Re: Seeking guidance on starting FreeBSD contribution

On Mon, Sep 15, 2025 at 3:22 AM obiwac <obiwac@freebsd.org> wrote:

> Hi!
>
> > However, I don’t use FreeBSD regularly and I’m not sure where to start
> or how its components work in practice. I would greatly appreciate any
> advice on how to begin learning about FreeBSD development or how to get
> involved with small contributions.
>
> I think definitely the #1 thing you should do is actually use FreeBSD
> regularly. Once you do you'll quickly figure out how things work
> especially if you try to drill down and try to understand things that
> you don't understand or seem weird to you.
>
> In terms of contributions, you might come up with some small stuff you
> wanna do while doing #1, but otherwise if you hang around FreeBSD
> spaces long enough I'm sure you'll stumble across something you wanna
> work on.
>
> There's also the ideas list although these count as a bit more than
> "small" contributions:
>
> https://wiki.freebsd.org/IdeasPage
> https://wiki.freebsd.org/SummerOfCodeIdeas


Word of warning: The SummerOfCodeIdeas page hasn't been scrubbed for the
ideas that had students work on them. The IdeasPage may have some projects
that are stale. If you find something on either of these pages, be sure to
ask here about the project before putting a lot of time.

There's also my crazy ideas page, which is my own crazy list. But the ideas
are not fleshed out and may be frustrating. But some folks have found it
interesting.

https://wiki.freebsd.org/WarnerLosh/IdeaPage

But yeah overall my only advice is to actually use (as your daily
> driver if you can) and spend time with FreeBSD.
>

Yes. 99% of successful contributors have found a rough edge in FreeBSD that
they've smoothed over. Or some bit of functionality that's missing. Or some
bug they hit that others generally don't. Using it as the daily driver,
with fresh eyes, often presents a "target rich" environment.

Warner


> On Mon, 15 Sept 2025 at 01:11, Ananay Sharma <ananaysharma299@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Hello everyone,
> >
> > I’m Ananay Sharma, a 2nd-year undergraduate student in Computer Science.
> For the past few months, I have been learning how computer systems work and
> studying Operating Systems through the UCB OS lectures. I found FreeBSD
> fascinating and would really love to contribute to it in the future.
> >
> > However, I don’t use FreeBSD regularly and I’m not sure where to start
> or how its components work in practice. I would greatly appreciate any
> advice on how to begin learning about FreeBSD development or how to get
> involved with small contributions.
> >
> > Thank you very much for your time.
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Ananay Sharma
> >
>
>