Getting Involved

1. Overview

This document aims to provide information on how one can get involved and help out with the Gentoo Java Project. The following are ideas of areas and ways one can help out. Due to the volume of inquiries at times. It's more effective and efficient to provide those looking to get involved with some detailed guidance via this document.

This document is just a guide, not a how to. For questions not address in this document. Please get in touch with the active developers and contributors via participation on either IRC or our mailing list.

Comments, thoughts, and feedback on this document is greatly appreciated and welcomed.

2. Testing

Compile them with a bunch of jdks (at least stable marked ibm-jdk-bin and sun-jdk versions should be installed locally). Here's a simple script to compile with all jdks .
Check with USE="doc" that javadocs install to /usr/share/doc/${PF}/html/api If the ebuild installs them elsewhere for example to keep html documentation links working, there should still be a symlink
run FEATURES="test" USE="test" ebuild <ebuild> clean install (not all java packages have unit tests)
compile all reverse dependencies if we are talking about a version bump (!rdep <pkg> to jeeves on IRC for example)
Check source:testcases if the package has testcases in our svn.

3. Development

The most obvious way to help out is with development. This means improving existing ebuilds, updating ebuilds for new versions of packages, and working on ebuilds for new packages.

Create ebuilds for ebuild request bugs or for packages you use and/or need packaged. Attaching contributed ebuild and/or patch as an attachment to any bugs.
File bugs with patches attached for any existing ebuilds that are outdated and/or need to be bumped to the latest release.
Test out contribute to completing packages in java overlays. Usually java-experimental overlay which is not available via layman. It must be checked out manually.

4. Bugs

Reporting

Software is bound to have bugs. Reporting bugs found is very important, because there may be some USE cases or scenarios that developers may not have accounted for. Without reporting the bugs might go unnoticed and never be fixed. Leaving it for others to run into just as you have.

Squashing

The number of open bugs assigned to the Java team is a bit astounding. Any help with squashing them is always appreciated.

Bugs assigned to the Java Team

5. Community

IRC

Hang around #gentoo-java. It small, yet bustling little channel in our corner of freenode. The primary developers of Java on Gentoo are there most of the time. The channel is like the pulse of the Java team, where most interaction takes place. This means you'll see development as it is happening.

Simply being around showing support is nice. Contributing to discussions that come up, or troubleshooting bugs that arise would be even better.

Mailing List

Joining our gentoo-java mailing list and asking/answering questions.

6. Documentation

Writing

Helping us write documentation is always appreciated.

Reading

Useful documentation for people wanting to help can be found in:

Documentation on Java ebuild writing

Useful documentation for people wanting to write Java ebuilds:

7. Evangelism

Spreading the word about Gentoo as a Java development platform.

8. More

So you want to do more eh? Well you can always put in the effort to become a official Gentoo Developer. Please refer to Becoming a Developer in the Gentoo Developer Handbook.

The contents of this document are licensed under the Creative Commons - Attribution / Share Alike license.