Adopt a Developer

1.  Project Description

This project aims to connect developers who need resources with people and companies from the community who want to donate resources. Useful resources include computer hardware, books, shell accounts, and anything else that enhances the development process. This project is not involved with monetary donations; if you wish to donate money, you may do so through paypal. If you are a developer looking for monetary resources, then you may be interested in the Gentoo Foundation Funding and Expenditures page. This project does not collect any resources itself, it only acts a central point of contact for potential donors and individual developers.

2.  Developers

All developers can be reached by e-mail using nickname@gentoo.org.

3.  Project Status

This project is out of beta-status. That means that we consider the project working well. Tough, that doesn't mean we are not open to ideas and suggestions.If you'd like to share your ideas about the project with us, we may be contacted at adopt-a-dev@gentoo.org. On some donations there might be limitations. We recommend a $300 one, because that's below US-law gift-taxes. This is important since a developer and donor need to sort that out on their own.

4.  The Need for Resources

A lot of the packages in the tree require specific hardware to test. For example, cdrtools requires a CD burner, qc-usb requires a QuickCam, wireless-tools requires a wireless network card, etc. Donating items like those allows us to ensure they work on the many architectures we support. Hardware donations can also be used to replace broken parts; we all know what it's like to lose a hard drive or some other crucial component. It is especially hard on developers who are students on a budget. We are always looking to support new architectures or architectures that have little developer help. Donating rare and exotic hardware can improve such situations.

Computer hardware isn't the only thing that a developer might find useful. Gentoo developers can also benefit greatly from technical books. Books can enhance a developer's ability to solve bugs and maintain ebuilds. Books can also aid in the development of Gentoo related software projects like portage. Passes to technical conferences can help in these areas too. Shell accounts on remote computers can be used for compiling and testing packages.

When a developer makes a request, he or she must state the purpose and what project(s) benefit from it. So, a "needed resource" is anything that helps accomplish a project related task for a developer. A full system may be needed in some cases (example, for building releases and testing live CDs). Some architecture teams are seriously lacking the CPU power to build GRP releases in a reasonable amount of time.

5.  Community: How to offer Resources

If you wish to donate any of the resources listed in the Developers Seeking Resources section or if you want to purchase 1 or more of those items and have them shipped to a developer, then you should submit a completed offer form to get put in touch with the developer. Do not contact the developer directly, use adopt-a-dev@gentoo.org. We like to keep track of things to ensure that our lists are as accurate and as up to date as humanly possible.

You can also offer up any existing resources you have that are in working good condition and would enhance the development process. To be listed in the Community Members Offering Resources section, submit a completed offer form to adopt-a-dev@gentoo.org. If you wish to remain anonymous, please let us know. More details on privacy in the Privacy Policy.

6.  Developers: How to request Resources

Submit a completed request form to adopt-a-dev@gentoo.org, a team member will review the request and post it to the site. The review process is only meant to ensure that the item can be used for a Gentoo project and to ensure that the request is clearly written. In general, we will post all requests. If we find that your request needs elucidation, then we will contact you. Your request must be sent from your @gentoo.org e-mail address.

You must be an official Gentoo developer for at least 6 months before requesting or receiving resources through adopt a developer. You are limited to 4 open requests at any given time. You may ask for any of your open requests to be changed or removed to make room for a new request. There is no hard limit on the amount of resources you receive. However, please use common sense. Only ask for things you need and will use to improve Gentoo. Additionally, if you have gotten hardware through adopt-a-dev and you no longer use the hardware or have a need for it, please consider offering it to other developers.

The adopt a developer project strongly encourages developers who get resources through adopt a developer to write publicly (planet, forums, mailing lists, etc) about any progress they have made with the help of the donated resources, what goals they have accomplished, and how the resources have helped them.

In the event that a user offers a resource and 2 or more developers want the resource, then the adopt-a-dev team will work with the developers involved to see if the resource can be shared. If its something like a complete system, then maybe a shell account could be setup for the other dev(s) involved. If it is a resource that can't easily be shared, then maybe the developers could swap the item after a certain amount of time. If those methods fail, then the resource will go to the developer who requested it first. The one who requested it first is the developer whose completed request form arrived first.

7.  Developers Seeking Resources

Hardware (Separated Pieces)

Hardware (Full Systems)

Books

Other

8.  Community Members Offering Resources

9.  Thank You

The Gentoo project would very much like to thank the following people for their generosity.

10.  Privacy Policy

We aim to balance the respect for the personal privacy of every donor and potential donor while recognizing their contribution. Donor and potential donor e-mail addresses will never be posted on the project page. By default, names will be posted on the project page in the Community Members Offering Resources and Thank You sections. If you wish to remain anonymous, please let us know in your correspondence with us.

11.  Disclaimer

This project is only responsible for connecting donors with individual developers. Our responsibilities stop there. We hope all items donated to Gentoo developers are put to good use improving Gentoo. We cannot guarantee that a developer will accomplish all of the goals related to the resource(s) he or she receives. The project does not deal with organizing shipping, nor do we deal with disputes between developers and donors. Gentoo is not a 501(c)(3) organization but is applying for 501(c)(6) status instead. Therefore, donations are not and will not be tax-deductible in the U.S. In other countries, the laws will differ -- please check with your lawyer.