Re: [gnu-soc] [GSoC] wan to know how to engage in open-source software

[Darshit Shah]

Hi Chang,

The DNS-over-HTTPS project you mentioned is a part of GNU Wget and I would like
to invite you over to address@hidden in case you are interested in discussing
that project or anything else related to GNU Wget.

This mailing list is a generic list for the GNU Project. So, you should ideally
speak to the developers of the specific GNU programs that you are interested
in.

I will answer some your queries here in the hope that they may help someone
else stumbling upon this list as well.

Each program is different, so there is no set strategy about how you should
approach dealing with a large, new codebase. The best way would be to discuss
it on the development lists for those projects. Since the maintainers /
developers of a specific program can give you the best guidelines to
understanding its code. In general, all the developers / maintainers of the
various programs are very open to newcomers and will try and help you out as
much as possible.

To work on open source software, there are no requirements. And the specific
knowledge usually depends on the program you're interested in. For example, for
GNU Wget which offered the DoH project mentioned earlier, you would probably
want to know the basics of writing code in C along with some knowledge about
the networking stack. If you have the time, apart from practicing programming,
I would recommend looking into software debugging. You should know how to use
tools like GDB and valgrind. These are topics that are almost never taught in a
university, but are crucial if you want to be productive as a developer.

* Zhao Chang <address@hidden> [180514 14:38]:
> Hi GNU friends.
> 
> My name is Chang Zhao and I am from Fuzhou University, China. I am
> currently in second year of university, in computer science major.
> 
> This afternoon I just attended a conference and heard about Google Summer
> of Code. Unfortunately, because of the deadline, I was unable to
> participate in the project this year. But I still did some search on the
> Internet. Finally I find the DNS over HTTPS project and I think it is fun
> and interesting. I read Aniketh Gireesh's proposal and I think it is a very
> nice work. It is very likely that I will participate in GSoC next year(but
> this project will be over and I will find another one).So I want to ask
> some questions:
> 
> As a student who has never come into contact with a large open source
> project, how should I start to get to understand such a big project like
> GNU and learn its code, and even provide my own code?
> 
> Do I meet the requirements for working with open source software(details as
> below)? What knowledge should I learn in the coming year to improve my
> ability to develop open source software?
> 
> I have skills in using C, C++(basiclly) and python to program. I have a
> good understanding of  data structure and algorithm, TCP/IP protocol stack,
> operating system knowledge and the use of Unix/Linux. Recently, Under the
> guidance of my instructor, I start to do some reserch on
> SDN(Software-Defined Networking) and Inter DPDK(Data Plane Development Kit).
> 
> My github link : https://github.com/ZCplayground
> 
> My blog link is in my gitHub page, but the content is mostly written in
> Chinese.
> 
> Thank you for your time!

-- 
Thanking You,
Darshit Shah
PGP Fingerprint: 7845 120B 07CB D8D6 ECE5 FF2B 2A17 43ED A91A 35B6

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