Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 20:55:16 -0700 (MST) From: Wes Peters <softweyr@xmission.com> To: Eivind Eklund <perhaps@yes.no> Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: FreeBSD mentor program (was: Stealable idea?) Message-ID: <199711200355.UAA13839@obie.softweyr.ml.org> In-Reply-To: <199711171624.RAA07453@bitbox.follo.net> References: <199711171624.RAA07453@bitbox.follo.net>
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Eivind Eklund writes:
>
> Would it be an idea to steal the debian idea mentioned below?
>
> Setting up something so simple as a mailing-list where somebody could
> request a mentor (or perhaps just using hackers for this purpose)
> and a web-page that describe the concept might effectively off-load
> the mailing lists and increase our development speed a _lot_. Being a
> developer contact isn't _that_ much work, and would combined with
> Mark's (?) project database make it much easier to be an external
> contributor, and hopefully increase development speed quite a bit.
Perhaps we can even go one better. We have many regular contributors to
FreeBSD who are not necessarily part of "hackers", but have many talents
and abilities.
I, for one, do not contribute to ongoing kernel work, but have stuck my
fingers in a pie here or there. (For instance, I humbly accept credit
for pushing Richard Wackerbarth into the role of supporting the
2.1-STABLE branch as an official FreeBSD project, instead of grousing
that it wasn't supported. No, no, don't applaud, just throw money. Or
improvements to FreeBSD. ;^)
I certainly feel I'm a qualified UNIX programmer and understand FreeBSD
pretty well, as well as being well versed in computer security and
TCP/IP. I am willing to help others in areas I am comfortable with,
even though I don't subscribe to -hackers or submit kernel patches.
It'd be a shame to miss my talents and abilities by restricting access
to the mentors program to the -hackers.
At the same time, the members of -hackers are the people that we the
FreeBSD community want to concentrate on what they're already giving us:
regular improvment of FreeBSD!
So, my suggestion along this line would be to run any such FreeBSD
mentor program in a FreeBSD-like fashion: get a volunteer or two to run
the program, create a mailing list and a web page, enlist volunteers to
be mentors, list their particular areas of expertise on the web page,
and have at it.
While you're at it, sign me up for the following:
C/C++ programming: small, medium, or large scale. (Defined as a few
thousand, tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands of lines of
code. Never done a "millions" project yet.)
Source code control systems and project setup: I'm a "true believer"
here. Experienced with RCS, CVS, and Perforce.
TCP/IP protocols: network protocols themselves and application
protocols. Specifically, I've done a fair amount of work with PPP
lately, and can help with packet traces. At the application level, I am
quite familiar with HTTP, SMTP, and POP, and to a lesser extent DNS and
DHCP. Can fight my way through just about anything.
My particular area of interest lately is turning protocol engines into
C++ classes, which are *REALLY* handy if you do it right and less than
worthless if you do it wrong.
While I sell these talents for commercial gain, I am willing to share my
knowlege freely with *ANYONE* developing for FreeBSD, as long as they
are willing to share their work in a license similar to BSD, and are
willing to acknowlege my contributions.
For those contemplating commercial product(s), contact me via email or
phone. See my web page for contact information. We've already
established what I am, now we're just haggling over price. ;^)
--
"Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?"
Wes Peters Softweyr LLC
http://www.xmission.com/~softweyr softweyr@xmission.com
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