On Saturday 03 May 2008 20:25:00 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Fopr the sake of argument, let's suppose I'm convinced.  Now comes the
> question of what I can do to join the project in orger to develop the
> todo list.
>
> I regularly use two machines -- a 32-bit Debian Lenny, and a 64-but
> Debian etch.  No, make that three machines -- I have an n800
> with OS2007.  I haven't upgraded to 2008 for two reasons: (1)
> inertia and (2) I've heard a lot of complaints about 2008.

You need to be able to do development and testing for the systems you are 
targetting (IT2007 is fine, although being able to also boot into IT2008 for 
testing would be an advantage in case there are bugs which only show up on 
that platform -- the Hildon widgets are different).  To develop for the 
Internet Tablet you would need to install the scratchbox-based Maemo SDK.  
The SDK is easy to install and run on 32-bit Lenny (that is my main 
development environment).  It is hard to make it work on 64-bit Debian (or on 
Etch) but there is also a VMware appliance which may work in those 
environments.

> Presumably I have to install development software that's
> specific to Debian and to the n800, as well as relevant versioning
> system(s).  What do I need? How do I get started with it?  Do I need to
> convince anyone that my ideas (such as nonautomatic task ordering) are
> worthwhile?

To work on GPE you will need SVN installed.  You would definitely want to 
subscribe to the GPE mailing list -- where people will be happy to help you 
with the process of getting started.  You don't have to get any sort of 
permission to start making changes and submitting patches to the mailing list 
(as with most open source projects that is the usual way to start 
contributing -- once people see you are doing good work you may be offered 
direct update access to the SVN repository).  In principle, you might need to 
convince Florian (the GPE project leader) your ideas are worthwhile for him 
to be willing to accept your patches.  In practice I can't see anyone 
complaining about the manual task ordering idea -- it sounds like a good idea 
to me.  

The most likely problem is that GPE actually runs on many different platforms 
and any patches must not break the other platforms (sometimes a new feature 
might not work on other platforms but the code should still build and the old 
behaviour work).  But people on the list or reviewing and testing your 
patches can help with that.

Maemo-users is probably not the right place to go into any more detail.  If 
you are interested in contributing to the project please either contact me 
off list (I would be happy to supply much more information and pointers to 
things like the SDK and the GPE mailing list) or just join the GPE mailing 
list and introduce yourself there.

Graham
_______________________________________________
maemo-users mailing list
maemo-users@maemo.org
https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-users

Reply via email to