Open Source Projects

Getting CVS commit access on open source projects

Suppose you are interested in joining an open source project but you are unknown to the project owner and other project members. The logical first step is requesting to join the project, of course, but you can take some basic preliminary steps toward establishing yourself as a potential contributor, thereby raising the likelihood of gaining membership approval.

1. Subscribe to and regularly read the relevant discussions so that you know what is going on in the particular area of development you are interested in.
2. When you post your first message to a discussion, introduce yourself and include the following:
   • who you are
   • a few words on your background
   • your interest in the project, and
   • what you would like to see happen with the project.
3. Make sure you have browsed through the existing source code and understand what it is doing and how. If something is poorly documented, confusing, or you just can't grasp what is going on, ask on the associated discussion for a summary.
4. Mention in writing that you understand the licensing governing the code that you will be working on, and your agreement that any changes you contribute are your own and these can be incorporated under that license.
5. Request project membership to gain cvs check-in permissions on an area of the code base, and explain what sorts of things you are interested in doing with it. You will need to communicate frequently with the people who already maintain that area of code, so make sure there is consensus about what you should be working on.
6. When the project owner approves your project membership, you will get a CVS check-in account, probably restricted to a certain area. Make sure you understand which CVS branch you are supposed to be working on!
7. Submit some patches to establish that you know what you are doing.
8. When you make modifications and enhancements, seek feedback and discussion about these on the associated discussions.