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Author Topic: How can I volunteer to help FreePascal or Lazarus  (Read 11021 times)

MikeBlok

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How can I volunteer to help FreePascal or Lazarus
« on: April 27, 2016, 02:02:25 am »
Hello to all,
I am a Microsoft Access developer who uses Visual Basic for Applications as my current main programming language.
I want to creat desktop programs with a GUI that run on Windows, Linux and MacOS.
My research shows FreePascal with Lazarus is the best option. Qt and wxWidgets uses C++ which makes it harder to read other people's code.
So I am about to start learning FreePascal and Lazarus.
But I also want to contribute as volunteer. I have about 8 hours a week for this.
In the beginning most of my volunteer time is probably going to be learning.
I live in the Netherlands and can help with the dutch translations, if needed.
Anybody know how to become a official volunteer member?
Mike Blok

Handoko

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Re: How can I volunteer to help FreePascal or Lazarus
« Reply #1 on: April 27, 2016, 04:28:48 am »
Hello MikeBlok, welcome to the world of Lazarus - FreePascal.

I'm not an official member but here I found some information, hope it helps.

Quote
I have fixed/improved Lazarus. How can I add my changes to the official Lazarus source?

Create a patch and send it to the developers. For details, see Creating A Patch.

How can I become a Lazarus developer and access management in the SVN and bug-tracker?

First of all, you must learn about Lazarus, to prove your knowledge and skill. Start by reading the Lazarus Documentation wiki article, read the Lazarus source code, giving a look at the Lazarus Bug-Tracker, fix some bugs, and if you think you are ready, contact the developers on the mailing list.

Useful links:

http://wiki.freepascal.org/Creating_A_Patch

http://bugs.freepascal.org

http://wiki.freepascal.org/Moderating_the_bug_tracker

http://www.freepascal.org/develop.var

http://wiki.freepascal.org/Lazarus_Development_Process
« Last Edit: April 27, 2016, 04:32:34 am by Handoko »

MikeBlok

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Re: How can I volunteer to help FreePascal or Lazarus
« Reply #2 on: April 27, 2016, 05:16:44 am »
Thanks for the info Handoko,
It will take some time before I am skilled enough to help fix bugs.
But for now I can test beta releases and report bugs, and help edit the wiki.

Handoko

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Re: How can I volunteer to help FreePascal or Lazarus
« Reply #3 on: April 27, 2016, 08:36:17 am »
That's great if you can help edit the wiki. I saw lots of wiki pages are outdated. I wish I can help but my English is very limited.

Leledumbo

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Re: How can I volunteer to help FreePascal or Lazarus
« Reply #4 on: April 27, 2016, 11:12:38 am »
If you want to help fixing bugs, currently there are around 2509 bug reports which you can see here. Happy fixing!

ab1jx

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Re: How can I volunteer to help FreePascal or Lazarus
« Reply #5 on: April 27, 2016, 08:35:27 pm »
Non-official observation: It seems like documentation could use an overall indexing effort with maybe some method of marking what's old.  For example you'll find at least 3 articles on how to cross-compile to Android by different people at different times.  They don't totally supersede each other, each still has valid points.  But if you only find one you may not know the others exist.  Seems like some cross-linking might be in order.  And probably not HTML hyperlinks since the pages may get moved around, more like a reference number in a database.

You may not make much of a dent in 8 hours a week.  It almost needs to be something like a grant-funded full-time position for at least a year.  Lack of continuity seems to be a problem.  There's a ton of documentation, but finding anything is an art form.

I'd like to see everything fit into a tree but not everybody puts things in the same categories.  I can't see a simple fix, somebody needs to at least partly understand the material before they can reorganize it.  A clerk or secretary would butcher it and make it worse.  If you look at the documentation the way you'd look at, say, a Physics textbook, you'd have a table of contents and an index.  Here there's the added distraction of running on multiple platforms, so a TOpenDialog in Windows is slightly different than under Linux for example.
« Last Edit: April 27, 2016, 09:26:42 pm by ab1jx »

MikeBlok

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Re: How can I volunteer to help FreePascal or Lazarus
« Reply #6 on: April 28, 2016, 03:58:16 am »
Thanks for the info ab1jx.
My experience is that documentation is often a problem in many projects and organisations.
I will keep your valuable input in mind. I agree that 8 hours a week is not much and I also need to first learn about FreePascal and Lazarus before doing anythings. As you said a clerk or secretary would just make it worst. Choices must be made by bing informend and knowing what you are doing.
I will see how much I can do.


serbod

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Re: How can I volunteer to help FreePascal or Lazarus
« Reply #8 on: April 28, 2016, 08:28:13 am »
So I am about to start learning FreePascal and Lazarus.
But I also want to contribute as volunteer. I have about 8 hours a week for this.

You can greatly improve manuals and reference documentation.

MikeBlok

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Re: How can I volunteer to help FreePascal or Lazarus
« Reply #9 on: April 29, 2016, 11:09:26 am »
Thanks for the document links Handoko. I will check them out.

Thanks for the tip, serbod. I will see what I can do between the wiki and the other documentation forms.


trayres

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Re: How can I volunteer to help FreePascal or Lazarus
« Reply #10 on: May 20, 2016, 06:44:14 pm »
A FreePascal/Lazarus nonprofit foundation would perhaps be useful for generating funds to help development?

JuhaManninen

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Re: How can I volunteer to help FreePascal or Lazarus
« Reply #11 on: May 20, 2016, 07:48:06 pm »
Anybody know how to become a official volunteer member?

It becomes "official" when your patch has been applied to the sources or when you have improved the documentation.
Another definition for an "official" developer status may be the commit rights for SVN server. For that you must make quite a few valid patches and show commitment to maintain the changed you made.

The development process is a meritocracy. Your voting power increases by the contributions you make.

When you truly learn the code, you will get help from other developers.
If you decide to improve documentation in the wiki, don't be shy to make big changes. Improve structure and remove outdated information without mercy.
As others have noted, it is a typical wiki. Many people add contents but nobody cares about the high level structure.
Mostly Lazarus trunk and FPC 3.2 on Manjaro Linux 64-bit.

jwdietrich

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Re: How can I volunteer to help FreePascal or Lazarus
« Reply #12 on: May 20, 2016, 08:04:54 pm »
A FreePascal/Lazarus nonprofit foundation would perhaps be useful for generating funds to help development?

This is in discussion for long time. A suggestion for a foundation charter is around since 2007. Other FLOSS projects, e.g. R, greatly benefit from a foundation.
function GetRandomNumber: integer; // xkcd.com
begin
  GetRandomNumber := 4; // chosen by fair dice roll. Guaranteed to be random.
end;

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Lazarus 2.2.6 | FPC 3.2.2 | PPC, Intel, ARM | macOS, Windows, Linux

JuhaManninen

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Re: How can I volunteer to help FreePascal or Lazarus
« Reply #13 on: May 20, 2016, 08:42:58 pm »
This is in discussion for long time. A suggestion for a foundation charter is around since 2007. Other FLOSS projects, e.g. R, greatly benefit from a foundation.

Somebody should use his energy and put up a foundation. It seems none of the core developers is up to the task. I myself am not good with issues related to money and legistlation, but I agree somebody should do it.
There are many practical issues with such a foundation. Things don't happen automatically, somebody must work for them. For example, who organizes presentations in Trade Fairs? Who does the bookkeeping? Who gives the priority support as promised for foundation members? Etc...
Mostly Lazarus trunk and FPC 3.2 on Manjaro Linux 64-bit.

Edson

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Re: How can I volunteer to help FreePascal or Lazarus
« Reply #14 on: May 20, 2016, 10:04:25 pm »
As others have noted, it is a typical wiki. Many people add contents but nobody cares about the high level structure.

It's true. There are a lot of no-organizaed-content in the wiki.
Lazarus 2.2.6 - FPC 3.2.2 - x86_64-win64 on Windows 10

 

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