Allman, KNF, GNU, etc). (Paste code in textarea, select style, click 'Go', and the code changes to the selected style)
6. Place some adds on your webpage
7. ???
8. Profit!

Re:How much skill?

[flowsnake]

The SourceForge Help Wanted page is also a good place to look. Most of the projects looking for help aren't really top-tier projects, but they'd be a good way of building up reputation when the GP later wants to go for the big name projects.

Re:How much skill?

[wellingj]

5. Use Artistic Style .

There, fixed that for you.

Re:How much skill?

[TheRaven64]

Also don't forget that Sourceforge isn't the only place to find Free Software projects. A lot of us use GNA for our hosting, since it isn't quite so cluttered with ads and the entire platform they use is Free Software, so if we decide we don't like them we can move to our own server somewhere without changing the server-side components at all (GNA is run by FSF France and bandwidth is donated by the French ISP Free.fr).

A good place to look for getting involved with projects is in the bugs database. Pick a bug, and see if you can reproduce it. Then see if you can narrow down the cause and produce a minimal test case. Then see if you can work out which bit of the code is causing the problems. Even if you don't fix it yourself, this information is helpful to the project and a really good learning experience since it forces you to read and understand other peoples' code. And if you fix the bug, most projects will be very happy.

One thing to note is that most projects have their own set of coding conventions. If you send a patch, please observe these. I contribute to a couple of projects which have almost the exact opposite set of coding conventions and sometimes it's a little hard to remember to switch between them, but it's worth doing because it does make life easier for people reading the code in either project.

Just submit a patch

[thefear]

The worst they can do is not apply it

Re:Just submit a patch

[greg1104]

Actually, the worst they can do is not apply it and decide you're incompetent/don't play by the rules/etc. Then you risk your future submissions being less likely to be considered even if you improve later. The person who wastes the time of a patch reviewer is not soon forgotten by that reviewer.

It really is better to not submit a patch at all if you don't know what's going on yet, which is exactly why guides like this one are helpful. I've worked on a similar one for PostgreSQL because it's hard for new people to pick up the unique requirement quirks of a group of developers, and lowering that barrier improves the health of the project.

Re:slashdotted

[LinuxScribe]

It's back up now. We just had to restart the server and turn on some caching goodness.

Peace,
BKP

Re:are they looking to expand their circle of devs

[LinuxScribe]

Mostly this is part of a larger effort by the Linux Foundation to make Linux development more accessible. There's a lot of interested folks out there who simply don't know the nuances of dealing with the kernel (and, perhaps, general free and open source) developers. This document will hopefully tear down any perceived curtains and allow ISVs and individual developers get a good idea of how to deal with the kernel.

Brian Proffitt
Community Manager
Linux Developer Network

Talking about learning curves..

[PAStheLoD]

I don't know what's the bigger achievement. Getting a patch into mainline or reading all of these 67-miles long "super-qucik howtos". Seriously, what's wrong with a wiki, where you can "abstract" hundreds of lines into smaller, more managable articles? Anyhow, it's good to see the most sacred inner-cult of KernelMailingList opening up a little :)

So?

[Gazzonyx]

If someone decides that you're a trouble maker, or whatever, try to get your patch in a different branch of the tree. The kernel has a long tail, and all patches go upstream to Andrew Mortons tree and then hop to Linus' tree, provided that the code is decent and it serves a genuine purpose (A guy from Google has two spelling corrections that were merged and he got credited for).

You'll get yelled at for formatting and such before anyone of higher authority sees your code. You probably won't get your code past a subsystem maintainer without having it look presentable. It's just about getting your foot in the door at any node along the tail. I mean, even Namesys got code in the kernel with Hans shouting at everyone. The protocol for doing things is a bit flexible (I hear Andrew Morton still submits changes to Linus as tar balls from time to time... I'm not sure if he does this any more, though) if you stick to the key concepts.

Just my $0.02, I could be wrong.