Linux Format forums

MessedUpHare · Joined: Mon Oct 26, 2009 6:33 pm Posts: 10 Location: London

Hi all,

I've spend an age deliberating how to give back to the community.

I'm just unsure what to do, at the moment I'm trying to teach myself C++ having been years since I touched any programming.

What does everyone else do when they want to give back to the community?

Stewart

towy71 · Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2010 12:10 am Post subject:

I help people break, sorry, fix their computers Wink

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still looking for that door into summer

paulm · Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2010 12:25 am Post subject:

I maintain packages for two Linux distributions (which is fun) and do most of the repo maintenance for one of them (which is not fun).

Paul.

Dutch_Master · LXF regular Joined: Tue Mar 27, 2007 2:49 am Posts: 2353

I wrote a small script that was reasonably well recieved... Rolling Eyes

Oh, and I try to answer questions from others, both here and on the LQ forums. Wink

Bazza · Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2010 7:04 am Post subject:

LXF 129...

Dr Brown`s Article...

"Create Better Bug Reports."

You don`t need to know anything about programming to help
and add your bit to the Open Source Society.
(OSS!?! Sounds like CIA dunnit, eh! :)
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73...

Bazza, G0LCU...

Team AMIGA...

johnhudson · LXF regular Joined: Wed Aug 03, 2005 2:37 pm Posts: 767

Answer questions on a forum

Help with documentation

nelz · Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2010 9:33 am Post subject:

Tell people about Linux
Jojn a LUG and help people there

One of the wonderful things about the Linux community is that there are so many people that are contributing without considering that they are doing so.
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Unix is user-friendly. It's just very selective about who it's friends are.

M-Saunders · Moderator Joined: Mon Apr 11, 2005 1:14 pm Posts: 2881

Seconded for documentation. Free Software documentation ranges from brilliant to non-existent. Launch your most-used apps and see how much documentation you can find from within the app. If nothing, look on the app's website. If there's still nothing, offer to write some. Even if you don't have much time, any documentation is better than none at all!

M

nelz · Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2010 10:54 am Post subject:

My pet peeve is documentation that details all the options but gives no examples of how to use them. If you use such software already, it's not much work to send a few examples to the devs.
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Unix is user-friendly. It's just very selective about who it's friends are.

Rhakios · Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2010 11:36 am Post subject:

nelz · Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2010 1:23 pm Post subject:

Yes, but if the man pages included examples I could paste those into my copy instead of working them out for myself... but keep that between you and me Smile

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Unix is user-friendly. It's just very selective about who it's friends are.

guy · Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2010 8:56 pm Post subject:

I help promote the use and development of Free/Open Source at work - we are making slow but steady progress.

I contribute to various wikis (OK that's just the wider open information community, but I hate dividing lines)

And I lay slow plans to join a project developing software for my favourite hobby.
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Cheers,
Guy
The eternal noob

guy · Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2010 8:58 pm Post subject:

Bazza · Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2010 9:28 pm Post subject:

My pet hate is the dependency issues.

I really hate anything that needs this, that and the other
of version(s) x.y.z before it will even start.

The amount of times that it occurs to people on this site
alone is staggering.

Anyone who can list dependencies for any one App`, versions,
where to find them, how to install them and create a line by
line childs level set of instructions to do so would be of great
use.

(Why can`t these whizzkid coding experts create something
without resorting to "some_unknown_unwanted_library.so"?)
_________________
73...

Bazza, G0LCU...

Team AMIGA...

nelz · Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2010 9:37 pm Post subject: