GNOME Project Handbook Launches To Help New Contributors

[phoronix]

Phoronix: GNOME Project Handbook Launches To Help New Contributors

The GNOME project has announced the GNOME Project Handbook as a new resource for helping new developers/contributors get involved with this open-source desktop environment...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNOME-Project-Handbook

[Eberhardt]

I think that's a nice idea. Larger FOSS projects tend to look quite opaque from outside if you're not familiar with the internal processes and communication channels. Making those things more transparent for new potential contributors should be a great help for getting started quickly.

[Quackdoc]

"issue management"

You mean
- added tag not-a-bug
- issue closed as not planned

[mxan]

"issue management"

You mean
- added tag not-a-bug
- issue closed as not planned

Or just sit around forever and never get merged, like triple buffering or VRR…

[qlum]

Seems the coments here are exactly what I expect when the subject is Gnome.
Let's be real, we have all heard them.

[Linuxhippy]

I've tried myself to get a patch into GTK back in the GTK-2x days.
At first the patch was welcomed and I received good feedback, but once the suggested improvements were made, suddenly no one felt responsible and the code was never merged. For me it was a complete waste of time.

This was before Gnome-3, but told me quite a bit about the attitude these (mostly) guys work with. This might sound like the harsh reaction of a personally disappointed might-have-been contributor.
But on the other hand, look at how Gnome3 turned out. How suggestions, requests and patches were rejected, because the patches were not part of the "vision" a handful of people had in mind with "their" desktop. And with RedHat putting their weight behind this thing, linux on the desktop these days is where it is. I can't blame any windows user trying out gnome and turning away afterwards...

[rmfx]

Great Idea, I hope cosmic gets a similar webpage too when it's released.

[johnandmegh]

I can't blame any windows user trying out gnome and turning away afterwards...

If it were all folks using stock upstream GNOME, possibly...but the majority of Windows users trying out GNOME will be doing so using Ubuntu. I'm curious, what things specifically would turn folks away after using that version of GNOME?

And on-topic related to contributors - while there's certainly baggage that comes with any long-standing, highly opinionated project...my outsider's impression is that while the organizational challenges might be tougher for getting into GNOME contribution, there is at least some combination of org and technical challenges contributing to other similar projects (e.g. the complexity of Qt for KDE)

[qarium]

really nice. but people should unterstand that real paper books are still a thing. believe it or not but i buy a lot of books about computer tech/computer science.

you can get books on gnome/GTK2 but there is no book about GTK3 or GTK4 ...

any topic who does not have any real books published its something what did become obsolete.

i am not going to read 1600 pages like my CompTIA A+ book in a .PDF file.

additional to this nice webpage they really should write a book that covers make apps with RUST using GTK4 delivered as Flatpak

if you check amazon or ebay there is no book about flatpak at all and no book about GtK3/4

there are books about rust or webassemble or webgpu or vulkan or all kind of stuff but GTK4/flatpak is like a black hole of nothingness.

[jacob]

I've tried myself to get a patch into GTK back in the GTK-2x days.
At first the patch was welcomed and I received good feedback, but once the suggested improvements were made, suddenly no one felt responsible and the code was never merged. For me it was a complete waste of time.

This was before Gnome-3, but told me quite a bit about the attitude these (mostly) guys work with. This might sound like the harsh reaction of a personally disappointed might-have-been contributor.
But on the other hand, look at how Gnome3 turned out. How suggestions, requests and patches were rejected, because the patches were not part of the "vision" a handful of people had in mind with "their" desktop. And with RedHat putting their weight behind this thing, linux on the desktop these days is where it is. I can't blame any windows user trying out gnome and turning away afterwards...

It may feel harsh, haughty etc, but it's based on a common misunderstanding. Open source means that YOU have the right to patch it, not that you should necessarily expect upstream developers to accept your patches, or to change their vision. Open source is not the same thing as community developement. The huge majority of open source projects in the world are cathedral projects, not bazaar projects, and GNOME is a quintessential cathedral project. It absolutely is "their" desktop, all the more because 99% of those who use it don't pay a cent for it. The upstream developers don't owe it to anyone to merge their patches or even to be open to any patches at all, except to the people who actually employ and pay them.

Disclaimer: I'm not a GNOME developer and have no stake in it. I'm also not making any judgement as to whether it's better or worse that way, just stating how it is.