Contributing to the Scientific Project

0.1 2009-01-21 Overview

This document aims to provide information on how one can get involved and help out with the Gentoo Scientific Project. Scientific packages are very diverse and many of us want our pet application in the main tree for easy installation. Due to the small size of our team, we can not implement all of them, so we really appreciate any contribution.

There are few obvious areas where one can help as we describe below. The Scientific Project tends to set strong requirements on testing, especially on core packages. Comments, thoughts, and feedback is greatly welcomed!

Bugs

Reporting

All good software has bugs. They are too many combinations of compilers, USE flags and versions to test them all. So if you find the time to report them, we would love to hear about it. We have the standard bugzilla system for this. Don't be afraid of all these fields to fill in, it's not that bad!

Resolving

The Scientific Team in Gentoo has always had a high number of bugs. Fortunately, many of them are new packages. Any help in resolving issues, improving submitted ebuilds is greatly appreciated.

Bugs for the Scientific Team. Bugs for the Biology Team. Bugs for the Chemistry Team. Bugs for the Electronics Team. Bugs for the Mathematics Team. Bugs for the Physics Team.

Writing ebuilds

You don't see your application in the main tree or in the overlays and you don't want to wait for someone else to create the ebuilds? The most obvious solution is to develop your own ebuilds. If you do so, it's always nice to share them. You can post them to our bugzilla system and then one of our devs will comment out. The sunrise overlay allows you more directly to commit your ebuilds if you don't want to wait for science access.

Communication

Mailing List

Join our gentoo-science mailing list and asking/answering questions.

IRC

Meet some of us in #gentoo-science. It is a fairly quiet channel, but slowly growing and we are responsive. We can answer your questions, help you developing your ebuilds, share ideas, etc...

Direct emails

If you feel your questions are more private and don't need to be known from the rest of the world, you can always directly send an email to our developers listed here and the listed sub-projects. If you want to mail all of us, send a mail to the herd.

Writing Documentation

You may not be interested in fixing ebuilds and testing packages, but want to share your knowledge about some software, configuration or tips and tricks. The best way to do this is to write some documentation. You can even write official Gentoo documentation such as our blas/lapack guide.

Seriously getting involved

If you would like to join our team of volunteers and become an official Gentoo Developer, show activity in anywhere you can: bugzilla, overlays, mailing lists, irc, forums,... Please refer to Becoming a Developer in the Gentoo Developer Handbook.

Benefits are huge :-) :

Receive a warm welcome from us
Impress your geek friends
Get a free beer first time we meet in person!