Project:Science/Contributing

Here are the few areas where one can contribute to the Gentoo Science Project.

Resolving bugs
The Gentoo Science team has always had a high number of bugs. Fortunately many of them are requests for new packages. Any help in resolving issues, improving submitted ebuilds is greatly appreciated.
 * Bugs assigned to the general sci herd
 * Bugs related to all Gentoo science projects
 * Bugs for the science overlay

Packages maintenance, requests and testing
We are not protective of almost all our packages. Any Gentoo developer is welcome to touch packages maintained by the science team (and being responsible of the committed changes), or add himself/herself as a maintainer. Users of specific packages can help maintaining by becoming proxy-maintainer.

Scientific packages are very diverse and many of us want our pet application in the main tree for easy installation. Due to the small size of our team, we can not fulfil every package request, them, so we really appreciate any contribution. The quickest way to contribute a package is with our GitHub portal, by cloning our repository and submitting a pull request. Be sure to follow our overlay page. Usual links for ebuild development:
 * Ebuild developer manual
 * Gentoo developer handbook

The Gentoo Science Project tends to set strong requirements on testing, especially on core science packages. Regular unit testing of packages are applied whenever available. Automated test suite or script can be submitted or applied as integration tests (once the package is installed) to speed up stabilization procedures.

Communication and Media

 * Our IRC channel: direct communication with developers and users of Gentoo Science
 * Mailing list, archives: for general discussion, and news about the project, low traffic
 * Direct emails of any of our developers or emails to our herds, defined in any our sub-projects

We are also missing a logo for our project. Submissions welcome. And feel free to add links to other popular social media channels related to science with Gentoo.

Joining the Science Project
Finally if you would like to join the Gentoo Science team of volunteers, send us an [mailto:sci@gentoo.org email] describing your contributions and we will make sure to find someone to spend the time for a mentoring period. Needless to say, benefits are huge: daily bug emails, commit access to the main tree and ask us for our list of 0% discount with many supporting companies. See also how to contribute to Gentoo.