Re: Seeking guidance on starting FreeBSD contribution

On 2025-09-14 16:10, Ananay Sharma wrote:
> Hello everyone,
Greetings, Ananay and welcome aboard!

Nothing would jump start your adventure better than giving the Porters 
Hnadbook[1]
and the Developers Handbook[2] a good read. The latter of which requires the
Committers Guide[3] and Code Review[4]. A strong knowledge of git(1) and how 
we
use it will also be necessary. If I were you. I'd probably adopt, or 
contribute a
port [ports(7)]. This would be a great first step to get your "feet wet" and 
give
you a feel for how things work. You'll need to subscribe to the ports 
category on
the FreeBSD mailing lists[5]. When you feel comfortable enough to take a stab 
at
the system. You'll probably also want to join (at least) the Stable and 
Current
mailing lists.

This is all probably a lot to digest. I hope I haven't scared you off. :)

Happy hacking and thanks for your interest!

--Chris

> 
> 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

1. https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/porters-handbook/
2. https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/developers-handbook/
3. https://docs.freebsd.org/en/articles/committers-guide
4. https://reviews.freebsd.org/
5. https://www.freebsd.org/community/mailinglists/

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