Hi Paul, Paul Fisher wrote: > This is probably a stupid question, but really, is it still possible? It is possible. Just like becoming a KDE4 developer or OpenOffice developer. All these are big projects but you can for sure join. A couple of hints for start: - become a kernel developer before becoming a kernel contributor. Don't expect your first contributions to be accepted by the maintainers. More likely you'll end up with a bunch of modules published on your homepage (at the best) as a reminder of your beginnings :-) - with that in mind write a totally useless module first, just for fun. Create a new filesystem. Or a kernel thread sending a random network packet every 10 seconds with syscall interface for controlling it. It doesn't have to be useful but will teach you the concepts. It took me some time to get my head around how the things work together, how the kernel interacts with userspace, what is and isn't possible, etc. - check out embedded Linux projects - there is always enough work to make Linux run smoothly on small ARM or MIPS boards. Get hold of one of these boards (ARM CPU, 16MB Flash, 16MB RAM can be found from some US$70) and try to make Linux running on it. Better start with a board whose CPU is already supported by the kernel though. Also you are much more likely to find a job that will pay you for embedded or device drivers development than a job where you'll get paid for core kernel development. However I've got one question for you too: why do you want to become a kernel contributor? I guess people usually start contributing to opensource projects because they use the program and want to fix an annoying bug, or they want a new feature added, or something similar to make the project of their choice better in some particular way. Eventually they start contributing because they get paid for it. Now in your case: you are not employed as a kernel developer and you don't seem to have a concrete plan on what to improve in the kernel either. What's your reason then? Apparently the kernel works for you so why bother? Why don't you join a project that doesn't work for you all that well? ;-) Or do you want to become a kernel developer because it's cool? I'm not sure that it's a sustainable enough reason ;-) Michal -- To unsubscribe from this list: send an email with "unsubscribe kernelnewbies" to ecartis@xxxxxxxxxxxx Please read the FAQ at http://kernelnewbies.org/FAQ
