5 ms·

This brings me back to the early days of my Linux usage. I've always been fascinated by this project. My very nerdy dream has always been to try to contribute

by rijoja 10y ago

This brings me back to the early days of my Linux usage. I've always been fascinated by this project. My very nerdy dream has always been to try to contribute to it somehow. How hard is it to get in to the community?

littleweep 10y ago
The beauty is you can contribute in any way. If you're a web designer, you can help with their site. If you're a technical writer, you can help improve documentation. You don't need to contribute to the core codebase to contribute to the project at large.
- rijoja 10y ago
  Yeah really I would like to dive in at the deep end of the pool. But I've never had the time or the energy I suppose.
stuaxo 10y ago
Another non development way to contribute is on the appdb, testing compatibility - https://appdb.winehq.org/ https://appdb.winehq.org/
- zymhan 10y ago
  I used to test and submit reports to AppDB back in the day, it's quite satisfying to add to that corpus.
- bblough 10y ago
  Unless you run Debian stable (or probably any LTS distro), in which case they don't want your reports because "your software is too out of date". I find this attitude odd, because there are (at least) tens of thousands of wine installs under Debian alone. Surely the information is relevant and useful to people, even if the version is no longer officially supported. As a result, I've stopped wasting my time filing reports only to have them rejected.
  - voltagex_ 10y ago
    Debian stable's Wine is often fairly old. I wish there was an easier way to get a newer Wine on stable. They're rejecting your reports because the issues are often fixed in newer versions - someone would have to re-confirm your reports on a newer version.
    - RVuRnvbM2e 10y ago
      Uh, what? There's an up-to-date repository here: https://wiki.winehq.org/Debian https://wiki.winehq.org/Debian
      - Belphemur 10y ago
        Yes but not all the user would have it set up. They surely consider that the majority of the users don't. Maybe the policy about rejecting debian reports came way before they setup the repository.
      - voltagex_ 10y ago
        Hah, wonder when that was set up (wiki suggests Jan 2016). The last time I used Wine in earnest, you had to wget a whole lot of debs and manually install them. Kudos to the project for making it a whole lot easier to stay up to date.
    - gpderetta 10y ago
      PlayOnLinux? It is a bit frowned upon and gaming oriented, but it offers one click install of any wine version, including unstable, with the ability of having multiple versions installed at the same time. I run it on top of Debian testing.
    - bblough 10y ago
      > They're rejecting your reports because the issues are often fixed in newer versions Sure, newer versions fix bugs from older versions. But they don't delete/archive the old reports after a new release, so the reports that are there are already a mix of supported and unsupported versions anyway. So, I don't see the harm in accepting new reports against older versions, particularly when old versions are still found several major distros (particularly the LTS versions of those distros)
tathougies 10y ago
Very straightforward. Just subscribe to the wine-devel mailing list, pick some bugs, and off you go!
mmastrac 10y ago
I contributed a few patches years ago. Your best bet is to fire up a program you want to use under Wine with logging enabled. Look for functions that aren't implemented and submit patches, repeat!
coldpie 10y ago
We try to be friendly, but frankly we're kind of a quiet and heads-down bunch. Please don't take it the wrong way :)
koffiezet 10y ago
Same here, I remember the very early days where even the most basic things hardly worked reliably when I played around with it. Back-then it seemed like a dead end to me, but that was 20 years ago or so... Glad to be proven wrong! :)
mschaef 10y ago
Me too... I remember being excited when Solitare was running well under Linux. One area where I've found Wine personally very useful over the years is understanding the Windows API. Without access to Windows source, access to the Wine source can be the next best thing to understand what a particular API should be doing. (Of course, it's been a while since I've written any Win32 code.)

by rijoja 10y ago

littleweep 10y ago

The beauty is you can contribute in any way. If you're a web designer, you can help with their site. If you're a technical writer, you can help improve documentation. You don't need to contribute to the core codebase to contribute to the project at large.

rijoja 10y ago
Yeah really I would like to dive in at the deep end of the pool. But I've never had the time or the energy I suppose.

stuaxo 10y ago

Another non development way to contribute is on the appdb, testing compatibility - https://appdb.winehq.org/ https://appdb.winehq.org/

zymhan 10y ago
I used to test and submit reports to AppDB back in the day, it's quite satisfying to add to that corpus.
bblough 10y ago
Unless you run Debian stable (or probably any LTS distro), in which case they don't want your reports because "your software is too out of date". I find this attitude odd, because there are (at least) tens of thousands of wine installs under Debian alone. Surely the information is relevant and useful to people, even if the version is no longer officially supported. As a result, I've stopped wasting my time filing reports only to have them rejected.
- voltagex_ 10y ago
  Debian stable's Wine is often fairly old. I wish there was an easier way to get a newer Wine on stable. They're rejecting your reports because the issues are often fixed in newer versions - someone would have to re-confirm your reports on a newer version.
  - RVuRnvbM2e 10y ago
    Uh, what? There's an up-to-date repository here: https://wiki.winehq.org/Debian https://wiki.winehq.org/Debian
    - Belphemur 10y ago
      Yes but not all the user would have it set up. They surely consider that the majority of the users don't. Maybe the policy about rejecting debian reports came way before they setup the repository.
    - voltagex_ 10y ago
      Hah, wonder when that was set up (wiki suggests Jan 2016). The last time I used Wine in earnest, you had to wget a whole lot of debs and manually install them. Kudos to the project for making it a whole lot easier to stay up to date.
  - gpderetta 10y ago
    PlayOnLinux? It is a bit frowned upon and gaming oriented, but it offers one click install of any wine version, including unstable, with the ability of having multiple versions installed at the same time. I run it on top of Debian testing.
  - bblough 10y ago
    > They're rejecting your reports because the issues are often fixed in newer versions Sure, newer versions fix bugs from older versions. But they don't delete/archive the old reports after a new release, so the reports that are there are already a mix of supported and unsupported versions anyway. So, I don't see the harm in accepting new reports against older versions, particularly when old versions are still found several major distros (particularly the LTS versions of those distros)

tathougies 10y ago

Very straightforward. Just subscribe to the wine-devel mailing list, pick some bugs, and off you go!

mmastrac 10y ago

I contributed a few patches years ago. Your best bet is to fire up a program you want to use under Wine with logging enabled. Look for functions that aren't implemented and submit patches, repeat!

coldpie 10y ago

We try to be friendly, but frankly we're kind of a quiet and heads-down bunch. Please don't take it the wrong way :)

koffiezet 10y ago

Same here, I remember the very early days where even the most basic things hardly worked reliably when I played around with it. Back-then it seemed like a dead end to me, but that was 20 years ago or so... Glad to be proven wrong! :)

mschaef 10y ago

Me too... I remember being excited when Solitare was running well under Linux. One area where I've found Wine personally very useful over the years is understanding the Windows API. Without access to Windows source, access to the Wine source can be the next best thing to understand what a particular API should be doing. (Of course, it's been a while since I've written any Win32 code.)