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We need your help!

We have quite few active developers, which unfortunately means that progress is quite slow. We simply need more people to help us out! There is a huge number of tasks that are in need of a dedicated developer. They range from large projects to small ones, from hardware hacking, through high-level system programming to application programming. There is basically something for everyone who wishes to contribute, regardless of how proficient they are in coding!

For those of you who aren't programmers, there are still plenty of tasks that you can help with! This includes writing documentation, translating programs and documentation to other languages, creating nice graphics and hunting bugs. These tasks are just as important as coding!

Available tasks

This is a list of some tasks that we need help with and which nobody is currently working on. It's by no means a complete list; it simply contains the most prominent things that we need help with in AROS.

Programming

  • Implementing missing libraries, resources, devices or parts of these. See the detailed status report for more information what bits are missing.

  • Implementing or improving hardware device drivers:

    • AROS/m68k-pp:
      • Graphics
      • Input (touchscreen, buttons)
      • Sound
    • AROS/i386-pc:
      • Specific graphic card drivers (we only have general, not very well accelerated ones). A short wish list:
        • nVidia TNT/TNT2/GeForce (started, but incomplete)
        • S3 Virge
        • Matrox Millenium
      • missing USB classes
      • SCSI
      • Specific IDE chip sets
      • Sound
      • ...anything else you can think of.
    • Generic printer support.

  • Porting to other architectures. Some examples of hardware for which no maintained AROS port exists or has been started:

    • Amiga, both m68k and PowerPC.
    • Atari.
    • HP 300 series.
    • SUN Sparc.
    • iPaq.
    • Macintosh, both m68k and PowerPC.

  • Implementing missing Preferences editors:

    • Overscan
    • Palette
    • Pointer
    • Printer

  • Improving the C link library

    This means implementing missing ANSI (and some POSIX) functions in the clib, to make it easier to port Unix software (e.g. GCC, make and binutils). The biggest thing missing is support for POSIX style signalling, but there are some other functions missing as well.

  • Implementing more datatypes and improve existing ones

    The number of datatypes available in AROS is quite small. Some examples of datatypes that need improvement to become usable or need implementing from scratch:

    • amigaguide.datatype
    • sound.datatype
      • 8svx.datatype
    • animation.datatype
      • anim.datatype
      • cdxl.datatype

  • Porting third-party programs:

    • Text editors, like ViM and Emacs.
    • The development tool chain, which includes GCC, make, binutils and other GNU development tools.
    • AmigaOS Open Source software, like SimpleMail, YAM, Jabbwerwocky

Documentation

  • Writing user documentation. This consists of writing an general User's Guide for novices and experts, and also reference documentation for all standard AROS programs.
  • Writing developer documentation. Although this is in a bit better state than user documentation, there is still a lot of work to do. For example, there is really no good tutorial for novice programmers yet. The equivalent of the ROM Kernel Manuals for AROS would be really nice to have.

Translation

  • Translating AROS itself to more languages. Currently, only the following languages are more or less completely supported:
    • English
    • Deutsch
    • Svenska
    • Norsk
    • Italiano
    • French
    • Russian
  • Translating the documentation and website to more languages. Currently, it is only completely available in English. Parts have been translated to other languages, but there is still much work to do.

Other

  • Coordinating GUI design for AROS programs, such as prefs programs, tools and utilities.

Joining the Team

Want to join the development effort? Great! Then join the development mailing lists you are interested in (at least joining the main development list is highly recommended) and request access to the Subversion repository. That's it. :)

Writing a short mail to the development list containing an introduction about yourself and what you want to help out with is encouraged. If you have any problems, please don't hesitate to send a mail to the list or ask around on the IRC channels. Also, before starting to work on something specific, please write a mail to the list stating what you are about to do or update the task database. This way we can make sure people don't work on the same thing by mistake...

The Subversion repository

The AROS repository is running on a password protected Subversion server, which means that you need to request access to it to be able to collaborate in the development. The passwords are in encrypted form, which you can generate with our online password encryption tool.

Please mail the encrypted password together with your preferred user name and your real name to Aaron Digulla and wait for a reply. To facilitate a quick response, please set the subject to "Access to the AROS SVN server" and the body to "Please add <user name> <password>", e.g.:

Please add digulla xx1LtbDbOY4/E

Use exactly this phrase and don't forget to include your real name! It might take a couple of days, as Aaron is quite busy, so please be patient. If you don't get a reply within a week, you're welcome to send a reminder.

For information on how to use the AROS SVN server, please read "Working with SVN". Even if you already know how to use SVN it is useful to look through that page, as it contains information and tips specific to the AROS repository (such as how to log into it).

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