About me: My name is Solène Rapenne, pronouns she/her. I like learning and sharing knowledge. Hobbies: '(BSD OpenBSD Qubes OS Lisp cmdline gaming security QubesOS internet-stuff). I love percent and lambda characters. OpenBSD developer solene@. No AI is involved in this blog.
Contact me: solene at dataswamp dot org or @solene@bsd.network (mastodon).
You can sponsor my work financially if you want to help me writing this blog and contributing to Free Software as my daily job.
Written by Solène, on 03 May 2022.
Tags:
#openbsd
You like OpenBSD? Then, I'm quite sure you can contribute to it! Let me explain the many ways your skills can be used to improve the project and contribute back.
Official FAQ section about how to support the Project
I proposed to update the official FAQ with this content, but it has been dismissed, so I'm posting it here as I'm convinced it's valuable.
Programmers who enjoy writing operating systems are naturally always welcome. The team would appreciate your skills on the base system, kernel, userland.
How create a diff to share a change with other
There is also place for volunteers willing to help at packaging and maintaing software up to date in our ports tree.
Switch your systems to the branch -current and report system or packages regressions. With more users testing the development version, the releases are more likely to be bug free. Why not join the
What is -current, how to use it
It's also important to use the packages regularly on the development branch to report any issue.
Try OpenBSD on as many hardware as you can, send a bug report if you find incompatibility or regressions.
How to write an useful bug report
Help maintain documentation by submitting new FAQ material to the misc@openbsd.org mailing list.
Challenging the documentation accuracy and relevance on a regular basis is a good way to contribute for everyone.
Follow the mailing lists, you may be able to help answer questions from other users. This is also a good opportunity to proofread submitted changes proposed by others or to try those and report how it works for you.
Form or join a local group and get your friends hooked on OpenBSD.
Spread the word on social networks, show the project under a good light, share your experiences and your use cases. OpenBSD is definitely not a niche operating system anymore.
Make a case to your employer for using OpenBSD at work. If you're a student, talk to your professors about using OpenBSD as a learning tool for Computer Science or Engineering courses.
The project has a constant need for cash to pay for equipment, network connectivity, etc. Even small donations make a profound difference, donating money or hardware is important.