How to Participate
From openSUSE
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Whether you're an experienced Linux developer or an end user just getting started with Linux, there are many ways for you to participate in the openSUSE project. Join a forum to get help or help others with openSUSE, find and report bugs, review the documentation, send your wish list for new packages and features, create and submit patches, or find other creative ways to contribute. Whatever you do, take a few minutes to discuss openSUSE with other users and become an active member of the openSUSE community. For pretty many activities a login is needed to enjoy all the fun and you might create an user page and share some useful information or interests about you with others. Here's a short guide how to do this. |
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Join openSUSE
What skills are necessary?
Any skill is useful for the openSUSE project!
If you are a developer of any kind, we will find something for you to do. But even if you think that you have no Linux skills you can still help. You can tell us if and how you understand the wiki pages, or more precisely, we would like to know what pages you don't understand. Thanks to the insights of new users we can continuously enhance readability of the wiki.
If on top of that, if you can write, you are invaluable. We need a lot of articles. There are thousands of Linux programs around, and more are released every day. In addition, new versions of existing applications are released. There is a need for a lot of hands to write about them and to keep reviews current.
Participate in it
The following tasks can be done even by beginners :)
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- Be part of the openSUSE Community
See where other openSUSE community members are located world-wide, get to know some People of openSUSE, find local openSUSE user groups, celebrate releases, learn about the governance structure and more.
- Help other openSUSE users
There are several active communities that help all levels of openSUSE users. You can help beginners on different media, including Mailing List, IRC and Forums. Please have a look at Communicate for an overview.
- Suggest New Features or Software
Visit openFATE our Feature- and Requirements Management System. Here you can get a sorted overview of things happening in upcoming products, follow and participate on the discussion by adding comments or work on features for the next product generation (version) and help to make openSUSE an even better Linux distribution.
- Help in the vital areas
There are Tasks that the opensuse community declared as vital, but have actually no volunteers for. You can browse through the list of needed jobs and find one that suits you.
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Additional information: Community – Communicate – openFATE – Tasks – Teams
Document it
Write how-to, documentation, and much more!
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- Be part of the Wiki Team
This page is built with MediaWiki. The concept of a Wiki is that anybody may add and modify content. As long as you edit anything on the wiki you are de facto member of the Wiki Team. Please see the Wiki Team page if you want to contribute to the Wiki. On wiki help, find a quick tutorial if you're unfamiliar with Wikis. Please make sure that you follow the style guide. For more information about translation and localization please look at the translation guide-how to localize a wiki.
- Review or Write Documentation, Manuals, and Articles
Visit the Documentation page to contribute or read articles and manuals. If you've got instructions, solutions to common problems, neat tips and tricks, or just a good way to explain something, we'd love to hear from you.
- Improve Hardware Compatibility List
Hardware support provides challenges to any distribution of Linux. The Harware Compatibility List pages are used by the openSUSE community to record the compatibility of various hardware and full systems with openSUSE. Share your experience by adding your hardware, especially if you had some issue that you overcame.
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Additional information: Wiki Team – Translation Team – Documentation Team – Hardware
Develop it
Develop the distribution.
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- Design openSUSE Artwork
Interested in contributing to the look and feel of openSUSE? Visit the artwork Pixel Pool to show off your designs and help influence the next version of openSUSE's artwork.
- Localize openSUSE Specific Applications
Translations of YaST2 and other applications specific to openSUSE.
For KDE, GNOME and different applications that don't belong to either of two, it is possible to find contributors in other Linux communities, but YaST and Co are our responsibility. Read more about it on http://i18n.opensuse.org.
- Test openSUSE and Report Bugs
You can help improve openSUSE by finding and reporting bugs. Our bug tracking system, Bugzilla, is used for all openSUSE/SUSE Linux products. If you have never written a bug report, please refer to Bug Reporting FAQ to learn what kinds of information make the report most useful.
- Screen openFATE Features
You can assure best outcome for the openSUSE distribution by reviewing the proposed Features for the next product generation to keep openFATE as efficient as possible.
- Package Applications
Contrib is the universal openSUSE repository for third-party packages. For more information about getting source code and building your own packages, read the openSUSE Build Tutorial.
- Develop Patches
The most obvious way for programmers to participate in the development of openSUSE is to post a patch as a suggested solution to an existing bug in Bugzilla. Each package has a maintainer, who will contact you to discuss your proposed solution. You may want to join one of our development mailing lists before you start coding in order to discuss your plans and coordinate with other developers.
- Test Development Stream
Factory is the name of our regularly updated development version which will result in the next openSUSE version.
- Achieve a Google Summer of Code project
There are several areas in and around openSUSE which offer the opportunity to do a Google Summer of Code project. If you are a student, you can participate by developing one of the open source projects described here (or propose an idea of your own!), and win cash prizes, while being mentored by an experienced member of the openSUSE community.
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Additional information: Artwork Pixel Pool – Localization Team – Proofreading Team – Testing Team – Features Screening Team – Summer of Code
Spread it
Be the voice of the openSUSE community!
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- Become an Ambassador
The openSUSE Community is made up of helpful and enthusiastic people, and our ambassadors are the most friendly, helpful, and enthusiastic of all. As an openSUSE Ambassador, you will play a part in helping the openSUSE Project reach new users and new contributors.
- Be part of the Marketing team
Publicize community events and meetings to maximize turnout and participation, create artwork, banners and other material that can be reused for openSUSE, help organize launch parties or local events, and much more. In other words : be part of the Marketing Team and promote openSUSE all around you!
- Write the Newsletters
Become an editor of the weekly openSUSE newsletter, or translate it into your own language and share the last information about openSUSE !
- Discover openSUSE people
Vote whom do you want to see interviewed soon for the People of openSUSE series.
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Additional information: Ambassador – Marketing Team – Weekly News Team – People of openSUSE
Lead it
Actively influence the distribution.
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- Become an openSUSE member
openSUSE, being an open and global community project, has contributors and volunteers from all over the world. "openSUSE Members" are specifically distinguished contributors who have brought a continued and substantial contribution to the openSUSE project. So, everything above can qualify for the openSUSE membership status.
- Be a focal point of any projects developement
The openSUSE community need volunteers to lead the projects, give shape, define tasks, be a focal point of a project development. Open source development is based on a volunteers that create loose groups bound with common interest, but the successful projects have core group of individuals that give direction to the project.
- Take part at openSUSE project meetings
The openSUSE community meets bi-weekly in IRC to discuss the project, its parts, status of ongoing tasks, its development direction the wiki etc. Please have a look at the meeting schedule for dates of upcoming meetings.
- Explore Career Opportunities
Novell has several open positions for qualified personnel who want to join the openSUSE team. Have a look at our career pages (Germany, Czech Republic, International) for more information.
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Additional information: Members – Projects – Meetings
