Project:ComRel/Developer Handbook/What you get

This section outlines what services are available to Gentoo developers.

Introduction
Gentoo provides developers with all the necessary services which they might need for their development efforts. If you require anything else, please do not hesitate to contact the Infrastructure Team!

Once you are an authorized developer, your recruiter should organize the following services. If you experience any problems, please see your recruiter or the mentioned staff with access to the required service.

Bugzilla
Developers are able to change all aspects of bugs in Bugzilla. If you have an existing account the email address should be changed to your Gentoo address by a Bugzilla administrator.

CVS
Not all developers receive CVS access - if you require Portage access to the gentoo, gentoo-projects, or gentoo-x86 tree get someone on the recruiters team to do this for you. You may need to justify your need for this to happen, however.

IRC
When you are a developer, you will receive a gentoo/developer/* cloak signifying that you are a developer. If you do not, please contact recruiters or ask on the channel. Please be aware that Freenode cloaks may neither contain underscores (_) nor dots (.) in the last part, so you must either choose an appropriate nickname or a differing cloak.

Along with that you get operator status on. Additionally, team leads may decide to give you operator status on specialized channels such as, for example. Abuse of operator powers on may lead to your operator powers being removed instantly along with the possible removal of your developership. If you are given operator powers, we ask that you use them constructively to benefit everybody when either developers or users break up the cleanliness of the channels.

The IRC channel is no longer controlled by Developer Relations, but by the Ops project. Operator status in does not in any way signify that the user is a developer.

"Special" Gentoo channels such as and  are given to people at the discretion of the team - in this case, the hardened and server teams.

IRC Channels are owned by their relevant project leads, whether strategical or operational and the owner has the discretion of voicing or unvoicing members of the public. If you believe that those powers are being abused or are being used with wrong considerations; then speak to the Gentoo Linux Community Relations team.

Forums [Optional]
Ask one of the forums administrators in or  to update your forum status on the Gentoo Forums, if needed. Forum accounts are not mandatory.

Planet [Optional]
Developers who have a personal blog can request to be added to the planet aggregator. The planet software creates a custom feed of all developer's blog posts, separated into two categories: on-topic (Gentoo and computer related content) on Planet Gentoo, and all topics on Gentoo Universe.

Also, if a user does not already have a blog, we host our own blogging software and can create an account for you.

Please see the Planet project for more details.

Mail
All developers are provided with a developer@gentoo.org mail address for Gentoo use.

Please see Infrastructure's Developer e-mail article for more details.

Mailing lists
All developers must be subscribed to the gentoo-core and gentoo-dev-announce mailing lists. All developers should be subscribed to gentoo-dev and gentoo-project, though neither are developer requirements. Contact someone on the Recruiters team to subscribe you to the above mailing lists or if you are having difficulties.

gentoo-core is to be used for internal discussions; technical discussions should be discussed on gentoo-dev; non-technical discussions should be discussed on gentoo-project; while gentoo-dev-announce is for announcements only. If you send a message to gentoo-dev-announce, you should manually cross-post to an on topic mailing list and set reply-to there.

If you are subscribed on any other Gentoo mailing lists, you should unsubscribe and resubscribe with your new mail address.

Shell access
Developers currently get a shell account on dev.gentoo.org - this provides mail storage, SMTP relaying, and also an IRC tunnel for developers to use to access Freenode. See Infrastructure's Developer webspace article for more information.

To ensure security, access is only available through SSH keys, which your mentor should place on your account and allow you to log in: please see Infrastructure's SSH configuration article for more details regarding SSH keys.

Service usage policies
Services provided by Gentoo should only be used for Gentoo development work. Infrastructure has the right to disable any accounts which are a security risk, these include inactive accounts which will be suspended by the infrastructure team if you are presumed idle, and your IRC status would also be voiced.

If any files in your account are found to be harmful towards other developers or users on the box, or pose a risk to the Gentoo project (such as illegal ), Gentoo Infrastructure will suspend your account which would only be unlocked after investigation from Gentoo Developer Relations. In most cases, your developership may be suspended if such files are found. The same policies also apply to Gentoo CVS and other Gentoo-provided services you may be offered.

Activity policies
Gentoo understands that as life changes, so may your availability. We respectfully request that if you know you will be unavailable for an extended period of time (vacation, big project at work, family needs, etc) that you utilize the devaway system.

When going away, leave an away message on dev.gentoo.org:

After coming back from the break, be sure to remove the file:

In the on going effort to keep our developer pool up-to-date and our resources secure, Community Relations periodically reviews developer activity in the search for inactive developers. A developer is considered inactive if no contributions are made over a period of 60 days. Activity is determined by git commits, Bugzilla statistics, and peer feedback. Not everyone's activities are so easily traced, as such, Community Relations often requests feedback from a project lead or team members of a developer suspected to be inactive.

Any developer suspected to be inactive for a period in excess of 60 days may be subject to retirement. Community Relations will first research and assess the situation, attempt to contact the developer, or if attempts are unsuccessful may chose to retire the developer. Please note that if you are in devaway for more than 60 days, you may also be considered inactive, however, return dates will be taken into consideration. If you are retired due to inactivity and wish to return, you need only contact Recruiters to begin the recruitment process again.