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List:       gentoo-amd64
Subject:    Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Why Is Gentoo So Far Behind?
From:       Richard Freeman <rich0 () gentoo ! org>
Date:       2009-06-16 21:40:28
Message-ID: 4A38114C.10206 () gentoo ! org
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Frank Peters wrote:
> Maybe I'll post some ebuilds for cooledit and nedit.  These are two
> text editors for which I've filed bug reports and fixes, but there
> has been no action yet due to lack of maintainers.
> 
> It may be a while though.  After quickly looking through the developer's
> manual, I can anticipate a fair amount of study before I can write even
> a simple ebuild.
> 

If you take the time to learn there is an option to become a 
proxy-maintainer of a package.  Essentially you would actually maintain 
the package, but a gentoo dev would be officially responsible for it and 
would supervise all work on it.  This works well for specialized ebuilds 
that would otherwise not be in portage, but where we have an interested 
user.  The dev that works with you would also be able to help out with 
any sticky ebuild issues.

Keep in mind that simple ebuilds actually are fairly simple.  The only 
issue is that some packages are really picky about how they are built 
and that can get tricky.

Also, many devs (such as me) aren't intimately familiar with every 
eclass out there - ebuilds can do quite a bit and you can get started 
just knowing a moderate amount of the basics.  Half of the job of a dev 
is just knowing what does and doesn't cause bigger issues so that you 
can safely get stuff done without having to actually know everything. 
Of course, in a proxy-maintainer relationship the proxy doesn't really 
need to worry about this stuff since somebody else is providing some QA 
oversight.

There are also lots of developer/staff roles in gentoo beyond just 
maintaining packages.  There are some that just do documentation work, 
and many who focus primarily on testing/stabilizing packages.  It isn't 
for everybody, but if you have decent IT skills and a reasonably mature 
mindset it isn't that hard to get into.  More than anything you need to 
be somebody who can be trusted - every time you run emerge you trust 
that gentoo won't hose your system, and to make that happen we need to 
have devs who understand basic QA and are responsible with the power 
they wield.


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