Topic: QElectroTech needs you
Hello,
Today, the QElectroTech project would like to sum up its needs in terms of contributors. We are currently looking for:
A translation manager, i.e. someone who would welcome new translators, teach them how to contribute, help them when they encounter difficulties, ensure they are still active, etc. Required skills:
Being able to read and write correctly in English; French is appreciated
Knowledge of Subversion (at least enough to teach it)
Knowledge of subtleties inherent to text files (encoding, carriage returns, BOM, etc.) -- this can be taught in a few hours though.
Availability and patience
A native English translator: in order to check every English sentence produced by the project, be it part of translations, news or documents, we need someone whose native language is English and could therefore be authoritative about "the right way to say it". Required skills:
Being born in the right place I guess?
Electrical knowledge is an asset
Documentation writers: while we try to make the software as intuitive as possible, end users may appreciate relying on a well-written documentation. Our current status regarding this point is: chaotic. Of course, writing documentation is not enough: we are looking for people interested into writing, maintaining and updating documentation. Required skills:
Pedagogy
Good sense of writing and spelling
Self-organization
Formal testers: we currently have no procedure (be it manual or automated) to test all aspects of our application. Since it is a standard GUI application, all known-and-popular techniques used in the web development world do not apply; we do not have any tool or methodology in mind, so volunteers would be free to organize the way they want.
C++/Qt developers: well, this one is pretty simple: if you feel like "Hmm, I could change this or that in this software, I'd just have to hack this part of the code" when trying QElectroTech, then you are certainly a good candidate. Required skills:
Subversion (sorry Git-fanboys... you can still use git-svn)
C++: don't be afraid, you don't have to be an expert at structures sizes, padding, virtual tables, private inheritance, reinterpret_cast, templates, mainly because...
Qt: makes a lot of things easier.
A MacOS packager/tester/maybe-developer: I stopped counting people who applied for this position; nevertheless, we are still looking for an active, available and efficient MacOS packager. Required skills:
Living in the Apple world, I guess?
Being able to regularly produce an usable and consistent MacOS package
Programming skills are an asset
Let's finish with some common requirements: some projects live through their mailing lists, other live through real-life meetings, audio and video conferences, ... the QElectroTech project lives on its IRC channel. Therefore, anyone who wants to seriously contribute to the project is supposed to be present as much as possible on the IRC channel. It is not as difficult as it sounds: it mainly implies reading what happened while you were away.
That's it. You may apply by sending an informal mail to qet@lists.tuxfamily.org. Stay tuned, we should have interesting news in the next weeks :-)
'n+1' trivial tasks are expected to be accomplished in the same time as 'n' tasks.
Logg's Rebuttal to Gray's Law:
'n+1' trivial tasks take twice as long as 'n' trivial tasks