Hi, I am Alain, FAS: avigne As discussed today in #fedora-devel, here is some feedback about my experience trying to join Fedora as a contributor -> packager. TLDR: Adding a new package and become a Fedora packager is NOT easy. I am not a computer scientist, but as an Integrated Circuit designer, I am using eCAD proprietary tools heavily. With my years of experience, I came up to know how to use Fedora, and I like this distro because it is reliable, and fairly up to date with software technologies. When Fedora FEL spin was alive, I picked up some tools, and slowly learn how to use them. gEDA, PCB, NGspice, GerbV, etc... At some point, 2 years ago, I thought Open Source world gave me a lot, it was time to give back... So I contacted the pcb-rnd project [1], and started to contribute code around GTK, and GUI aspects of the application. Naturally, as I am developing with a Fedora system, I thought it could be nice to have pcb-rnd for Fedora... I had no clue on how to proceed, and first, I tried to find someone who can do that for me... Found no one. (I should have known :). Time passes by, and one day a pcb-rnd Mageia contributor showed me the .spec file he wrote for Mageia. I was curious about what was behind all those commands and how this "recipe" (the .spec file) can lead to a package. So I dug into the documentation (mainly Fedora wiki) learning how to first build an RPM, then after a successful local "mock", my curiosity was satisfied. I thought I understood the purpose of those tools (rpmbuild, rpmlint, mock). That is when I started to think about contributing this package to Fedora. "It should be easy, I have the recipe, I just need to find where to check-in the .spec file..." Easy thought, no ? Unfortunately, no, this is not easy. First, there are tons of pages describing the process, and what to do. In theory the process is well described. In practice, I got stuck in the "need a sponsor" phase where I think there is kinda chicken-and-egg problem for a new contributor. I might detail that, later, if someone is interested in this list. My feeling today, 6 months after I jumped in the unknown is not very much positive: I had to register, open accounts, leave traces on many systems before being able to .... get nothing at the moment - Bugzilla - FAS - COPR - mailing list - Freenode registration etc... I feel like someone who has a complicated map under the eyes, walk, try and error to make sense of the map, up to a point where the map says: next step is "find a sponsor" and I have no idea how this is being done. And time passes by... Slowly. I am silently ignored. Somebody says today : "Do informal reviews [a suggestion on the wiki, but what can I suggest ? I have no experience ->chicken and egg problem], make some mails, fill some bugs and you will get noticed". I think this is the problem: nobody noticed, it seems nobody cares having a new volunteer. So, I am concluding: Fedora = too big ship, mainly automated, with a lot of processes (procedures, way of working) and a community not open to new contributors [I recall, my experience is only about contributing a new package], because this is too complicated (which I agree and understand). That said, I am a patient man, and I have done all this travel not to being stop by a wall. I spent my life trying to get around, over, across... so many walls, so, I won't surrender here ! Thanks for reading till that point, and let us open the debate. Kind regards Alain PS: I am French, not EN native speaker, pardon my language if it does not make sense to you. [1] http://repo.hu/projects/pcb-rnd/ -- Alain V.